2 - Electronics: Connecting Materials
13 - 26 Feb 2020
Lessons By Loes Borgers
THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENTS
We will build upon the work done by artist/engineer duo EJ Tech, Plusea (Hannah Perner-Wilson) and soft circuiteer Liza Stark.
Assignment 0 - with the entire group
Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads (minimum 150 words + original imagery).
Reflect on your making process this week and discuss how (an aspect of) this week’s work relates to a workmanship of risk/certainty (Cole & Perner-Wilson), and/or one or more of the concepts from the Unmaking: 5 Anxieties card set.
Assignment 1 - individual
Document the in-class assignments (worksheets) on your gitbook documentation page
Post GIFs of the working paper circuits and explaining how it works
Explain Ohm’s law in your own words, using the changing values you measured in the dimmer circuit with the multimeter (you can do this by making a video too)
Hand-draw and upload a schematic (or make a Fritzing layout) for each of the circuits
Assignment 2 - in pairs
Make one or more DIY soft speakers using the laser or vinyl cutter. Some options:
use conductive thread (design a dot pattern and embroider the coil onto membrane)
use conductive iron-on textile (design and cut the coil itself, iron onto membrane)
or use copper sticker foil and the vinyl cutter
other
Solder together a mono amp + jack connector
Connect it to a power supply (2-5V) (bench supply or 5V/500mA power bank)
Experiment until you get some sound out of it, make noise!
Experiment with the form factor
Sketch an idea for an application of your soft speaker
Document all the steps, tricks, tips, settings and outcomes as described on gitbook
Week introduction
Personally I didn't knew anything about this subject. I have woked with electronics like Arduino and I have had science lessons in the very past but I have forgotten everything (really bad, I know). So I was happy that Loes, our teacher of this week started with a litte introduction. I'll start with a little introduction as well so you know a few basics which I will might use.
This week is called 'Connecting Materials', so yeah we will connect some materials, but how? Well we will connect them on an electronic circuit. Don't panic! It's actually very simple.
We started the week with connecting and debugging but mostly understanding the circuit.
Differences you have to know for understanding good and working circuits:
Tips and facts for making circuits:
Go from the + side of the battery to the - of the battery
Current = the same everywhere
The cicuit has to be closed, so no broken circuit
V = the difference between the + and - side in the circuit
V = Volt. You have V ~ = AC ( Alternating Current ) & V --- = DC ( Direct Current ), we will be using DC this week.
R = Resistance = Omega = Ohm Ω
Magnets: One side attracks, one side attacks.
Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL)
A few rules if you want to know how the energy is flowing in your circuit and what all the elements changes for the V, R anf I (Ampere).
V = I * R
R = V/I
I = V/R
Circuit practice
In class we made simple circuits with:
Paper
Copper tape
Resistor
LED
Batteries
1. LED & KVL Circuit
This is the first circuit we tested. Make sure you always test if your LED works! The green one did'nt worked so I went on with a beautiful blue working LED. I connected the tape to the resistor, the LED endings and the battery. The last thing you have to do is get another battery and put it on the + spot, fold the paper on the folding line and get the + and - sides of the batteries connected.
Then you get a fully working LED:
The Voltage = 270 V
2. DIMMER & OHM'S LAW
For this circuit I used velostat so the copper tape won't be conductive at some places to keep the circuit closed.
The + battery side is connected with the resistor, the resistor is connected with the velostat and the velostat is connected to the Led and the LED is connected with the - battery side. If you connect the batteries and make the circuit close by connecting the copper tape from the resistor with the velostat, you get a nice dimmer:
4 Ohm
If you press less on the velostat you can see that the light dims.
Ohm's Law
Ohm's law is an important formula that determines the differnces between V (Voltage) current and R (Resistance). For this project it's really important to find a good balance of 4 Ohm, so you now your speaker can handel the I-V-R currents.
Week Assignment
This week we will make our own speakers with some help from the laser cutter and conductive materials.
Needs:
We will make it on a 10x10 cm worksheet.
Coil must not be more than 4 Ohm
Headphone Jack
Amplifie
Multimeter
Batteries
Soldering device
Connecting dreads female - male
Sold these adriuno tools together:
End result :
Global steps:
Make a desing in Illustrator
The coil or copper tape must not have a more resistance than 4 Ohm
Start making and testing
This week I worked together with Laura. We wanted to use copper tape and stick the tape on a soft fabric. We tried out the Vinyl cutter, but it was a disaster! The tape was to sticky, we cut it to tight and couldn't fix it.
Here is the file we used:
We put a lot of time and patience in cutting the tape with the vinyl cutter and it didn't worked. So we came in a time shortage and we had to try something different each. Laura took the copper tape and made beautiful spirals on different sorts of papers.
Tip:
Keep in mind that the copper tape should be one unbroken line and try not to fold it that much.
I wanted to work with the laser cutter and copper dread. The spiral will be cut out by the laser cutter. And I will sew (with a needle and a copper dread) the copper dread until it becomes a good spiral coil. I tried out different materials.
Here is the file:
Laser cutter outcomes:
The installations I set for the laser cutter:
Parameters
Mode
Speed
Power
Output
Cotton
Dot
100
13
Yes
Denim spiral
The denim fabric was to stiff to get the copper dread trough it. Because it was so stiff the fabric broke easily.
Viscose/Cotton soft fabric
The spiral dots really worked out well. Some dots are bigger than others or more burned than others, but with this fabric it didn't seemed like a porblem. I tested some dread for my coil and any dread could easily be sewed.
So the next step is figuring out how much coil dread you need to make it to 4 Ohm. I did some mathematics (after many years) and found out that the copper dread was the best option for my 4 meter long coil. The copper dread has a resistance of 1.5 Ohm per meter. So I had calculated 4 meters for my coil, so that will make: 1.5 Ohm x 4 meter = 6 Ohm (6 Ohm is fine, just don't get higher than 10 Ohm).
It took me 6 hours to finish less than half of the coil, so I couldn't make it to the final test. We did tested what I had, but the resistance was I think around 2 Ohm. My stereobox didn't worked.
But the paper coils Laura and I (mostly Laura) worked on did work! They had a very good sound and their resistance was:
Not tested yet
I did finished my coil, well the half of it. I think right now it is about 3/4 Ohm, but I would love to test my stereo box when I can get back to the Makerslab.
Soft Stereobox ideas
You might have heard it before, but this is perfect to implant to our daily clothing life.
A beanie is super nice for colder days. For my personal experience I never like putting in earbuds when its freezing or just really cold, so this beanie could keep me warm and entertained. The scarf/poncho is also for the colder days and it's a nice idea because if you put your box there you could still hear your surroundings.
When you travel alone it sometimes can become a little lonely or silent, so I think it's nice to add some music to this situation. And If you play music on your suitcase or backpack you are not likely to forget them somewhere.
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