Week 2: Electronics: connecting materials
13 t/m 19 februari
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
2.1 How does a circuit work?
A circuit is a circle in which electric current can flow through one or multiple objects. To get a proper circuit the objects (for example a resister or a LED) need to use as much voltage as is given by the power supply. If this does not happen you get a short or broken circuit. A circuit will always go for the most efficient route. The amperage is constant throughout the entire circuit.
https://www.sparkfun.com/engineering_essentials
Rules of the circuit
Electricity flows from + to -
Voltage is the difference in electric potential between two points (NL: spanning)
Current is rate at which electric charge flows (NL: stroomsterkte)
Resistance: measure of a material’s ability to block electric current (NL: weerstand)
V = I*R, R = V/I, and I = V/R (Ohm’s law)
All the voltage generated is and should be used up by components in the circuit… (Kirchoff’s Voltage Law)
... energy build-up, or unlimited current flow produces heat to release the excess energy
Current is the same across the entire circuit (Kirchoff’s Current Law)
Electricity follows the path of least resistance
Conductive materials allow electricity to flow
Resistive materials allow electricity to flow, but with a smaller current
Insulators block electricity flow completely
An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields (e.g. a resistor)
Materials - and therefor components - may have different affordances and limits.
And so on... you can spend a lifetime on electronics and still learn new things
Quantity | SI Unit | Abbreviation |
Voltage | Volts | V |
Current | Ampere | A |
Continuity | Ohm | I |
Resistance | Ohm | R |
2.2 Making circuits
Before you start - supplies: Copper tape, 2 LEDs, a resistor, a 3V power supply and a piece of velostat.
Simple circuit: Making a circuit using copper tape, a resistor, a LED and a 3V battery.
• The copper tape connects all the components. • The battery, resistor and the LED need to touch the copper tape at the non sticky part to connect in the circuit. • The + side of the battery needs to touch the left side of the circuit (he beginning), the - side needs to touch the right side (the end).
Pressure sensor: Making a circuit using copper tape, a resistor, a LED, velostat and a 3V battery.
• The pressure sensor has the same set up as the simple circuit with an added sensor. • The velostat works as a pressure sensor: The LED gets more voltage and shines brighter if there's more pressure on the velostat.
Making a circuit using copper tape, a resistor, 2 LEDs and a 3V battery.
• The LEDs are not placed after each other in the circuit but parallel. In theory the voltage will onlt run through the red LED considering that is the quickest path with the least amount of resistence.
What to do when your circuit is not working?
Measure the voltage of your power supply.
Confirm continuity of the connections (0 ohm or beep).
Measure or read the resistance of resistor.
Check for shorts.
Measure voltage across LED & across the resistor.
More examples of Chibitronics' circuits can be found here.
2.3 How to make your own speaker (speaker)
DESIGN ONE
Before you start - supplies: crepe paper, normal paper, cloth, copper tape, the electronics made before, a cup, magnets, a power supply.
The resistance that's needed for a speaker to work is between 4 and 8 ohm.
For the first design i used copper tape and three different types of surface material (crepe paper, normal paper and cloth). Copper tape can be sticked onto a material easily and is the best way to test a few things out.
The + and - can be put on either side of the coil.
After making tests on different materials and using different lengths of copper tape i can assume two things:
The test on the left turned out to be the loudest due to longer copper tape and the crepe paper as surface. This means that the closer the copper tape is to 4-8 Ohm the better the louder the sound & a fragile and bendy material gives the most clear sound.
DESIGN TWO
Before you start - supplies: A piece of denim, metal yarn, the electronics made before, a cup, magnets, a power supply.
This is the design of the speaker is made. To make a good coil you need a round pattern with lots of windings close to each other. I made this pattern with many circles in a squire shape to see if you really need one big circle or if many smaller circles in a circle pattern is also enough to make a speaker work.
How to make lasercut dots from lines The lasercutter can make four different kinds of cuts: normal cutting (cuts through and through), kiss cutting (cuts partially through the material), engraving (cuts the surface of the object) and dotted/clashed line (cuts in dots or lines).
I used the lasercutter to cut out a pattern. The dots are 1mm wide and the interval is half a centimeter. The material used is denim. The pattern is approximately 10cm x 10cm.
The resistance that's needed for a speaker to work is between 4 and 8 ohm. My pattern is about 1.2m long making the egypto metal the best fit. The egypto metal metal yarn is 10 ohm per meter, meaning i would idealy have about 80cm worth of material.
I made two variants of the speaker. One with the resistance of 8 Ohm (left) and one where the pattern is complete with a resistence of 13 Ohm (right).
Caution: You need to be carefull that the metal yarn does not touch each other anywhere in the speaker, if it does so the voltage on the yarn will choose the fastest way to get to the end point and a portion of your design will have no power running through it.
To make your speaker work you need a cup and magnets. The cup works as the stereobox. The design is to be put on the cup and the magnets need to be close to the design to give sound. At last there needs to be between 2-5V put on the speaker.
The speaker with 8 Ohm made a very soft sound. The speaker with 13 Ohm made no sound hearable because of the increase in resistence.
What to do when your circuit is not working?
Turn around your magnets.
See if your power supply is fully functioning.
Measure the resistence in the coil to see if it's between 4-8 ohm.
Make sure the metal yarn is not intertwined anywhere.
2.4 Application
I integrated the speaker design into a car seat. This way you're able to listen to your own music in the car. Or you can listen along to the radio music on the backseat without having the volume be turned up All the way.
2.5 Zine 2
The zine is printed on blue paper with red ink.
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.
"To be a good maker is to be a good listener, observer and sensor." Every day we are flooded with information from others. From lectures given by the HvA to the instructions for a microwaved meal. We can do two things with this information: we can copy the information and use it as intended or we continue to work with the information and try to develop new additions that suit our wishes or needs.
In the introduction week of Makerslab we have been given many new methods. These methods were explained on the basis of workshops. For all workshops we received background information about how the methods work and what they are used for. After that we were allowed to work independently with the methods.
During these workshops I learned that if you pay more attention to what others have done before you, you will come up with better ideas yourself. Because to be a good maker you have to be a good listener, observer and sensor."
The first quote comes from Hannah Perner-Wilson.
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