> **Source:** Core Electronics is an Australian maker-electronics retailer and manufacturer based in Newcastle, NSW, run by a team of makers and educators. We design and manufacture our own product lines (PiicoDev, CE originals) and are official retailers for iconic maker and industrial brands including Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Adafruit, SparkFun and DFRobot. Orders ship Australia-wide from our Newcastle warehouse. Prices are in AUD and include GST. Pricing, stock and dispatch on this page are generated from the store's live catalog. Full machine-readable index: https://core-electronics.com.au/llms.txt

# Piezoelectric Ribbon Sensor - 2 feet / 600mm long

**Type:** Product page · **SKU:** ADA4931 · **Brand:** [Adafruit](https://core-electronics.com.au/brands/adafruit-australia)
**Page:** https://core-electronics.com.au/piezoelectric-ribbon-sensor-2-feet-600mm-long.html ([markdown](https://core-electronics.com.au/piezoelectric-ribbon-sensor-2-feet-600mm-long.html.md))

This thin silvery ribbon is an interesting sensor. It's made of 2mm wide by 600mm long piezoelectric film sandwich. Piezo film can be used to detect motion or vibration - when shifted around or touched, it creates a small current pulse across the terminals. If a 1 Mega-ohm resistor is placed across the two terminals you will see the current converted into a voltage that can be read by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

## Pricing

- **Price:** $42.95 (inc GST) — $39.05 AUD, exc GST
- **Quantity discounts:** 10+ $37.87 (exc GST) · 50+ $37.09 (exc GST)

## Availability & dispatch

- Available with a lead time — expect dispatch between Aug 19 and Aug 24.

## How to buy

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## Description

This thin silvery ribbon is an interesting sensor. It's made of 2mm wide by 600mm long piezoelectric film sandwich. Piezo film can be used to detect motion or vibration - when shifted around or touched, it creates a small current pulse across the terminals. If a 1 Mega-ohm resistor is placed across the two terminals you will see the current converted into a voltage that can be read by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

Basically, connect one tab to ground, another tab to the ADC input of your microcontroller or ADC, and a 1M resistor across both, then read the analog input while touching/poking/twisting the piezo element and you'll see little spikes of voltage whenever the piezo has vibrated. [This Arduino guide shows a wiring and code example](https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BuiltInExamples/Knock).

Usually piezos are round hard disks, which is why Adafruit thought this thin and flexible version was interesting. There could be some unique sensing projects that need to sense over a long, flexible distance. Like perhaps a wearable project with a sensor sewn into clothing, or feedback for a robotic actuator. Initially, these were designed for sleep sensors, to be placed underneath a mattress to detect how much the sleeper shifted around through the night.

Comes with a dual metal contact tab with 0.2" spacing between the two contacts, on one end. You can cut this down if desired but once cut you won't be able to reattach!

## Images

- [Product image 1](https://core-electronics.com.au/media/catalog/product/4/9/4931-02.jpg)