Silicone cones

[maritoja]

Hi!!!
This can be useful.
Testing materials for cone's i found some type of silicone rubber used for make candles craft.It melts on fire.I made some cone's and they working very good.It have the same density that original cone.Good response and easy to mold it.
I leave some photos.
Thank you everyone.
Sorry my english

[JamalPiper]

This looks pretty interesting, do you have the name or label from the packaging or the rubber that I could look up?

[ghostman]

I'd like to know, too.. I found something called RTV-2 that looks promising.. but I don't know if I can buy it or not.. simplest thing would be to use silicone caulk in a tube, fill a mold and wait for it to dry (week or so, I am guessing..) But I don't know how durable this would be.

[Gastric]

I can think of some potential issues with this:

* Silicone cones are likely too dense and heavy compared to soft foam cones.
* The mesh heads I've used can impact up to 1" on hard hits.
* Combine those two and I would guess the silicone would not deform enough and put too much pressure on the piezo, potentially breaking it.

Just my thoughts though. I'm certainly no materiel expert and don't know what the properties of whatever variety of silicone rubber is being proposed here.

But it would certainly seem like an easy way to construct cones. And possibly cheaper than Poron. Need more data on the silicone rubber first.

[ghostman]

Agreed that we need more ideas on the exact material name / specs of the silicon. My issue on durability is if the mesh heads might 'bite' into the silicone and cut / shred it. maybe a simple tape topper could prevent this, but I like the possibility of making a mold and a large number of these cones for testing..

As far as your 1" 'pounding flex', I guess I've never heard of peizo's breaking under pressure like that. I can see a hammer breaking them directly, and I am sure enough pressure and compression would do it, but I can't see the force from a drumstick killing a piezo.. If anything, the silicone would resist more, and lessen the 1" to 3/4", due to density. Basically, the cone wouldn't flex as much, and couldn't really damage the piezo..

Which brings up the corollary to the issue, is the density of said silicone TOO dense to provide accurate triggering? Regardless of material (silicone, foam, rock, feathers, meat, etc) the 'give' is what we are looking for. It needs to provide enough stiffness to transfer the 'hit' (wave / shock / whatever) to the piezo without completely absorbing the action. And we aren't looking for something too dense that it makes playing feel like we're hitting a rock.
Which means, basically, we're trying to match the silicone density w/ the foam density of known cones (IE Roland). Then, it wouldn't matter what the material. Density and flex would be the same.

Thoughts?

[Gastric]

My thought was that foam is nice and soft and gives easily. Some potentially hard rubber cone wouldn't be a whole lot different than hitting the piezo directly.

But I'm certainly curious if for no other reason from a DIY manufacturing standpoint. Pouring into a mold is likely much easier than creating and cutting foam with a jig and Thanksgiving Turkey electric knives.

[jman 31]

It would be nice to find some of that expanding foam that has a memory and doesn't turn solid. I don't know if there is such a thing though.

[bogiesbad]

Pouring into a mold is likely much easier than creating and cutting foam with a jig and Thanksgiving Turkey electric knives.

We have a Christmas Turkey Tooo

[Daddy-O]

Wait---you have to use FIRE?!

OOOOOO.....I want some!

[JamalPiper]

It would be nice to find some of that expanding foam that has a memory and doesn't turn solid. I don't know if there is such a thing though.

I believe that's tempurpedic mattresses

[ghostman]

My thought was that foam is nice and soft and gives easily. Some potentially hard rubber cone wouldn't be a whole lot different than hitting the piezo directly.

But I'm certainly curious if for no other reason from a DIY manufacturing standpoint. Pouring into a mold is likely much easier than creating and cutting foam with a jig and Thanksgiving Turkey electric knives.

Agreed.. That's why we're looking for a soft rubber. one that has give, like the foam.

[mrantarctica]

My 2 cents from down here in sunny New Zealand

Any material that deforms due to vibrations will transfer energy incompletely. Imagine this scenario. If you line up 100 people (or dominos, or beer bottles), and space them all very close together, then if you push the first one, its quite likely the first one will hit and 'transfer energy' to the second one, and to the third and so on. If you space them out, so there's a lot of distance, then you may topple the first and have no effect on the second (unless you absolutely blow away the bottle so it reaches the 2nd one). With bottles that are really close, even small nudges will be transferred to adjacent bottles.

In the same way, on a microscopic level, when you strike the cone, you strike the first particle, which is supposed to 'topple' all the adjacent particles. Using this idea, it's best to use a material that's reasonably dense (particles close together) to transfer energy properly. Easily deformed foam or anything else of low density has particles widely spaced that will not transfer the energy of the drumhit to adjacent particles as effectively.

Based on this impression, it's best to use materials that are reasonably dense to transfer vibrations more completely.

I'm currently experimenting with rubber door stoops as my "cones" and the rubber bung things from the bottom of my Floor toms legs - however, i haven't got my Alesis Trigger IO yet, so can't tell how good they'll be. However, virtually every dense material I have played on transmits satisfactorily to my piezo (tested by hooking a piezo directly to an amp, to act as a microphone), and the difference between harder and softer materials seems to only be noticeable for extremely soft notes where the harder materials seem to perform much better (probably the piezo is too sensitive anyway, so it wont make much difference).

[mrantarctica]

I forgot to mention. That the more dense material you play on - the more of the energy of your drum hit will be transferred on top of the piezo. So yes, technically you could break your piezo.

Having said that - Using all sorts of materials and hitting with all sorts of instruments (including a hammer) - I have NOT been able to damage my piezo's when there has been some sort of 'cone' + mesh head on top. Most likely you will break your mesh head first, or whatever you are hitting with will bounce back and hit you in the face, and you will play a lot softer after that!

[Gastric]

The problem is on hard hits your mesh heads can easily impact up to 1" or more. So I'd think you'd want a material that can also compress quickly and then reform quickly. Which is what the Poron foam seems to do well.