cause power to be delivered from push pull amplifier 78 to the transducer 36 when the dsp or microprocessor 60 has achieved lock on the hand piece transducer resonance frequency and power has been successfully applied to the hand piece transducer an audio drive signal is put on line 156 this causes an audio indication in the system to sound which communicates to the user that power is being delivered to the hand piece and that the scalpel is active and operational under control of the program stored in the dsp or microprocessor 60 in the system shown in fig3 a and 3 b the method of the invention is implemented by sweeping the transducer 36 at a higher voltage level such as 140 volts or at a higher current level to over come a load on the blade e g u201c drag u201d and inertial effects upon the blade 32 which are present during startup and to induce a motion which is sufficient to evoke a resonating action which can be recognized and locked onto a heavily loaded blade results in a highly dampened system in which the transducer impedance is relatively high a higher voltage permits more current to flow through the relatively high impedance so that adequate current flow occurs which can be readily measured the dsp 60 or microprocessor is used.