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Does anyone have a UK source for conductive / anti-static plastic for a home (hobby) project?

Andy Millar
Happy New Year - Things can only get better!


Bit of a long shot I know, but I'm really struggling with this one - I'm trying to get hold of a sheet of (ideally) conductive or (second best) static dissipative plastic for a home project (not commercial), around 5 or 10mm x 1m x 1m, does anyone have any ideas where I might be able to get some? I know it exists, but can only find it on manufacturer's websites so far, not on small scale distributors. Or any ideas for other rigid resistive material that can end up about 40mm wide x 5mm thick x 1m long? I'm happy to pay for it, but of course I'll only be buying the one sheet, not a tonne!


It's for something vaguely along the lines of an Ondes Martenot - I do enjoy building weird musical instruments - over the holidays I managed to lash up a prototype using an antistatic bag (the black type used for IC tubes) bonded to a piece of wood, which showed the principle works. But it also showed it needs something a bit more flat and rigid to work reliably.


All help and leads gratefully appreciated!


Cheers,


Andy
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    When I worked in the electronics industry I got most of my stuff from Bondline based in Swindon. They are still going and in those days were significantly cheaper the Farnell or RS fro these type of product. They stocked a very large range of anti-static products.
  • 0
    Thanks for the hint - they seemed to have just what I wanted in their clearance section, so I've just ordered a bit!


    Not that I've had a chance to get any further with this since the holidays, pesky day job...


    Cheers,


    Andy

  • 0
    At the risk of a 'how to suck eggs ' comment you will need to have a gradient along or across the sheet (or excite both ways but at different easily separated frequencies, or tdm), and just use the pick-up to detect point voltage, anything that allows/ relies on any  significant current through the moving contact will be very scratchy - getting from a sheet resistance on ohms/square to a contact resistance of indeterminate area can be very awkward.

    In your place I might consider exciting the sheet with  AC at a few hundred KHz and use a known thickness of insulation to cover the probe or the sheet or both - almost like the non-contact voltage probes, effectively capacitively coupled.

    Mike.
  • 0
    I'm only using it as a simple divider (half a bridge) and the end to end resistance is up in the 10's / 100's of kohms so too much current is the one problem I definitely don't have! (There's 5V across the ends.) 


    The lash up's actually working surprisingly well, what I had expected with that sort of impedance was problems with interference but in fact it's been fine, but then I am using a LOT of software debounce (speed of response not being a problem).


    Yes, in my head I thought of running it ac and then synchronously demodulating, but outside my head in the real world I'll keep it simple until it actually hits a problem! Given it's only for my own amusement so I don't have to foresee potential problems that customers might have...which is nice...


    The hardware's proving much less of a challenge than the software - it's been a long long time since I was regularly programming - that's ok, it's good for the brain.


    Cheers,


    Andy


  • 0
    try "the plastic people"
  • 0
    Helios:

    try "the plastic people"


    I thought you didn't like plastic!


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