How to make Rochelle salt piezoelectric crystals
Ғылым және технология
Step-by-step video on how to make Rochelle salt crystals or piezoelectric crystals for doing piezoelectricity experiments or hacks for science fairs or fun. Includes details on the ingredients: baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) and distilled water.
Watch the video on how to test this rochelle salt crystal "How to test Rochelle salt piezoelectric crystals voltage oscilloscope":
• How to test Rochelle s...
And here's where I use the crystal from this video to make a speaker in my "Piezoelectric Speaker - small crystals/window as speaker" video:
• Piezoelectric Speaker ...
And here's where I use a large crystal make from these smaller ones to make a speaker for a radio in my " How to Make Piezoelectric Crystal Speaker" video:
• How to Make Piezoelect...
For more see:
rimstar.org/materials/piezo/ho...
For how to get more powerful piezoelectric crystals, see "How to take Piezoelectric Igniter from Lighter fr Spud Gun":
• How to take Piezoelect...
and "How to get Piezoelectric Crystal from BBQ Ignitor/Sparker":
• How to get Piezoelectr...
Follow me on Twitter:
#!/RimStarz
rimstar.org
Пікірлер: 398
came here cuz of Dr. Stone ... nice vid
@nasserchambiii8743
4 жыл бұрын
Hell yeah 😂😂
@leomanuel9813
4 жыл бұрын
🖐🖐🖐
@kingarthurthe5th
4 жыл бұрын
何か
@GyrollMachVenturi
4 жыл бұрын
Same
@JPSurfzen
4 жыл бұрын
Aaaaah me too!!!
DR. stone
@leomanuel9813
4 жыл бұрын
🖐
@Daniel-cl6hj
3 жыл бұрын
Yup 😂😂
Well, this is delightful lol, I'm working on a research project for school and we need to use tiny Piezo Electric actuators so I went to google and typed in "How to make piezoelectric crystals" and clicked on the first video I came across which happened to be this one. After getting a few minutes in I noticed that your voice sounded familiar, then noticed that I'm subscribed to your channel then realized that this is the channel that got me into engineering about 8 or 9 years ago. I find it funny that you got me into engineering/engineering school with a little DIY radio transmitter and engineering school accidentally brought me back to your channel. It comes full circle.
@HoneyBunches100
2 жыл бұрын
Nice story. Glad you were inspired and thanks for sharing.
So this is what you use to make a celphone, huh?
@hulikabalbon5689
4 жыл бұрын
you probably came here after watching dr. stone
@blueturtlekhun
4 жыл бұрын
@@hulikabalbon5689 Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.
@whittyb26
4 жыл бұрын
Here because of senku as well; this is humerous.
@tensio4926
4 жыл бұрын
I think not. Its only used to recieving sounds and transforming them into electricity, the electricity then goes to a speaker, which the temporary magnets vibrate to create the exact sound. Dr. Stone is gud tu tho
@D_oktor
4 жыл бұрын
@@tensio4926Recievers and transmitters are principially same. They just work in opposite directions. These crystals can be used for speakers as well.
I also had a dark yellow-brownish solution that yielded nothing but slush so i reheated on the stove and added a few more scoops of sodium carbonate. It didn't bubble anymore but the sodium carbonate still dissolved. Now I get large crystals roughly 3-4 cm. And after collecting out the crystals that form and zapping the remaining liquid in the microwave for a minute i can get perfectly clear well ordered crystals. Thanks for the vid!
10 years later but thanks a lot for this tutorial. I could manage to harvest my own crystal and create a microphone out of it. That was a pretty complex task.
@johnywhy4679
2 жыл бұрын
How?
@ThePhilStudio
2 жыл бұрын
@@johnywhy4679 kzread.info/dash/bejne/gml3qc1uh6i2gto.html
Good to know that adding more sodium carbonate helped. The microwave trick is a new one. Gotta remember that if I ever make more. You're welcome for the vid. Thanks for the tips!
Yay! I'm delighted you got it working. Thanks for letting me know why. In future I'll be better able to help people as a result. Let us know how your project turns out.
Wow! Very cool work. I definitely hope you recorded it all and will upload a video. I'd love to see it.
Sound like you know what you're doing. And I subbed so now you gotta upload more :).
The 4 hours is just a rule of thumb. I didn't think of checking it by mass. Great idea! Just weigh it before starting, do some heating for a while, weigh it again, and repeat the process until it's lost 37%. Thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks Brad, for the tip.
Slow the cooling down by placing the mixture in an insulated cooler and you’ll get larger crystals. You can also hang a thread dangling in the middle and it gives the crystals some place to grow besides the side of the container. Remove the string and large crystals before the whole thing evaporates ( before it gets stuck to the side).
@RimstarOrg
Жыл бұрын
Thanks for the suggestion. I did that when I started with a seed crystal. I just don't have a video for it. Instead the details are on my website here rimstar.org/materials/piezo/make_large_crystal_from_a_seed_crystal.htm
Yeah, the automatic captions are a fun read! I've added correct English captions to a few videos but it's very time consuming. I don't know if I'll ever get around to doing them all.
Amazing video! Thank you!
Nice video. Had to mention your retro stove with the sink attached. I wish I had one of those. Practical.
Is it sitting in a cool spot? If it's warm then it won't crystalize.
No, they're not very conductive so they don't conduct current well. But if you apply enough voltage across them, at the brief moment you apply it, they deform. That deformation can be used to make sound waves. I do this in my "Piezoelectric Speaker - small crystals/window as speaker" and "How to Make Piezoelectric Crystal Speaker" videos. There are links to them in the description below this video if you're interested.
Cool! I tried this after watching the video and we will see what will crystallize!
If you're after a crystal that works, one that gives you a voltage when you tap it or vice versa, then you don't want to speed it up too fast. But 25C sounds a little on the warm side. I'd go with the 15C.
@Wavefront101 Good catch, thanks. I added an annotation to the video. Funny thing is, I had it right in the description and on my website.
I haven't heard of it before so I did a google search for "sodium hydroxide piezoelectric crystals" and a few references turned up, one mention of dissolving silica under pressure in hot aqueous sodium hydroxide solution and then adding a quartz seed crystal to grow a larger one.
@Ryuuken24 That could be. The stuff's so expensive here it's hard to do a lot of experimenting. However, I would think that the amounts are proportionally correct once the sodium carbonate stops bubbling.
Thanks. I'll try and ask people in the future what kind of water they used.
@MichaelAChang Glad you liked it!
@jasonve11a I actually measured it by weight afterward and it turns out I used 214g - which surprised me a little since it didn't look it, and keep in mind that in the video I didn't show the whole 50 minutes of putting baking soda in. But you're right, had I known ahead of time I could have prepared less. Better safe than sorry. I'll add an annotation to the video about how much I used.
@coolguy701 Will do... tough I think the earpiece one might be a long shot.
It's not exactly drying it. The chemical formula for sodium bicarbonate is 2(NaHCO3) and heating it removes CO2 and H2O, leaving Na2CO3, which is sodium carbonate. So you're removing hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. Putting it back in water and heating it with potassium bitartrate doesn't add water back to it, but results in Rochelle salt, which is NaKC4H4O6, with much of the water evaporated to the surrounding air.
Sweet! Subscribed.
Excellent. Thank you!
I will try it.Thanks.
Great! Let us know how it goes.
A while back as a test I dropped my big one from a height of 5 feet and it experienced only a minor dent in one corner. It still works.
@luvintherawlife You're welcome! Thanks for the feedback.
Yeah. In case you've never opened one up to get at the piezo crystal, I have a video where I do just that. There's a link to it in the description below this video.
@widevan The oven is used to turn sodium BIcarbonate into sodium carbonate. You may be able to find some sodium carbonate and skip that step altogether. Sodium carbonate is found as washing soda or soda ash. Washing soda can be found as Arm & Hammer washing soda or Soda Solvay in Europe. Also try art stores where it's used for making tie dye.
Mine started forming right away. It's possible you may need to put it back on the stove and heat it like you did in the last step to evaporate away more of the water.
@coolguy701 Good question. I read that old crystal earpieces used to be made with rochelle salt piezo crystals - something I'd like to try out. Also, I sometimes get emails asking for them for use in vinyl record players, apparently they're in the arm and activated by the needle. There's a video where someone used it a part of a speaker. For doing more cool stuff, I guess. Oh, and for competing in science fairs and learning about piezoelectricity.
They have negative and positive polls only during the hit. The hit modifies the molecular structure briefly so that they have polls. All other times they don't. For Rochelle salt crystals I think I get better results with bigger crystals. Also, different types of crystals give better results per hit. For example, whatever material the disk shaped crystals are that you find in some greeting card speakers and in piezo buzzers and microwave oven speakers, gives a much bigger voltage per hit.
As far as I know those crystals don't degrade. I made my first one back in 2005 and it still works great. Well, it's a little banged up, but that's because I've hit it too hard at times. Plus, back in the early 1900s they were used in early record players and I've heard that those are still okay. And yes, they dissolve if you put them in water again.
Dr.stone get me addicted to science
@ElectricSparq You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.
I don't know. I've never looked into exactly what does on during crystal formation. Understanding that might help with understanding what's needed to make them better though.
Yup, I've used distilled water for that a lot too. :) I figured more people would be familiar with the contact lens usage though.
Hi, your video is so helpful to me and I am currently growing my own Rochelle Salt in the lab. May I know if I wanna fasten the crystallization process can I leave the solution in a cooler space (about 15 deg C) instead of putting it beside window (room temperature 25 deg C) ? Thank you.
Thank you for your videos.is it possible to use these in place of piezoelectric plate to generate electricity to charge batteries.Thank you.
Mine was about the consistency of water. I don't know what color motor oil is. You can get a good idea of what color mine was at 5:17 into the video - a very pale yellowish. I don't know how you managed to get it syrupy so I can't make any suggestions other than try storing it in a cool place for a few days and see.
You can make a speaker. See my video "Piezoelectric Speaker - small crystals/window as speaker" where I use a small one and "How to Make Piezoelectric Crystal Speaker" where I give more detail (I use a bigger one in the second video but it doesn't matter.) There are links to them in the description below this video or you can find them in the Videos section on my channel page.
As soon as you put dissimilar metals, like copper and zinc, depending on the conductivity of what's between, you have a galvanic reaction, basically a battery. So I'd wonder how long his crystal cell ran for? 12 volt at 300 ma permanently would be great! Let us know how it works out when try it.
I don't know. Besides Rochelle salt and the disk ones I mentioned, there are also the longer shaped ones you can get from BBQ igniters and some small hand lighters (the ones that have a part you push down on, not the ones with a wheel.) But of all those, I know the disk and the longer shaped ones are much better than Rochelle salt but I don't know which is best. You can also buy others from manufacturers but usually you have to buy them in bulk.
My Kingdom of Science fellows 👑
@leomanuel9813
4 жыл бұрын
Dr stone?
Thanx a LOT !!
Cool! Can they make noise when you pass electric current through them
Hi, Thanks for the video :) When I look up about the transformation Sodium Bicarbonate into Sodium Carbonate most of the sources I get are just saying to heat for one hour at 200°C in the oven. Can you explain your choice about the increase in temperature for 4 hours, do we get a better result? I know though that the transformation begin starting 50°C so my first thought is this it's to smooth the reaction, but is it necessary? (the next part follows ...)
1.5 cm is big. Is it a single, solid crystal? I get better results with bigger crystals so unless you have need of a bunch of smaller, less powerful crystals, then I'd just stick with the big ones. The only practical thing I've made with these crystals is speakers, as in my "Piezoelectric Speaker - small crystals/window as speaker" video. See the bottom of my webpage about how to make these crystals for how to use a seed crystal to make a larger one. There's a link in this video's description.
I think it worked to good! I have one very large crystal, i wanted little ones.
Hi im getting crystal like gunk forming in the heated solution prematurely(before solution turns clear, and doesnt fizzle) which turns into white paste upon cooling when extracted. Any idea what it is? Does it interfere?
@RimstarOrg
6 жыл бұрын
I haven't experienced that myself. My only guess is that one of your materials might not be what you think it is. For example, the tartar you buy in stores isn't always really tartar, especially if it's cheap. But that's just a wild guess, something to check.
Clear yellowish was about like mine. I've heard of people putting them in the fridge but that seems a bit too cool to me. Just below room temperature should do. I can't say if you baking soda baking was the issue or not. One way may be to see if it lost 37% of its original weight but without knowing the starting and ending weights, we can't say. If the fridge was the problem you can reheat it to liquid and try again. Reheating for a while to evaporate more water may also help.
I just did this yesterday, harvested the crystals today. Biggest crystal is 1.5 cm, not too shabby. Curious though, could I take some of the crystals and crush them into smaller flakes, then use them with two conductive surfaces to better isolate their effect? Or perhaps make a rochelle salt powder? What would be the best way to implement these crystals into some kind of device? Also, is it possible to dissolve the crystals back into solution to grow a seed crystal larger?
Part 2 Otherwise do you know what kind of temparature I need to put it for the next few days, 'cause it's rather hot where I am right know (south france) and the outside temperature is around at least 30°C or 86°F. And the cool place of the house is really cool ...
I'm no expert in growing nano particles but there seem to be a number of ways to produce nano particles. The ones I see involve breaking a material into individual atoms and using that as a source material. So I don't know which method you're proposing. Two people I know did try letting these crystals form in an electric field and failed to produce the crystals.
@onthecuttingedge2005 Good suggestion but prying it out didn't affect the crystals. The crystals are pretty solid and were surrounded by grain-sized crystals so it was really the conglomeration of grain-sized crystals that was broken apart by the prying. Of course that might be different if the whole thing was large crystals. I think taking out a few days sooner might have been better.
A half centimeter is a nice size crystal. All the ones I produce from the process in this How to Make a Rochelle Salt crystal are smaller. My big one you see in some of my videos came from an additional step, which you don't need to do. In my Piezoelectric Speaker - small crystals/window as speaker video I use a crystal smaller than the one you have to make a speaker. So the crystal you have might work just fine. All you need to do it try it out.
@ChozoSR388 I couldn't find the video you're talking about but soda ash is sodium carbonate. I started with baking soda which is sodium bicarbonate and then heated it to turn it into sodium carbonate. Maybe starting with soda ash would be better. I wish I knew for sure what the most surefire way is. Too bad the cream of tartar is so expensive otherwise I'd experiment more.
Thank You so much for Your reply! This video has been very helpful! I`m going to try putting the wet solution on the metal square and let it dry, And see just what happens. I`ll let You know if it works. Thank You again.
It's best to have distilled water, but first... 0.3cm is a good sized cube. All mine are that size or smaller. My really big one was made in two steps, so don't compare yours to that one. If you hit it just once with a voltmeter you may not see the result. Tap it repeatedly and rapidly for a 5 or 10 seconds instead, on the mV DC scale. Voltmeters are not made for seeing the voltage spikes. Hitting it repeatedly puts the spikes closer together so the voltmeter has more to work with.
I managed to actually get a thin layer on brass with a 8K ohms impedance at 1000Hz. Cutting it I managed to delaminate the stuff off the brass, and wound up with 29KHz and not 25KHz, but the larger brass plate and lower Z seem to have made the bojack mic element work about the same as the crummy $4 Kobitone which had a piezo the consistency of plaster of Paris in it. Now to resistance solder foil the the brass and finish the X-tal mic element. My X-tals are mixed with porcelain & fired on brass.
Hay, RimstarOrg! This is very interesting indeed! I have a old record cutting stylus that needs repair, And it uses "Rochelle Salts" as a driver to vibrate the stylus to record the recording You are trying to make. The salts are on a small piece of metal with 2 wires coming out of it, then wraped once with a tough piece of tape and placedinto a wedge containing the stylius where You put Your cutting needle. What do You use to bind this salt to the piece of metal strip? oops running out of chtrs!
howe long do thy stay good those cristals and howe hard are thy do thy desolve if you put them in water again
I don't know of anything else off-hand. The chemical name is potassium bitartrate. A quick google search shows that wine making stores might have it. Also, you might be able to get it by collecting the crystals that precipitate from fresh grape juice that's chilled and undisturbed. It also crystallizes from wine. But I haven't tried any of that myself.
thank you sir
It seems solid, but it looks like a few small crystals merged into one. Looking carefully at the structure, they seem to all be in tact. I used 3 boxes of tartar at 113g each. I'm having a tough time making these crystals useful. I can't quite test the charge of them either, though I have a volt-meter, it's not effective. Any chance you know how those peizo touch sensors are made? Could I crush them and suspend them in oil, or do I have to dissolve them and reform them flat?
I don't have a specific temperature range. Mine was probably just below 20C, but above 15C.
if I make a package with foil and put some small crystals inside, will it generate a voltage?
nice video ... 1 question: why do you need to bake 500g of baking soda ? I did not get the impression that you used more than 20g. Am I missing anything ?
Will the left over cooked Baking soda last in a sealed container to use for next time (Self Life?) or does it need to be reheated each time ?
can some please tell me what i can do with one? seriously what are the practical uses of a piezo crystal? its such a cool thing but idk what to do with it.
1) Sound needs a material medium to travel (air for example) and there is not enough in space. So either the video you watched about Armstrong was wrong or he was talking about electromagnetic waves (radio for example.) 2) I don't know.
yes, I saw the video, but I have a problem, I did the crystals, however, the biggest crystal of i got have a half centimeter, and i dont know if that will generate some voltage. I need these crystal to next week, so, i can't make other crystals. what can i do? please, i need help
excuse me again... do i have to (must) use distilled water? because when i made my crystals, the solution, before crystalizing, it was yellow transparent do you know what i did wrong? the crystal doesnt grow big... size of .3cm cube... and when i hit it, the voltmeter does not detect any volt thank you
@RimstarOrg oh if you ever get the earpieces made or speaker from a Homemade crystal please please please post a video.
Crushing them to powder would render it useless. I don't know how the flat disk piezo crystals are made. It's possible you need to break up that large chunk to get at the small crystals. Once you've done that then you can test the individual crystals. But make sure you've fully tested what you have first. If you haven't seen my "How to test Rochelle salt piezoelectric crystals voltage oscilloscope" video, you can test the same way but use your meter instead. You should see the voltage fluctuate.
can u add food colouring to make it different colour
My understanding is that food colouring probably wouldn't work, though I've never tried it myself. Since you're adding particles to something that's forming a crystal you need things that won't affect the crystallization. Copper salts (copper ions) should work and make the crystal bluish. I don't know how it'll affect the piezoelectric effect if you're making a crystal for that purpose. Note that I have tried copper salts or colouring crystals at all myself.
i read in the wikipedia page on piezoelectricity that we can use tourmaline, quartz, topaz, cane sugar, and Rochelle salt for the piezo..i was quite happy to know about the sugar crystal but i dont know if it works becuase it dont have the equipments like you...though i would like to try them once i know more about the scope and hve one...
I honestly don't know. I guess you could try it and see. Let us know the result though.
Hi there, if I grind the crystals into some form of powder and glue it to a polymer will it change the voltage if I stretch the polymer as well? Many thanks
@RimstarOrg
7 жыл бұрын
Hi, No, that won't work. Perhaps you should look into flex sensors and stretch sensors instead. These can also be homemade as well. They basically change resistance as you stretch them. Here's some from Adafruit www.adafruit.com/product/519.
The additional step was to take a small crystal like the one you have and then use that as a seed crystal to grow a bigger crystal around it. But that process took me a week or two if I recall correctly. Unfortunately I never documented it but I'll PM you a link to the website where I learned how to do it (the link didn't work in this comment.)
@MaheshKommareddi
6 ай бұрын
This was the reccomended procedure from the "Mr. Wizard" book I got as a kid. This is more or less what has always been done. It craetes a larger yield by creating a base crystalline structure to "work" off of.
Bonus! You get a lasagna and pie out of it too! I guess with a really good box solar oven you could get the necessary temperatures and then you can do it in the summer, especially in Phoenix, just that it'd be outside.
If you continue increasing pressure then I think you'll get a little, but it'll be almost nothing. There's probably a point where though when the crystal structure has reached the end of what it does. However, if you mean you squeeze it and then leave it under constant pressure then definitely no.
Tried this. The temperature really affects it! The samples in my hot room formed some goo and now just a white hard powder is left. The one in the fridge looks like a white rock with snowflakes all over it. And the one left on the windowsill looks like the clear rochelle salt shown in the video, except everything is fused together... If I had the tools this one would probably generate a current once I chipped some of the chunks off, since they look exactly like the salt in the video except fused. They also make the room smell nice. So yeah - a cool windowsill gave the best result!
@RimstarOrg
10 жыл бұрын
With the samples in the hot room, the water probably evaporated away without crystalization happening. Regarding the fused sample, it's not too hard to break apart. Try chipping at it with a knife. Or wrap the sample in a dish towel and hit the sample with something solid. If you're careful, the softer parts between the crystal will break before the crystals do. I had to do the same thing. Thanks for letting us know your test results.
@RimstarOrg
10 жыл бұрын
***** I don't know. I've never heard of using that mixture.
I just made it according to your steps. But I've left it outside for almost a month and there are still a considerable amount of water in it. What should I do?
About how long does it take for crystals to start forming? One video said overnight, but im on day 2 and its still nothing but liquid.
You can harden them in a mold but in my experience it would be just another container and it's just luck how the crystals form. I guess if you could get good enough to make a single crystal with all the volume in the mold then it'd work, but I couldn't do it. Fo rme I'd do one batch to make a seed crystal, then use that sead to grow a larger crystal and then grind it to shape after. I also don't know the frequency response of the crystals. I've used them at radio frequencies.
they are actually quite common in cig lighters over here in oz. i see them chucked on the ground in supermarkets and stuff and make a point of grabbing them to get the igniter out or even clean them up and refill them (coz almost no-one here knows that they even CAN be refilled, let alone how to).
will the crystal break easily?
what about using the sodium hidroxid, well i dont know if it works but i 've been reading some stuffs who says that yt works two
Hello, could you tell me what the balanced equation would be? I'm wondering where you got 500g & 200g for reactants
@RimstarOrg
Жыл бұрын
Skimming my old video, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I start with 500 grams of baking soda and 100 grams of cream of tartar. I end up using very little of the baking soda.
If it doesn't yield good crystals you can always put it back on the stove, reheat it and try to evaporate more water out of it - if that's the problem. Though if it's that color and syrupy, you may have evaporated too much out already. But best to let it sit and see.
I'm doing a piezoelectric floor, but I don't know how I can make the layout of the crystal, because when I step on the crystal, that would surely break, I have one week to finish the job, can you help me? what can I do to not break the crystal? or something that works?