Liz's VPO Project

I have a functioning pedalboard! It's been a few weeks, during which there was confusion and missteps, but I'm on a roll now.   I had grief with the Hall sensors, I think I fried a few but I have them under control now.  In the flurry of this, I decided to use reed switches in the pedals, I won't get velocity sensing but if that annoys me enough I can swap them in later. There was a bit of faffing around figuring out an approach, but here is what I wound up with that works: Here is one built sensor  I cut squares of flexible protoboard ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/3904 ) flexible isn't really necessary, and less than ideal really, but it was inexpensive and easier to cut lots of small squares from than the regular stuff. I have inexpensive reed switches, random amazon purchase. They work great, but are very fragile. Be sure to order extras. I meant to mount the sensor squares between the springs, but that didn't work well. I modified them b...

I did some testing with a sample Hall sensor  ( US5881LUA) and 1/4 inch magnets. Looks like it will work out, so I went and ordered a set of 160 of them.    While I'm waiting for them to be delivered, I cleaned up the manuals.  I cleaned the key surfaces the first day - they were pretty filthy and felt gritty and some did not move well - but there is a limit to what can be done in situ.   This weekend since i couldn't yet work on installing the sensors, I took all the keys out and cleaned them and the beds. Here we are midway in returning the keys to the Swell: One of them is initialed and dated  5/17/90  I'm assuming this was someone who worked on it - there had been a reconditioning at some point in the past, felt was replaced in the manuals and pedals and in the linkage to the combination action.   There were also a couple of stops added - an 8' Tuba, and 8' Open Diapason. I really didn't want to do this part, but I'm s...

I figured out the wiring, and where I'd want to pick up signal and for my arduino circuit, but the perfection of logic fails in the sad limits of physical reality.   The organ is intended to run at a higher voltage - 12 volts or more.  This allows the contacts to clean themselves of oxidation.  As soon as I clean them and get a good signal, it goes off again.  I could run a higher voltage but I'd have to regulate it down to 5 volts over 156 separate wires, so that is getting silly.  I could reduce the wires by building a matrix, but no. Plan B involves scrapping the original keypress detecting circuitry in favor of either reed switches or hall effect sensors.  ordered a few and some magnets to test with. I've read, from people who've done this, that it is easy in the pedals, but in the manuals the magnets get so close together you have to alternate them north/south down the line.  I'm not sure how this will affect the south-pole detecting sens...