High quality piezos

I have a project where I would like to sew some pizeos into some clothing and I am looking for advice / links to high quality versions.

I have been using these piezos but they are obviously low quality. The piezos have to be able to detect a hit and be as flat as possible.

It would also be a bonus if they were very durable, something that could get soaking wet, dry off, and be just fine.

Am I looking for too much or can someone share some good links?

There is no such thing as a high quality piezo element.

Have a look at the Sparkfun website, search for FSR.
Or see some 'wearable' projects at the Adafruit website.

Peter_n:
There is no such thing as a high quality piezo element.

Sad but I was somewhat expecting that.

Have a look at the Sparkfun website, search for FSR.
Or see some 'wearable' projects at the Adafruit website.

Thanks, I totally forgot about FSRs. I will try to find some but it seams like all my regular shops are currently out of them (including SparkFun).

Does anyone happen to know of a good web shop for EU people?

Can you explain how you want to use them ?
It is like a touch, as touching a capacitive sensor, or more like pressing a button, or a hit as if playing a musical cloth ?

Perhaps two pieces of conductive metal maze with a spacer between them. A hit makes the two pieces connect. Or conductive plastic. I have seen all kind of those things on the website of Adafruit.com and instructables.com. I think Adafruit sells that plastic to make a 'switch', but I forgot the name.

I am testing conductive rubber. But I can't get the same results, too much variation.

I would like it to be able to sense hits as if playing a musical cloth. So, the force applied would be needed and it should be able to detect quick taps.

I never looked through Adafruit before but they sure do seam to have a lot there. I found this pressure-sensitive conductive sheet which seams like it would be up my alley. I just hope it would be able to detect smaller touches.

Ah, you found it, "velostat" and "linqstat" are the names I forgot.
Adafruit has also the 'FLORA', an wearable Arduino board.

Have a look at this, very interesting: HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT

Perhaps you want to much, just a small tap requires some kind of capacitive sensor. That is hard to make into something wearable. Perhaps you have to buy 10 or 20 things and test them all. Let me know what is best, because I don't know.

Thanks for the links. I think I will have to do some tests as well to see what will actually work well and what happens after it is thrown in the washing machine a few times. I would imagine that the conductive fabric and thread would survive a washing machine just fine but only good testing will confirm this one.

If I find a good combo, I will PM you with the results - but that might take me a while :slight_smile: