Piezoelectric materials are about as close to magic as you can get. They turn physical pressure into electricity and can even turn electricity into physical pressure - an amazing sort of bidirectional converter for mechanical and electrical energies. Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that you can easily 'grow' your own piezoelectric crystals overnight using just a couple of common ingredients - awesome.
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With some careful cutting, grinding, and polishing along it's crystalline axis, you can both increase usable surface area and tune frequency
thank you for this
He could make it a lot better if he took what he had, selected a seed, and recrystallized around it in an insulated container. That will give him bigger, more perfect and more pure crystals to facet.
@@AtlasReburdened Also, crystallization seems to have happened too quickly. The liquid was too concentrated. Would be better to dilute it, dangle in a seed, and let it evaporate slowly over a few days. Also, use distilled water to minimize contamination. Metal salts in tap water will totally ruin the crystal structure.
@@rich1051414 Indeed, I suggested an insulated container to slow the process, but it would probably be easier to go your route and just start with a lower concentration. Also yes, distilled for sure. Personally, I would take water from a freshly serviced Glacier refill machine(because I've tested a few and when they're freshly serviced they put out 4PPM water) and run it through a clean, ungreased, glass distillation rig with a heated(but obviously not to boiling) receiving flask. That should give the purest water anyone can have access to outside of a lab that specializes in 0PPM, dielectric grade water. At that point, it would probably be wise to do the crystallization in a container that's capped with a fresh carbon filter to prevent airborne volitiles from absorbing into the water.
Thank you guys that helped me a lot. @Zeek is it possible to cut multiple Piezo Crystals out of a very big one?
Dude - you're a legend. This was as good as when you made an homebrew LED.
That is so cool. It's absolutely incredible how hard and smooth the surfaces are, it's like something manmade
That is close to one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. I would think that to make a contact microphone you would need to start by being able to cut a really thin slice from the crystal and give it a really high polish.
just bought the ingredients after over two years of first watching it
How's that crystal you made 5 years ago working out?
@@Phelan666 Interested to know
Thank you for your amazingly detailed uber nerdy video. I will be making my own piezo crystals tomorrow for a demonstration!
Just when I thought I have seen all the Collin's Lab videos I find this one. Better late than never. I miss this series of videos.
I have made some great trigger circuits recently using piezos. i love them.
You should've tried inputting a signal to see if it makes any sound
umer salim I was anticipating him doing that too.
Yes. That's the whole reason for watching; I want to homebrew a piezo pickup for a guitar with nylon strings. That big crystal seems a bit awkward for that purpose.
Then make it smolah
@@biggreentruck4907 you wouldn't need more than a strip of that. Generally piezos will go in the same slot as your bridge on a nylon. A little stick of it would work.
It should work but usually you might need an amplifier circuit depending on the amount of electricity generated
Thanks Colin that was great, my kids will love it and I can use it to teach them about Pierre and Jacques Curie the discoverers of the piezoelectric effect.
Wow, That's cool, I made some crystals years ago, but the recipe instructions said to hang lengths of thread, and the crystals grew on the treads, "IT WORKED" But the way you Show it here is Much better & easier too I think, & I am going to give it a go. thanks. Thom in Scotland.
Amazing! Collin's videos are always good!!
Colin's videos are great.
Awesome! I'm making this just for the crystals, they look great!
Beautiful crystals!
that was awsome, who would have know piezo's are so easily made, best vid I have seen in a long time
Hehe I like your collection of PCB masks on the wall
Collin and kipkay are the best of make Thanks by the lessons, Collin!
Wow, awesome crystals!
I left the computer for a few seconds and when I came back you were cooking tartar sauce. WTF lol
Bravo!
Collin! so glad I finally found this series! pondering Piezo for an idea I am working on!!
Amazing explanation!
wow, thanks so much for the video. This is exactly what I'm looking for my project...
@tiagofumo with such videos you understand more of the way basic things work... so they're pretty helpful
Pretty cool Collin !
THIS IS AMAZING!!
The oilfield used Piezoelectric crystals in their tools to pick up Gamma Rays given off by the formation. Depending on the type of formation, it gives off different signatures. Limestone/Dolomite gives off a very LOW count even lower than what you would find in the Background radiation at surface = +/- 30 counts per second[API]. Whereas sand is typically between 30 - 45 counts, and shale is much higher 65 + counts. The crystal glows when hit with the gamma rays, and the light is measured.
Great explanation
As a guitar playing chemistry student I was very entertained by this video
fascinating project, thanks for sharing these videos, cheers from san diego
Thanks for the great video I'll have to give it a try
Fantastic. Thank you.
Sequel please! Next: Home made contact microphone!
Seal it between two thin resilient surfaces (conductive) before it dries. The disk piezo uses a similar method where the crystal forms after the disk is sealed.
Amazing crystals
Tremendous stuff! I am going to have a go at that :D
Awesome tutorial, thanks alot
GREAT DUDE ,NICE WORK
your videos are the best !
Whenever I watch Collins videos I'm just like "Huuuh, Duh I didn't get it" but he does make good things and thats where Kipkay comes because his projects are fun to do and easy to make!
Amazing!
that is so cool .thank you .collin.
Great job Collin, thank you for sharing this knowledge, Is it possible to grind it ? Should I take the orientation of the Crystal Latis into a count?
That is amazing.
OMG thats realy cool... thanx and merry christmas time from germany!
Collin is the reason i live to come home every day... lol okay, that may be a bit far, but he is awesome!!
To make the contact mic, the crystal would have to be touching your thought so it can get the vibrations from your voicebox
great video!
you are the best, together with other people
@amsoil5 Thanks for the input! We tried this and also let the solution sit longer and got much better crystals the second time.
This was awesome. My nerd antennae so excited to make this.
My junkie antennae so excited to smoke this 💨
Great video would you consider a video on ceramic pezio electric crystal? How do they work and made?
this is so cool, really very cool
cool crystal love em
I made the solution just as done here, and it didn't create crystals overnight. I've seen other people make these, and they said it took over two weeks for the liquid to evaporate and retrieved the crystals at that point. I'll just keep mine in the dark for a few days.
HOW FREAKING AWESOME
That was awesome
Good job
@themvp007 - you'll find one as the on-board speaker on at least some modern PC mother-boards. The crystals have a natural resonant frequency too, and just like ringing a bell, the larger the crystal the lower that resonant frequency is. Other crystals can also work. They also put out a voltage just from pressure. Squeeze it with a pair of pliers (not too hard now). This electro-/mechanical effect may explain the strange behavior of animals and rainbows before an earth-quake.
Cooling of the hot saturated solution produces crystals very quickly, but they have much defects. If you re-dissolve these crystals in pure water and them let it evaporate slowly, that's what you can get: plus.google.com/photos/116542359168957860292/albums/6071596141873389857
Beautiful crystals, I haven't messed with Rochelle salt since my main thing is growing large Monoammonium Phosphate crystal clusters. www.pinterest.com/bartlett1710/ I started around April of this year and my oldest crystal now weighs a lot and the individual crystals are an inch across. I just had to move it into a five gallon bucket because the side crystals had grown flat against the 2.5 gallon bucket. I have grown large batches of single Copper Sulfate crystals as well as large clusters that only look nice because I glued clusters together before letting them grow together. I am having a big problem with what I thought would be the most beautiful specimen: a sphere with crystals growing outwards. I believe the fluid dynamics of the way the crystals grow on the sphere is interfering with it's progress. I had used a matrix of compressed rock with a hole drilled through so it could be supported on a stand. I then made a device using a simple coat hanger that has the specimen rotated 90 degrees so it is horizontal and free turning so (in theory) as the crystal growth on top gets heavier it will turn allowing the rest of the crystal equal time on top. Your crystals are beautiful so you must be good at what you do. I am having a large problem getting my specimen to 1. grow equally 2. get any larger than 3-4 inches in diameter and need a little help.
Konichi Wawa My crystals are small, I have never grew any bigger than 5 cm. But, as far as I know, one of the methods for growing big crystals involves artificial circulation of the solution. There are different ways to do it: rotate the crystal, teether the growing tank etc. Here, they use rotation: kzhead.info/sun/n8OOg72tmWWanZE/bejne.html
Dmitry Shintyakov how can I grow diamonds?
Toki Loki you can't unfortunately
Dmitry Shintyakov Any thoughts on growing crystals in a mold?
Now make's projects are becoming smarter and smarter :) neat video.
I am sooo making a guitar with these as the pickup!
Awesome video. Now I'm going to have to try this :D
WOW! thank you very much, im making a DIY drum set and drum module, and ive been experimenting with piezos alot, so i can recieve cool and weird signals to convert into sound, this homebrew piezos crystals gave me tons of ideas to work with, btw: if you apply electricity to the crystal does it make a sound o vibration?
Very informative and easy to follow! Why don´t you cast the liquid into a diamond or crystal shaped form and let the whole batch become one large solid crystal?
Love your videos !! :D
Collin should start his own channel. It would be awesome!
Thanks for the demo. Have you tested any of these Rochelle salt crystals to see if they change shape/deform when voltage is applied? I would be very interested in knowing if it does, and to what degree. Thanks.
collin is the only reason to sub to this channel haha
very interesting...thanks
What voltage are you producing? I have an experimental design that I want to test but I need a fair amount of voltage to make it work.
Maybe you could hook the crystal up to a transformer/regulator to boost the voltage with a diode in between. This seems like it would up the voltage, and thusly sensitivity, of the piezo.
I wonder if I can cause impurities to make different varieties of Piezoelectric Lattice
Best pronunciation of "tartar" I've ever heard.
Maybe and yes. The maybe being that the output voltage would not be as consistent because it would be as if you were hitting multiple crystals at the same time. it would produce a noisy signal. But for pure asthetics, yes it would work great for that.
Collins lab is awesome.
Honestly, I just like the beats to his theme.
amazing
i love the music when it starts :D
I don't like that music
Precious man tnx
AWSOME!
Really nice video, imma trying that :)
@mastigoz Applying a dc voltage won't create a sound it will just deform it slightly, but applying an ac voltage like the one in musical signals will vibrate it and create sound similar to a speaker...
pretty crystals :)
by the way if you apply heat to sodium bicarbonate you get sodium carbonate and it is very useful if you cannot find any soda ash
Looks like the output consists of complex transient currents. Impulse and oscillating dampening waveforms. This is not necessarily an A.C voltage as the impulse wave does not oscillate back and forth, but rather pulses in one direcrion; more similair to a d.c output. This makes me think that a piezoelectric crystal could be used in place of a spark gap or vacuum tube if someone was to build say a tesla hairpin circuit, or some kind of mechanical analog to that.
Very Cool!!!
hey! I'm deff going to do this and try to figure out how to make a mic :P would be fun.
can you please do more with this. like have it make sound or something?
Very informative video I want to try it to create piezo microphone for my violin 🎻 😀
i think ill do it just for the awesome lookin' crystals!
his are fake if you look at ALL the other people doing it , theirs are small so he seems to be the Only one than can or can he?
@@emilee172 maybe he just dedicated more time to it
@@emilee172 you just proved your ignorance
That is so cool
does the crystals break easily?... :o
If you added an ac current would that cause the crystal to change shape or vibrate? Also while its cooling do you think if you exposed it to a sound frequency it would crystallize into different patterns?
@amandaskapp Good question. the answer is no, your altitude and quarting of the recipie dosn't matter. what does matter id the cool down time. if the solution cools quickaly, the crystals formed are like what you got; thing and stringy. the trick is to lanthen the cool-down peroid. this can be acheived by making sure that the container is sealed, and even insoluated. this is to ensure that the solution has ample time for the large crystals you desire. hope it helps!
Hi Collin, I enjoy wachting your movies! This weekend I want to make the rochelle salt crystals. I have one question. Do I have to wait till the water in my pirex cup has the same temperature as the water in the pan? Or can I put the ingrediënts in cold water and then warm it slowly during applying the 2NaCO3? Thanks, Jeroen from the netherlands
THIS was good content
I have an ultrasonic cell disruptor. In the manual they tell you that the frequency of the horn, has to match the frequency coming from the power supply. They are set by the manufacturer. If they do not match, they say that the power supply will fail. I am wondering what determines the frequency of the piezoelectric crystal inside the transducer horn? Does the geometry and size of the crystal determine it?
It's the size and shape determining the resonant frequency. Much like the size of a crystal oscillator determines it's frequency. Not sure about the damaging power supply part. Maybe drawing too much current if it's not close to resonant?
nice big crystals :)