Greetings,
The way the device works is that the drill bit is a soft metal tube driven by the piezo unit in a slurry of cutting grit (~100 grade silicon carbide) in liquid (mineral oil or water). The action of the tube pounding grit against the substrate (jewelry bead, gem, or anything with a hardness lower than that of the grit) simultaneously eats away at the bit and the substrate, thus drilling the desired hole.
From the design specs of manufactured multi-thousand dollar units, it appears that I want something that drives a piezoelectric transducer at around 40kHz.
I'm starting from square one. I can wield a soldering iron and have played with the 300-in-1 type electronics kits a bit over the years, but am not at the point of being able to design a circuit for anything like this.
It appears that I need suggestions for:
- a signal generator capable of operating at 40kHz (am willing to experiment with different waveforms to see which is most efficient at cutting)
- an amplifier - capable of good slew rates at 40kHz - high input resistance matched to the piezo transducer
- good candidate piezo transducer
Thanks for any help in advance.
--jim