How to make Rochelle salt piezoelectric crystals
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:
twitter.com/#!/RimStarz
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came here cuz of Dr. Stone ... nice vid
Hell yeah 😂😂
🖐🖐🖐
何か
Same
Aaaaah me too!!!
DR. stone
🖐
Yup 😂😂
So this is what you use to make a celphone, huh?
you probably came here after watching dr. stone
@@hulikabalbon5689 Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.
Here because of senku as well; this is humerous.
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
@@tensio4926Recievers and transmitters are principially same. They just work in opposite directions. These crystals can be used for speakers as well.
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.
Nice story. Glad you were inspired and thanks for sharing.
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.
How?
@@johnywhy4679 kzhead.info/sun/g5l8d89tjneGha8/bejne.html
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).
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
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!
Wow! Very cool work. I definitely hope you recorded it all and will upload a video. I'd love to see it.
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.
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!
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.
Nice video. Had to mention your retro stove with the sink attached. I wish I had one of those. Practical.
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.
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.
Sound like you know what you're doing. And I subbed so now you gotta upload more :).
@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.
@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.
Thanks Brad, for the tip.
@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.
Cool! I tried this after watching the video and we will see what will crystallize!
Amazing video! Thank you!
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.
@MichaelAChang Glad you liked it!
@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.
@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.
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 ...)
@luvintherawlife You're welcome! Thanks for the feedback.
Thank you for your videos.is it possible to use these in place of piezoelectric plate to generate electricity to charge batteries.Thank you.
My Kingdom of Science fellows 👑
Dr stone?
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.
Yup, I've used distilled water for that a lot too. :) I figured more people would be familiar with the contact lens usage though.
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...
@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.
Thanks. I'll try and ask people in the future what kind of water they used.
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.
@coolguy701 Will do... tough I think the earpiece one might be a long shot.
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Excellent. Thank you!
I think it worked to good! I have one very large crystal, i wanted little ones.
There's a video from Make Magazine that uses...I think it's soda ash instead of sodium carbonate, and he got quite large crystals, so, maybe you want to look into that. The soda ash is used as a dye fixer for ceramics, I think.
Is it sitting in a cool spot? If it's warm then it won't crystalize.
I will try it.Thanks.
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?
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.
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?
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 ?
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.
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.
Cool! Can they make noise when you pass electric current through them
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.
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!
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.
***** I don't know. I've never heard of using that mixture.
Dr.stone get me addicted to science
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.
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 ?
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.
Great! Let us know how it goes.
This will sound like I am chain-yanking but I am serious despite how the question sounds. 1. I realize it is not jello but would it help to pour the liquid concoction into molds like a big straw thus to coax a specific form? 2. When the concoction cools, will all of the crystals (rocks) be usable despite their size and volume? 3. What is the lifespan of a crystal? 4. Are there alternatives to making speakers in lieu of using the Rochelle salt crystals? Thanks ahead for making the video and for helping us less knowledgeable.
if I make a package with foil and put some small crystals inside, will it generate a voltage?
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.
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).
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.
@ElectricSparq You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.
howe long do thy stay good those cristals and howe hard are thy do thy desolve if you put them in water again
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.
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.
@RimstarOrg oh if you ever get the earpieces made or speaker from a Homemade crystal please please please post a video.
will the crystal break easily?
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
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
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.
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?
Well I ran out of characters, darnet! Anywhay The piece of metal inside the cutting head is about 1/2 X 1/2" square, one wire is welded onto the metal and the other was burned off! So I can`t tell how it was applicated, Was it bonded inside the salt mass? Or mearly placed on top, Then held in place with the tape & wedge.?? I`m thinking that when the salt was in liquid form it was placed onto the metal and the lead wite placed on top. I WOULD APPRECIATE any help You can give Me. Thank You much.
Very interesting. Do you think it would be possible to make a crystal earpiece using this method and try spread this crystals over a thin metal plate? maybe crush the crystals into powder, mix it with some kind of metal powder like aluminium?
Crushing the crystals won't work since that breaks them. I sort of made a crystal earpiece in this video kzhead.info/sun/hZuzmsqZh32Dhn0/bejne.html at around six minutes and forty seconds in with a larger rochelle salt crystal. Note that I'm using a radio with an amplifier as the sound source. The larger crystal was made as described on my website here rimstar.org/materials/piezo/make_large_crystal_from_a_seed_crystal.htm
@@RimstarOrg Thanks, just had a look at them, very cool :), got to buy some potassium tartrate and try this :) or i try make it out from tartaric acid and wood ash :P guess it not gets so pure then, but for fun.
I imagine a technique where you use the heat resistant rubber as honnycombed shaped ice cube trays...you take gold leaf from an art store and perferate it any times with small neeedle from one side as to make small tabs ...(kinda like sanding a smooth surface before painting)..let that foil sit with the burs up ain the bottom of these small trays...poor in the supersaturate and top with another foil with burs in the solution....small ones work with less power the rubber helps with the size change as the point is no cracks in the crystal..then dip the cured ones in a warm saturate to expose the gold tabs....funniest part then is if you shaped it to a tuning fork or string you could use resonance to seperate them at proper distances so that one sound in the center makes resonance at its own distance from the source sound...one sound helping many viberating crystals reach resonance would generate more power then put into creating the ignition sound....or imagine piezo string bundled in a loop then wrapped in silver like an old guitar string. When you play one note another may also play...well lets use that...so one sound makes then all resonate...then have diodes heck let the casing be a diode...
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?
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.
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
Is there any way to connect multiple crystals in series to increase the voltage??? RImstarOrg you're awesome!!!
David Atri That may be possible. I've never tried it but others whom I corresponded with have tried and as far as I know, didn't succeed. My guess is that's because the voltage spike when you hit a crystal is so brief that it's hard to get them to happen at the same time.
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
RimstarOrg, Do you think it is possible to make a crystal oscillator with Rochelle salt? Typically quartz is used in crystal oscillators, but it is hard to "grow" quartz in a kitchen. Regards, Evan W.
Good question and interesting idea. Sadly, I don't know if it's possible or possible to do practically with Rochelle salt.
@@RimstarOrg Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the idea occurred to me when I was thinking about making a radio circuit. The Rochelle salt crystal would have to be cut and ground down like it is done with quartz. I don't know if Rochelle salt would hold up like quartz- I have not been able to find much on the web about this being done so I thought I would ask. Thank you for your time. Regards, Evan W.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Thanx a LOT !!
can u add food colouring to make it different colour
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.
thank you sir
If you drop it a few times from about 5 feet then it'll eventually break start to break up. The first time I did that with my biggest one it only dented it. So I'd say not easily, but it isn't super strong either. Hit it with a hammer and I'm sure it'll shatter. Also, if you glue aluminum foil to one side with crazy glue and then pull the foil off, you'll take a layer off the crystal too (did that this week!)
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.
@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.
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 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.