[HN Gopher] Auto Xylophone with Homemade Solenoids
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Auto Xylophone with Homemade Solenoids
Author : phoenixreader
Score : 66 points
Date : 2023-10-07 06:54 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rachad47.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (rachad47.github.io)
| syntaxing wrote:
| Fun project, they could have hand winded those solenoids which a
| drill instead...the end result would look way better
| waffletower wrote:
| The Yamaha Disklavier is a player piano that uses a similar
| solenoid actuation technique:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disklavier
| markhahn wrote:
| I have to say, those are some ugly solenoids. Is it really that
| unusual/ocd to want them a little neater?
| Jemm wrote:
| "I used to hate electromagnetism"
|
| Not a sentence I expected to hear today.
| amelius wrote:
| Without it, life as we know it is not possible.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| You do know high frequency electromagnetic radiation can
| cause cancer in skin tissue ....
| jurgenkesker wrote:
| Very nice way of showing the build progress with the animated
| gifs.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Pat Metheny made an album called Orchestrion using an entire
| orchestra/band of real instruments played by solenoids over MIDI.
| Great music. (If you like Pat Metheny.)
|
| It was an insane project. He even took it on tour.
|
| The actual build was by Eric Singer and his team.
|
| https://www.wired.com/2010/01/orchestrion/
| qkucy wrote:
| Although I missed seeing the Orchestrion tour in the 2010s, Pat
| still takes a subset of these instruments on tour with him.
| Both of his two previous tours, Side Eye and Dream Box had
| parts of the concert that had robotic percussion and wind
| instruments.
| hellotheretoday wrote:
| Aphex twin did a similar project with "computer controlled
| music"
| flats wrote:
| Pretty cool! FWIW, this is a glockenspiel or bells
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glockenspiel), not a xylophone
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylophone).
| waffletower wrote:
| Sorry to upvote a pedantic comment, but the instrument here is
| definitely not a wood or kelon xylophone, and is instead a
| glockenspiel. The solenoid striking scheme would probably need
| to be slightly different for a xylophone, to avoid wear on the
| more delicate keys. A softer, rounded tip, needing more
| clearance beneath, would probably be required. Marimbas and
| vibraphones would require even softer strikes as well. Really
| great project!
| uoaei wrote:
| Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W81jQN__88
|
| The artist is Grandbrothers and one of them is a jazz pianist and
| the other one is a roboticist. The latter sets up systems to
| control solenoids striking the strings and body of a grand piano
| while the former plays on the keys. It's a duet between human and
| machine.
| bambax wrote:
| Very cool project! But I would dispute this:
|
| > _buying 24 Solenoids is quite expensive_
|
| They're about $1-2 apiece on Aliexpress; I doubt making your own
| can cost much less?
|
| In my experience, making one solenoid is fun just to see how it
| works (and how simple it is, really); but making more than one is
| a little painful and not fun.
| jstanley wrote:
| Personally I avoid buying direct from China whenever possible
| because I want parts quickly so that I can make progress on the
| project.
|
| The cheapest solenoids I can see on Amazon Prime are about PS5
| each. 24 of those would be over PS100.
|
| Plus, the stated goal of the project is to learn a bit more
| about electromagnetism, so making your own solenoids is not
| even a bad idea.
| grishka wrote:
| I had most of my Aliexpress orders arrive in something like
| 10 days. Is it much slower in the UK?
| bobsmooth wrote:
| You have to make sure you get the fast shipping else it
| takes a month.
| jstanley wrote:
| That's almost 2 weeks! Amazon Prime comes the next day.
| grishka wrote:
| I guess I'm just not as spoiled -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| I'm used to my online purchases taking time. The closest
| thing we have to Amazon is Ozon, it's 1-2 days if you buy
| something that's already in a warehouse in your city
| (i.e. if you're lucky) and several more days if it's not.
| Palomides wrote:
| why would you buy solenoids from amazon instead of an actual
| electronics distributor?
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Sometimes, because you Just Don't Care(tm) about any
| particular manufacturer spec, and you're unwilling to pay
| egregious Digikey/Mouser markup times 24.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's not that Digikey or mouser is taking those
| inexpensive overseas solenoids and marking them up.
|
| The products on mouser and digikey are from reputable
| industrial component manufacturers. They have warranties
| and datasheets, support from the mfg, traceability and
| trustability, etc.
|
| They're simply different products. You can't compare a
| quality made product from a quality supplier and
| manufacturer to cheap crap you buy on amazon
| jstanley wrote:
| I pretty much always buy components from either Amazon or
| eBay. Is that unusual?
|
| I just looked on Farnell and the cheapest solenoids that I
| could find in stock have a weird housing (and they're
| PS6.38 each which is already more than Amazon), the
| cheapest sensible ones that are in stock are PS12 each,
| which is way more expensive than Amazon, plus you have to
| pay VAT and postage on top, plus you have to faff around
| with their enterprisey order form, compared to one or two
| clicks on Amazon.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, it's unusual for professionals, just fine for
| hobbiests.
|
| Because of reliability, etc.
|
| For the same reason you wouldn't order your ingredients
| for a professional Michelin starred restaurant from
| Amazon.
|
| I've almost never found Amazon cheaper either. The
| sellers on Amazon are almost always not the original
| manufacturer, they're usually FOB folks who are just
| buying big boxes of things and then selling them
| individually.
|
| You're almost always better served to swim upstream and
| get things from the manufacturer, or from reputable
| electronics distributors like digikey, Farnell, mouser,
| jameco,etc. A quick search at some of those and I'm
| finding suitable solenoids at $2-5
| bambax wrote:
| > _to learn a bit more about electromagnetism, so making your
| own solenoids is not even a bad idea_
|
| You can learn by making one. Making 24 is super annoying
| IMHO.
|
| (Also, if you want to try, ready-made sewing machine bobbins
| are a good alternative to 3D-printing your own solenoid
| body.)
|
| And about the rest of your comment: one approach would be to
| buy one solenoid from Amazon, to let you do experiments and
| set up the whole machine, while waiting for the rest of the
| goods to arrive from China.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's like the best homemade doorbell ever!
| garba_dlm wrote:
| would it be possible to induce the vibration of the metal piece
| (assuming it's magnetic) without nails?
|
| using very rapid magnetic oscillations (like a speaker??)?
|
| I think the electronics would be different, but is it possible?
| dtgriscom wrote:
| I have a full octave of organ pipes, and I've always dreamed of
| making an instrument out of it. I've just never figured out how
| to make the electrically-actuated valves.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Which pipes are these, out of interest?
|
| As for electronic control, it shouldn't be too hard - perhaps
| you already know the following, but I'll write it here in case
| it's useful. You'll need as many electromagnetic solenoids as
| you have pipes. First you need to construct a 'wind chest',
| which is a shallow, air-tight box that can be made of any
| material. A plastic storage tub should do fine. Then you punch
| a hole in the top of the wind chest for each pipe, and make
| some sort of grommet to hold the pipes in place in the holes;
| this would be a 'toe board' on a real pipe organ. Mount the
| solenoids directly under the holes, and attach something soft
| to squish up against the pipe and stop the airflow. You of
| course need to have a blower that can pressurise the wind
| chest.
|
| No guarantees about how that's going to sound! :) If you wanted
| to construct something really high-quality, you could follow
| Raphi Giangiulio, who has documented every stage of his fully-
| mechanical tracker organ: http://www.rwgiangiulio.com/index.htm
| worldmerge wrote:
| Have you seen Look Mum No Computer's series on making an organ
| midi controlled?
| trollian wrote:
| This is something I've dreamed about doing in one form or another
| since I was a teenager almost 30 years ago.
|
| But the best thing about this story is the video "Without the
| Xylophone" - a terrifying robotic bed of nails.
| mungoman2 wrote:
| Artificial Intelligence is mentioned in the intro, but was it
| actually applied?
| chaosprint wrote:
| Looks very interesting. I see Arduino is used here. Do you feel
| the latency?
|
| You can have a look at Daisy and Bela as well :)
| throwaway-42808 wrote:
| Daisy and Bela are great for low-latency interactive audio :)
|
| But I think Arduino is a good choice for this.
|
| 1. The microcontroller isn't generating audio onboard, it's
| driving solenoids to hit something. Arduino can do that -- the
| solenoids have travel time but Bela wouldn't solve that.
|
| 2. This is more like a sequence playback machine, there's no
| continuous real-time interactivity. Play/pause is the main
| interaction and a few ms is ok.
|
| (If you wanted to duet with it latency-free the top of the
| xylophone is completely exposed so you can just play it
| normally.)
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