Experiments
Second experiment - How to Build a Contact Mic	Building a contact microphone is not such a hard thing to do, when you know how. Considering the fact that one who builds it has to discover secrets of correct connectivity in order to provide small electrons flowing happily and peacefully, I will present a correct way to make them cheerful and pleased.
Necessities:
1 soldering iron Soldering wire Unsoldering wire (usefull if you make a mistake) Shrinking plastic tubes (one narrow and one wide - this depends on the thickness of the wires in the cable you are using). With this you prevent wires to brake and to make a contact between them One-conductor shielded cable [cable that has an outer mantle of wire (the 'ground') around one or more inner wires (the core(s)). The mantle-wires will keep electromagnetic noise away from the inner wires] [if you are making a mono mic than you need a cable with 1 inner wire and 1 mantle wire which goes around it; if you are making a stereo mic then you need a cable with 2 inner wires and 1 mantle wire] 1 'piezo' sensor 1 small mono jack (or stereo jack if you are making a stereo mic - the size of the jack depends upon the purpose of the mic - where you are connecting it) 1 lighter (or some other tool for shrinking the plastic tubes around the wires) 1 knife
First step
Separate mantle wire and inner wire and solder each of them at their ends
Second step
Before soldering 'piezo' sensor to a cable, put small pieces of shrinking plastic tube at each wire that are soldered to a sensor. Then you solder sensor to a cable. Important: The inner wire of the cable needs to be soldered to the 'ceramic' silver patch in the centre of the sensor and the mantle wire to the disc. Then you shrink the plastic tubes around the wire connections.
Then you put the wider shrinking plastic tube around the connection between the sensor and the cable and shrink it. Your wires are safe and happy now.
Third step
You need to separate the inner wire and the mantle wire at the other end of the cable. In order to connect them correctly to the jack you need to connect the mantle wire to the 'ground' of the jack (the larger part) and the inner wire to the remained (smaller) part.
And that's about it. Now you can make all sort of crazy stuff with them. Good luck!
This page was made with technical knowledge support by Stock, V2_Lab Rotterdam
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