Inspiration
I was Inspired by Love Hulten's enclosure projects. In the project I saw, He used boxes as enclosures. In one Physical Computing assignment , I've made piano with Arduino before. This time, I decided to make the enclosure for my piano.
Materials
Enclosure Part
- 4x6'' Photo Frame >>> Michael's
- 1/8'' 12x12 inch Acrylic Sheet :White Translucent >>> Canal Plastic
- 1/8'' 12x12 inch Acrylic Sheet : Fluorescent Yellow Translucent >>> Canal Plastic
- 1/8'' 12x12 inch Acrylic Sheet : Fluorescent Dark Blue Translucent >>> Canal Plastic
- nut & screw
- LED mount
Circuit Part
- push button
- piezo buzzer
- 555 Timer
- various ohms resistor
- 100 nF capacitor
- wire
- LED
- PCB board
- 9v Battery
Tools
Laser Cutter | Drill | Acrylic Glue | Solder machine
Process
Sketching
I started sketching before I search for the materials. My initial idea was to create to enclosure with acrylic and standoff. The piano is no openable. After I start searching for the materials, I found the perfect photo frame for my piano. The frame has two side for the pictures. I decided to use this frame as a structure of my enclosure. Then, I start to lay out the top and the bottom part of my piano. The keys of the piano were located in the bottom part and the speaker and battery will be placed on the other side.
Circuit
I used Arduino to control my piano in the Physical computing class. This time, I decided to created analog circuit for my piano without using the Arduino. I found one useful tutorials in the Instructables website.
( https://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Electronic-Piano/ ) The instructor use various resistor to created different sound effect from the piezo buzzer.
This is my attempt to created analog piano. The sound of the piano was so strange because of the inaccurate amount of resistor ohms that I've got.
After I finish with the circuit, I started soldering every component together. Then, the circuit didn't work anymore. I decided to give up with the circuit and start making the enclosure.
Creating Illustrator Files & Cutting with Laser Cutter
I measured the enclosure size from the circuit system and the size of the photo frame I've got. After measuring, I created the illustration files for laser cutting.
Assemble
After getting every component, I started assemble the enclosure together started with the inside part. Then, trying to place the circuit inside the cutting piece. The circuit fit perfectly with the piece. I used acrylic glue to assemble piano key's pieces together. Each key contained 4 layers of the acrylic sheets. The bottom layer was slightly bigger than the others in order to lock with the cover part.
I used screws and nuts to lock every pieces together. For the LEDs, I used LED mounts to hold the LEDs.