ACE R&D project
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14/07/26
Decided to CNC cut the chaos triangle module, using some new expensive end mills from Germany, very nice cuts but broke 2 doing half the board. Went back to old ones to finish.
Short range AM transmitter arrived in the post, ended up listening to a few hours of 20s Jazz on the Junior crystal radio! I used a small powered Adafruit amplifier circuit driving a 8 ohm speaker. Tried the original galena crystal and one from Wheal Clinton, both worked well, and the range (a few tens of centimetres) seemed to increase gradually over time. I used a few metres of wire for the arial and no grounding on either the transmitter or crystal radio.
Started work on the variscan low pass gate PCB, fixing the reversed pins which were a mistake in the design. Managed to short the power and it damaged the battery connectors, not the actual circuit (which took over an hour to figure out).
09/07/26
Too hot to explore mine sites, mostly experimenting with new feedback ideas, prototyped a new chaotic relaxation circuit. The theory being that the nonlinear effects of these natural semiconductors can be compounded via feedback. Also arranging two East Wheal Towan tracks and documenting the squarewave module.
06/07/26
Uploaded chaotic triangle/Wheal Clinton galena/1920s radio video to instagram, and spent a few hours jamming and recording with exclusively East Wheal Towan samples using the variscan synth for the first time since the Sheffield gig. Native copper find was confirmed on mindat, so finished report on the Porthtowan/Nangiles exotic semiconductor field trip.
01/07/26
Writing up yesterdays work and adding to the site. Managed to find some molybdenite in a bucket of material from Penlee beach, hoping I can get a curve trace from one of these microscopic grains.
30/06/26
Spent a morning doing curve traces and an afternoon getting the new "Junior" crystal radio integrated into an experimental chaotic triangle circuit.
Discoveries:
- Wolframite, is in fact not a semiconductor (or a conductor) at least not at the voltages I'm using, as it has extremely high resistance. Not sure if what I measured before was a mistake (perhaps a specimen coated in something else) or if it varies with specimens. But neither my (beautiful) sample from Wheal Fortune, nor the magnetically extracted detritus from a crushed Poldice mine specimen provided any results.
- Silver cat's whiskers are too conductive to work well with pyrite, chalcopyrite or arsenopyrite, but work really well with galena and quite well with chalcocite. This means, as expected - that minerals need matching with cat's whisker materials.
- The East Wheal Towans specimens seem strange, the galena seems different to galena elsewhere and the chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite was very reluctant to work.
- The galena sample that came with the Junior radio is excellent, and the radio makes it easy to swap out different crystals.
- The chaotic triangle is capable of making very interesting sounds on it's own in combination with a crystal. Getting a PCB made for this is next on the list.
Adding CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 – Strongly Reciprocal everywhere before I start uploading loads of circuit diagrams etc.
28/06/26
Posted Razor blade diode video to instagram and got a zillion views and comments. It's good because it clearly shows the difference between two types of mineral.
26/06/26
Porthtowan/Nangiles exotic semiconductor field trip to East Wheal Towans, Great Wheal Charlotte and Nangiles mine. Specifically looking cuprite from Porthtowan area, and wolframite from Nangiles mine near Bissoe.
25/06/26
Release of live Sheffield recording (as a free download) on bandcamp, soundcloud and archive.org
Had a good morning doing R&D:
- Rebuilt crystal diode triangle voice on breadboard from the log synth, added feedback to make it into a chaotic triangle circuit.
- Tried building a Razor blade diode and tested it in the triangle voice (made another video).
- Quickly tried a Perikon diode with some zincite purchased from Poland and chalcopyrite from Ale & Cakes Mine.
14/06/26
Live performance at Sheffield Pattern Club!
13/06/26
Tried again, and posted a 1920s crystal diode making noise video on instagram and had 200 likes and 7,848 views. This seems to be a good way of doing 'outreach' for this project at the moment.
12/06/26
Getting the Variscan Synthesis live rig working.
- Replaced all 0.1uF DC blocking capacitors to 1.0uF, removed unwanted low pass filtering.
- Using silver cat's whiskers after reading about galena point contact diodes.
- Added crystal radio diode, see semiconductor history.
- Using new portable 6 channel mixer to replace 4 track recorder.
- Lots of rehersals and recordings made.
03/06/26
Received crystals, cat's whiskers and tins & posted them on instagram, video had 6,500 views which was a surprise!
01/06/26
Project announcement and added/working on semiconductor history and cat's whisker setups after questions on mastodon. A sizable proportion of the materials budget might be going on ebay purchases of crystal radio parts!
30/05/26
Starting a log here of the work done. The first entry is things I said I'd do so I can keep a check on it (chopped up from proposal)!
End up with unique sounds and electronic music created with instruments I will create designed to work with natural semiconductors collected from Cornish mine waste.
- The music itself will document the specific locations and history of the site the material comes from (who worked there e.g. the Bal Maidens, stories we know of the site, its industrial heritage, etc.
- The instruments will be artworks in their own right
- I will use the time to research more interesting and complex musical potential.
- The aim will be to create instruments that focus on this that highlight raw materials using Cornish granite, soldered copper pipes, CNC milled copper circuit boards alongside the semiconducting minerals themselves.
- test these new sounds and prototype instruments in a live setting
- develop existing and new collaborations within this community and further afield
- The instruments would also be designed to be used by other people in future
All sounds, music and designs created will be published online as creative commons and open hardware for others to follow and provide feedback.
| Start | End | Task |
|---|---|---|
| 02/05/2026 | 31/07/2026 | Researching history of semiconductor development from early 1900's |
| 02/05/2026 | 01/09/2026 | Researching mine history and searching mine sites for semiconducting material |
| 01/06/2026 | 30/10/2026 | Prototype instrument experiments based on research |
| 01/06/2026 | 31/10/2026 | Music making and test performances |
| 01/09/2026 | 31/10/2026 | Documentation, publishing recordings, blog posts |
I've started by looking into the history of semiconductor usage.