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Since bone is piezoelectric, can I make a working oscillator from it? (voltage.vn)

submitted 1 year ago by Saigonauticon@voltage.vn to c/askelectronics@discuss.tchncs.de

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I've wondered this occasionally over the years, but never got it working.

I tried just putting a dried piece of chicken bone pressed between two plates (mild compressive stress perpendicular to the bone), and using an inverter just like I would use a crystal. It did not work. Maybe I need a really thin segment?

I have no practical application in mind. I might make a CPU from it for Halloween I guess?

I'm not sure if I would classify it as electronics or necromancy, but I thought it was an interesting question to ask here :)

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[–] Saigonauticon@voltage.vn 3 points 1 year ago

I tried with cooked bone, that tends to be what I have more of lying around :D

I don't recall the voltage I tried, but it was probably something in the range of 5-9v. I didn't try with a very thin slice, it was a few mm thick. Probably a thinner slice is the thing to try. That's a bit hard with bird bones (hollow), so maybe I'll have to cook something else. I don't have a microtome, so I'll have to cut some thin slices by trial and error.

I would hazard a bet that orientation matters. The studies that measured bone piezoelectricity seemed to suggest some orientations made more sense than others, but I don't recall what exactly. In any case, they had... very different applications in mind.