Hi again,
I was thinking of using it for unusual stuff but would investigate the
use on various apps like speakers, audio in general, LED lights,
power supplies, and important: electrostatic shielding and electromagnetic
shielding.
I too would like to know more of it's properties, but i wouldnt go as
far as to place a limit on the current except in some specific application.
I think we do need to investigate it's power rating, and how bad it
heats up with use. I guess we cant expect too much because it has
got to be a relatively bad heat conductor too (much worse than
copper), but maybe with heavier application it might work better.
So all i know so far is that the resistivity is 0.364 ohm inches, and
it's temperature coefficient is around 0.001, but that 0.001 is subject
to change because when that measurement was made i dont think
the material was totally stable yet, and as i was saying before
it looks like it takes a while and maybe some temperature cycling
to get it to where a temperature coefficient measurement would
make sense. Let me post a few actual measurements so you guys
will have a better idea what happened when i went to measure
the temp co:
Code:
degs C R(ohms)
85 C 90.0
160 C 92.3
85 C 87.9
170 C 90.0
85 C 85.8
See above where the resistance of a sample started out at 90 ohms,
and after heating, cooling, heating, and cooling again the resistance
dropped to about 86 ohms and stayed there. This is a permanent
change and so it's not like other temp co's where the resistance
goes back to the original once the sample cools down. This tells
me something is happening to the emulsion, but luckily, the resistance
drops so that is probably a good thing unless you intend on making
home made resistors or precision trimmed voltage references, which
probably wont work out very well with this product. That wasnt
the intended use anyway, but it's still interesting to look at this.
I thought it would be really neat if we could set up a circuit board
(for one example) with say an LM317 on it, and use some of this
stuff to 'trim' one of the voltage set resistors to obtain a very accurate
output voltage of say 4.096, or even just 5.000 volts. That would
mean not having to rely on exact precision resistor values for some
hobby circuits that you dont want to have to purchase many values
just to trim in to an accurate voltage setting.
Of course i cant think of all the applications and how well it would
be suited to them, but i do believe that this stuff will be useful.
And hey, if you really cant solder something then you have no choice
except to go with a higher priced material.
BTW, one higher priced material i looked at actually had HIGHER
resistance than this stuff did, so before buying any of that stuff
anyone would do well to check the resistivity first.
I also read on the manu's site that they say they are working on
a similar material only in epoxy form. That will be even nicer.