[sci.electronics] existance of flat speaker material

john) (09/19/89)

A friend attended an electonics trade show last year and was telling me about
a demo that used this flat plastic material to play music through.  He
said the material was 2"x3"x0.1". Does anyone know 
	*what this material is
	*what it takes to drive
	*who makes it
	*cost

Thanks.

rosso (Ross Oliver, x537, ionesco) (09/22/89)

In article <2740@phred.UUCP> johng@phred.UUCP (yo!john) writes:
>A friend attended an electonics trade show last year and was telling me about
>a demo that used this flat plastic material to play music through.  He
>said the material was 2"x3"x0.1". Does anyone know 
>	*what this material is
>	*what it takes to drive
>	*who makes it
>	*cost

The August issue of Modern Electronics had an article about
piezoelectric plastic film.  This stuff has some amazing properties.
It produces a slight current when flexed, and will flex when
an external current is applied.  Thus, it can be used as a
speaker or a microphone, or both.  This kind of material is
used to make the sound elements used in digital watches, small
clocks, and PC card modems.  These small sound disks are available
from electronic mail order supply houses such as DigiKey.  The
supplier listed in the Modern Electronics article is the Kynar
Piezo Film Department of the Pennwalt Corp., PO Box 799,
Valley Forge, PA 19482.  A variety of demonstration kits
are available from Kynar, although the article did not give
any prices.

Ross Oliver
rosso@sco.com