Tips; Successful Equipping; Simple Bending Jig; Acoustic Panel - Maker Factory ELECTRONICS EXPERIMENTS BOX Manual

1.2 Tips

1.2.1 Successful equipping

A perfect connection is the alpha and omega for your experiment to succeed. But a problem with a contact
in an electrical system brings even a car to a halt.
Make sure that the jumper wires of components are all free of grease and dirt. The ends should be straight-
ened. The board's contact holes are sometimes very tight, especially in the beginning. A bit of force and
skilfulness are needed to insert the wire ends into the board. The best bet is to use a pair of good tweezers
for support. A part of the wire ends must be fitted into the plug contact. If you are not sure, pull a bit on the
wire. If the wire remains tight in the board, it is properly inserted.

1.2.2 Simple bending jig

Tidy home, tidy mind! In our case this means that clean angled jumper wires will at least let you keep
track and increase the probability that everything is wired correctly. You can only successfully reproduce
our experiment, if everything is properly connected. A very handy tool that is equally small is shown in
Fig. 1.50. You can easily make it yourself using a standard perforated board. Use it to create clean angled
jumper wires with widths of 1 x spacing to 12 x spacing
Fig. 1.50: Bending jig, cut from a perforated board

1.2.3 Acoustic panel

The Piezo element enclosed works also, if it is not installed in a suitable housing; however, sensitivity
might be a bit underwhelming. A sound plate is easy to make and it significantly enhances its performance.
Fig. 1.51 has an example. A hole is cut out of the centre of a round metal or plastic plate. The Piezo element
will be fitted in (the outer diameter is about 100mm, the cut-out for the Piezo element should be 24mm
exactly). Use epoxy resin, which has good bonding capabilities. Installing it into the lid of a matching box
(dimensions as above, the can's height is irrelevant) is the best solution however. The level of sensitivity
achieved by this, is comparable to the one of commercial crystal headphones.
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