My Virtual Organ Project

[Coenraads]

Congratulations! You have now officially earned you organ playing shoes. Considering you have never played an organ with pedal before, you are off to a great start. This whole project represents an amazing achievement and shows what can be done with dedication and ingenuity.

I think I can speak for everyone on the Forum. Well done.

[Aduragbemi]

Please pardon those wrong pedal notes 😅😅😅😅

[Aduragbemi]

I got the neodymium magnets from stuffslane.com, another local online store (not on pre-order). They are 5mm diameter and 3mm thick, in batches of 100 pieces at the cost of about 30 USD equivalent of Naira, including shipping

At first, because of the small size, I thought I would need two or three pieces to activate a single switch, but I quickly discovered that only one magnet per switch does the job perfectly.

The metal bracket mount for the magnet is also an idea from gtc 's setup. I think the metal acts as a shield around the magnet, but does not affect the side that faces the switch, so helping to reduce interference with adjacent switches.

The magnetic attraction holds them in place on the brackets, but the point of speech can be adjusted by just pushing the magnets with a finger. When everything is finally set, I will hold them in place with a reversible glue.

[Aduragbemi]

Could you tell me exactly which reed switches these are? I'm also a bit surprised that they don't seem to mind the hot glue given that they are so fragile.

I got the reed switches from jumia.com.ng , a local online store that imports from China after one makes an order. The product comes in batch of 50 pieces, at the cost of about 36 USD equivalent of Naira, including shipping.


I particularly ordered them because they are described as plastic-covered, after I saw gtc 's post on the type that he used.

I think the plastic covering are for serious protection! Given what I subjected those switches to, I am amazed that not a single one failed, particularly those that I used for various testings on the breadboard.

I got the hot glue idea from Ben Carter; https://virtualpipeorgans.wordpress....ls-and-pedals/ (I also got the idea of hairless midi from him, before I learnt how to modify Coenraads parallel code for hairless midi use). I thought, if the glass reeds could stand the hot glue, these ones should be able to.

[Coenraads]

That is exceedingly clever and I like your reasoning.

[Aduragbemi]

I count myself fortunate to get this working at the first run! I borrowed heavily from the experiences of what many others did, both their successes and failures. I owe this success to all of you!

I'm surprised to see you activate the reed switches end on.

I got the idea of the end-on orientation (I called it pole to pole approach earlier) from the reed-switch/magnet interaction document. This approach has a narrower window of activation compared to side-to-side approach, and hysteresis is smaller as well. Another advantage is less interaction with adjacent switches, because there is greater separation between them.

A disadvantage of this orientation is the possibility of "push-through", when the magnet overshoots the activation window and the note goes off. I tried to eliminate this by bending the switch terminal along the axis of movement of the magnet. While most people cut the terminal short because it adds to the magnetic imprint, to me that's additional 12mm window that the magnet can still activate.

That's a sketch of what I'm describing.

[Coenraads]

Wow! This looks fantastic. I've never had reed switches work perfectly the first time. You are good.
I'm surprised to see you activate the reed switches end on. Could you tell me exactly which reed switches these are? I'm also a bit surprised that they don't seem to mind the hot glue given that they are so fragile.

That learning curve you mentioned in your first post wasn't so steep after all. Thanks for letting us share in your success.

[Aduragbemi]

I'm looking forward to hearing from Aduragbemi once he gets his pedal board up and running.

I have played the pedals together with the manuals. So far so good, no problem at all. Working perfectly.

Hairless MIDI connects with GrandOrgue via another app, LoopMIDI.

[Philip Powell]

Congratulations!

[Aduragbemi]

Wires and Arduino stacked behind the pedals


I attached metal brackets to the end of the keys and stuck the magnets to them



Pedal now in position under the console desk, illuminated by a USB-powered LED lamp.

[jbird604]

Excellent work! So happy that it works.

[Coenraads]

Congratulations! Well done.

[Aduragbemi]

...and the pedal speaks!

[Aduragbemi]

MIDIFICATION DONE

The entire day (and night) was spent wiring up the pedalboard. I marked the positions of the reed switches on a piece of wood with the curve matching that of the pedals. Then I cut slots into those positions, mounted the switches into the slots and held them in place with hot glue.

Then I soldered one terminal of the switches to a "ground bus" made of solid copper wire. The other terminals were soldered to individual 24AWG appliance wires, which terminate at a socket in groups of 9 wires per socket. I used 8 out of them in 3 sockets, but I connected the 9th wire in the 4th socket to the ground bus.

To connect to the Arduino, I used a M/F DuPont cable.The male pins connected to the appliance wire sockets, and the female end connected to header pins, which are connected to the respective ports on Arduino.

[Aduragbemi]

I'm still testing and so far I have no issues, even after wiring up the reed switches - see updates below.