Biomorphic Piezo switches, linear motors etc, sensors!

[Tesla]

*Hi there Folks

I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge of this material, they are very thin, use a 100 times less power than solonoids , but require from 30 to 200 volts, but only 1Ma in a lot of cases, ectremely thin and light as well!

Bascially, I wish to drive some of this material from the picaxe 28x2 3V I would like a simple method of generating sat 100 volts at 1Ma to drive some of this?

Any links or ideas would be appreciated.
Here is a link to the site that supplies
http://midetechnologies.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=116

For all of you that are into robots, this is pretty cool stuff and can be used as electronic muscle, wings on an insect, etc. . . They also do linear and rotary actuators!

for slim and low weight!

Can also be used for valves!

Marc:

 

[premelec]

You can get a 1.5volt to 200-300 Volt dc converter out of any old disposable or cheap camera - the flash unit - also surplus dealers sell these units for a few dollars or less... some modifications to get only 100 volts with higher input dc may or may not be needed if you are clever...

I looked at the valve specs - .01 ma which seems much more interesting than 1ma [.1watts at 100 volts so equivalent at 5 volts would be 20ma...].

 

[Jaguarjoe]

It generates 48 grams of force at 0.011" lift. This is miniscule compared to what a real solenoid valve does. It flows 7.5 "SLVP" through a 0.04 orifice. I tried to find what SLVP means and all I could find was the South Londonderry Protestant Volunteers. If you can convert that to some conventional unit of measure and then somehow learn the pressure drop at that flow you'll be able to calculate its "CV" or flow coefficient, (a standard specification for any valve) then you can compare it with other solenoids on an equal footing. You will probably have a hard time finding a conventional solenoid that small though.

A simple way to make somewhat high voltages is to build an oscillator around the secondary of a filament transformer. Used in "reverse" you get about a 20:1 voltage boost. There's lots of these circuits around the web.