Final Project

I began this Fab Academy with the idea for development a small hotkeys keyboard, but i think it was very simple and decides to change it to a Stepper Motor Synth.

Introduction

I always love the way that machines sound, but the 3d printer sounds have a special charm.

Sound of a FDM (Fillament) 3d Printer

Even you can find videos of the sounds of 3d printers to relax or study.

This project is inspired in the work of Jonathan Kayne for a Stepper Motor Synth design, you can find the project in his repository. He is using 32 nema motors for making music from a Midi File.

I´m using the process that Jonathan Kayne follows in this post .

Interphase

I did the interphase in the Wild Card Week

The process

The over all process is to extract MIDI data that can be express pitch depending using the rotation stepper motor speed.

I´m replicating a A4988 where you can control the STEP (speed) and Dir (direction) of a stepper motor.

I analyze this post about the Pololou A4988 tto find out how it works.

https://lastminuteengineers.com/a4988-stepper-motor-driver-arduino-tutorial/

How a Stepper Motors works.

Electronics

Allegro – A4988 - The Processor

https://www.allegromicro.com/-/media/files/datasheets/a4988-datasheet.ashx

3d Cad

This project is inspired in this Arduino midi stepper synth project from Jonathan Kayne

It works by sending a 440 Hz square wave (using a the tone command) to create a created an A440 pitch. The speed is in microseconds so it converts the note frequencies to a period.

It also uses an array of pitch Values with it´s corresponding MIDI note Value.

Calibrating the tone

Playing the Midi in a Keyboard

I was waiting the FabLab open to make my PCB Board.

I use Anvil Studio to connect the Arduino to the stepper for playing the midi sounds

Select the input

Select the sources

With Muse Score you can assign the input ok the Midi Keyboard.

Since the first time I heard the 3d printers sounds I love the melody than shape creates.

I found some videos of Nema midi synts and i think it´s a nice project be cause I always wanted to merge programming with music.

Molding

I´m going to make my keycaps from white and black resin.