PLACE: Onl'Fait, Geneva
DATE: 16/11
PEOPLE: Cristina
CRYSTALS ON LEDS
STEP 1
PROCESS
I prepared a simple circuit by sewing with conductive thread 4 blue LEDs on a small square of felt. I painted them carefully with transparent polish nail to protect them from corrosion due to the cristal bath. I then checked that the circuit was still working by connecting a coin battery.
CREDITS
STEP 2
MATERIAL
70 gr Alun for 100 ml water
small transparent container
PROCESS
I completely dissolved the Alun in the hot water and poured the saturated solution in a small jar. I attached a thread to a toothpick and put it in the solution: after 15 minutes the first crystals were already growing on the thread. The next day I attached some of the bigger starter crystals on the LEDs with hot glue and put the felt square in a new solution. I made sure the felt didn't touch the bottom of the container by adding some threads attached to the container.
ISSUES
It's better to use strong glue rather than hot glue which is quite messy.
STEP3
After less than 1 day the felt and LEDs were covered with crystals. I attached a battery and the LEDs were nicely glowing through the transparent crystals.
ISSUES
The LEDs were not completely covered and therefore I attached some further starter crystals and put the felt back in the solution for an extra day.
After 2 days, the felt was beautifully covered by crystals. To light up 4 blue crystals, I used 2 coin batteries.
CONDUCTIVE CRYSTALS
STEP 1
MATERIAL
Electric Paint 50ml
Jar
Boiling Water
Alum
Thread
Wooden Stick
Pipe Cleaner
CREDITS
STEP 2
PROCESS
I boiled 100ml water, added 70g of alum and stirred the solution until the powder is dissolved in water. I put the solution in a small jar and then added a teaspoon of Electric Paint, stirred again and dip the pipe cleaner into jar. Wait 12 hours.
After 2 days of bath the crystals look nice but the resistance was still very high, they were almost no conductive.
I warmed up the remaining solution, added more paint and Alun and put the crystal back into the bath. I repeated the procedure 4 times for a total of 4 days
STEP 3
RESULTS
The crystal looks nice on one side and less on the other and it is slightly conductive. In order to fully light up a green LED, I used 2 x 4,5 V batteries.
ISSUES
The crystal is not very conductive. The next time I will try to change the solution bath every 2 days to see if bigger crystals conductive electricity better and embed conductive thread in the crystal.