tonyn

I also figured out how to mount the Dins and core: I will just cut some square pieces of 3/32 inch acylic, that will mount above the contact circuit boards(3 now as decided), drill some holes into the acrylic pieces that align with the lower contact circuit board screws, and mount them to that part. To those acylic pieces I will drill the 4 screw holes for the Dins and core, and mount them to the acrylic pieces using my nylon spacers and #6 machine screws and nuts. Simple. I shouldn't need to redo any ribbon cables that I used for my push button boards, etc., just remount on acrylic pieces. But this time the ribbon cable ends will be soldered to the contact circuit boards. I'll show you when I get to that part. But today is Christmas eve., so I may not be able to do that today. But at least it's all planned out now. It's just doing it that's all.

Second touch! I have an idea on how to get it! As you can see the contact boards have wires that make contact with the metal that is at a 45 degree angle. When I removed the rubber strips I had to replace that wth something to make contact. Those strips were there because the old electronics had a lot of current to those and those contacts drove gates. So the rubber added resistance. I haven't tested it out, but right now the keys, I think, make full contact when they are all of the way or mostly all of the way pressed down, thus the wire hits the top of the 45 degree angle and copper wire. But, by bending that metal, or moving the wire from front to back (good thing they are crimped so I can move them if needed), etc., I maybe able to get a contact with a keypress half way etc., and all of the way, etc. Thus first and second touch, etc.! But this would be a very precise adjustment. I have enough spare contact circuit board with which to experiment with. So I'll play with that later. But now I know I want at least 2-3 contact circuit boards installed: One for first touch, one for second, and a spare for something else. I still should have enough clearance. I'll need 2 more Dins for that too, but those are low profile (except for the IDC part, which can be changed later by removing the strain reliefs, etc., to allow 2 Dins to stack nicely on top of each other). See, I always think things out so that I cn allow for improvements, etc., later.

Taking a look at the stacks of contact circuit boards I stripped out that aren't needed: I am keeping them in case I may want more contact boards for something later. I would like to have second touch, but I need to figure out how to get it. When I figure out how to mount my Dins and cores in that area I'll compensate for a couple more contact boards just in case. I only need enough height so the Din and core circuit boards are not too high. I have about 2-3 inches max height for these contact boards before I run into trouble with clearance between keyboards, etc. Plus it WOULD be nice to figure out how to design a set of contact boards for second touch, etc.. So I'll mount the Dins and core so that they allow for more contact boards, etc. The tallest component is that 2200 cap on the core. I am also going to try to epoxy the broken tabs together. I do have all of the pieces, so if that work I'll be able to have a full keyboard for the solo. The other contact board has tabs that maybe beyond repair though. But that is the lower keyboard, which has areas that are not played much, so I can put the bad ones in those areas until I can either find good ones or make them. These tabs seem to be solid when in the contact boards, and don't get much preasure from key presses. So in the organ they are fine. It's just when you take out the contact boards they become vunerable to damage, so note this when you remove them. I also have my organ guy that may have some. Plus if I want to make better ones I would make them out of acrylic, which should have a longer life than the circuit board material those old tabs are made out of (they over the years may have dried out and became brittle, etc.). If I plan to replace ALL of them with acrylic ones: I WILL NOT MAKE THEM MYSELF! I do have this acrylic manufacture guy that can make precise parts like this out of acrylic. So I can see how much he would want to make all of them. As you can see in my setup I screwed the ends of the contact board to scrap pieces of 3/4 plywood to protect the tabs while I was working on it outside of the organ. When I wire up the Dins I will bypass those resistors(they aren't the right value anyway). I AM NOT removing them since they are attached to the contact wires and add to the alignment, integrety of the board, etc. If I try to remove or replace those resistors I may run into trouble with the contact wires, etc.

OK. All of the 18 gauge copper wire is crimped in on one contact board(i.e. the Solo, or top keyboard), and it is down to one layer of contact circuit boards. Now to figure out how to mount the Dins and core. This contact board had 5 broken tabs! I can move 4 to one end of the keyboard and one to the other. These tabs are 3/32 inch thick(as compared at hardware store to 3/32 inch acrylic). So I can make new ones out of 3/32 inch acrylic.

Works great! I used 18 gauge solid copper wire. I didn't solder it but just crimped it, for now. It makes good contact just like I want! As you can see I only need one layer of these circuit boards. Now to do this to the rest. After that it's just figuring out how to fit the Dins and core in. I didn't use washers since I had left over spacers, I used them instead to get the right height. The rear screws will be reduced to accomodate the Dins and core in that area.

I think I got it! I'll just solder strips of wire in to replace the rubber! But what gauge would work? I'll have to see..

Well it wasn't quite that simple. After removing the rubber strips and remounting a circuit board, and pushing the tab to simulate a key press: It couldn't make contact with the metal part. THESE ARE PRESICE CONTACTS! So what I will need to do is find some metal to replace the rubber strips. I could bend the metal part down but I don't want to do that, since my bend may not be exact for all circuit boards. Humm, what to use???

Well that solved that. The rubberized part was actually 2 pairs of rubber strips that were crimped in on each side with metal tabs. So I just lifted the metal tabs that crimped them and pulled the rubber strips out. Now 0 resistance! So I'll just strip them out of the circuit boards I need. Now to remove the other boards down to one layer of circuit boards. To replace the space that was taken by the removed circuit boards, I'll use washers. There are also spacers that spaced the circuit boards. I can keep those. I do need the top leef spring parts to be the same height, so that means that I need to space it from the lower circuit boards. This space will allow me to mount the Dins and core in that area. This is looking like it will be easy to redo these old contact boards!

Well these contact circuit baords are simple! But interesting. They do have a common I can use for one side for my Din grounds. They do have resistors, but I'll bypass those. But there is a rubberized type of coating when they make contact that gives 5k ohm resistance, etc. That part is interesting. Should I leave it on or scrape it off? Let me take a look again at the Dins. Maybe I can leave that as is and remove the resistors from the Dins, etc.! Also: I only need one set of contact circuit boards. So to allow for mounting of the Dins and Core directly onto these boards I will have to remove some circuits down to the lower one, so I can mount the Dins and cores and have space between the keyboards. I'll just use spacers to the leaf springs which need to be on top.

OK. I have one of the old contact boards completely stripped of the wire harnesses and electronics. That was a lot of wires to cut. I won't need all of those wires and I am commited to completely midifying these anyway. Plus I want to lighten up these boards by only having wires attached that I need to neaten it up, etc. Basically all that will be wired to them is the ribbon cables from the Dins. Plus by cutting all of the wires , if there was a matrix, it should be broken now (Unless I need to break some points on the circuit baords too, I'll see). I can now trace out the circuit boards to see what I need to do.

Damn! Be careful when removing old contact boards, if you want to re-use them, else you may end up with broken parts like I have. I must have damaged my old contact boards somehow when I took them out, etc. I will have to either make a couple of these or see if I can get some from my organ guy. These are fragle! Note: What I will do for the time being is(as I did when I had broken keys from a move), move the broken parts to keys of an octive that doesn't get played much (like the highest octive on the lower keyboard). These parts shouldn't be hard to make though. I just need to get my dremil and some circuit board material (seems like they are made out of that), and cut a few new ones. Or I could use acrylic, etc. On the bottom of a few, they are missing the rubber gromets. Those I should be able to match up at my hardware store. So it shouldn't be hard to replace them. But now I NEED TO BE CAREFUL WHEN WORKING WITH THESE CONTACT BOARDS, NOT TO DAMAGE ANY MORE!

This was a hard decision for me! I am now commited to this! I can't go back now! I just cut the wiring harness for the old contact boards to the old electronics! Now I will gut them out of the old wires and electronics, and see what I need to do to wire them up to the Dins. Here's a picture from the top of one of the old contact boards.

OK. I did look up the specs on the Douts and see that they can drive LEDs and relays and latch them, etc. But they are output circuits. For input for manually pushing the stop buttons I'll still need Dins. Sometimes I am just lazy and don't want to look or think. Simple. All I need to do is order 4 Douts from avishowtech. Unfortunetely I am tapped out for money right now. So I can't order any douts right now. But I can finish my keybaords, swell, pedal board, and then think out the stops and pistons. I cam do the Din and core parts of the stops and pistons but make sure I take into accoutn the Douts too. I also will call my organ guy and see what he has for me for stops and push button pistons. If I can aford what he wants for those, which shouldn't be much, I'll at least have that part to play with. I'll have to redo the stop part of the organ if I am going to instal new stops. Just so I have this right: For my swell pedal I don't need a Ain right? I can just a potentiometer between 5V and ground and connected the variable to directly to pin 2 (RA0) on the PIC via connector J5 A0 of the core right? Then use this code for the midibox for the swell pedal?

Merry Christmass guys! Last night I closed up the organ, cleaned up the living room of my mess(everything is boxed), and put up the tree. When I work I have parts all over the place. Although they are now boxed, this just means "Organized". But I can get to them if I need to. This also doesn't mean I can't do any work! My old contact boards are in the basement. So I'll be pulling them apart, checking out to see how I can redo them to get some good contact for the midi circuits, planning the mounting of those circuits onto them, etc. I can do this without opening the organ until I am ready to remount them. In the meantime the top keyboard is playable with the switch board. So the kid can have fun with it now while I redo the contact boards. At this point I can have a somemwhat playable organ as I continue. This helps to inspire me more as I continue, since I can see it working now, and I am just making more of it work as I proceed. As you can see my computer keyboard and mouse are just sitting on top of the organ. Eventually I want to pull the computer out of the case, and mount the board, etc., inside of the organ somewhere. The touch screen monitor will have a better arm so that it can be moved down,etc. I also want to see how I can have the computer keyboard accessable but not in the way of playing the organ. But that's last in my midification. BTW: I put up the lights. Tonight the wife and kid will put the ornaments on, etc.

Ok. Great! So I don't need to ADD any type of flip flop circuit, since the Douts are in effect that already? I kind of hoped so. No need to add/design my own for them then. Just add LEDS push buttons, and relays? The Dins will detect the state, and the Douts make the push buttons(or computer) toggle that state and drive the LEDs and Relays? I'll look at the ICS of the Douts to see what they are. I was just thinking ahead without digging too much into it yet. I want to plan ahead so I know what I need to order so I have what I need when I come to that point. I knew I needed Dins and Cores for the detection of it all, so I already have those. But if I want to control the stops I'll also need Douts. Plus I'll have the change the stops over to modern type LED push button types. Those I can get from my organ guy. All of my stops and pistons will be changed over to push button types. The pistons don't need Douts, since they won't need control, just detection. I think it would be neat to push a cancel piston and see it cancel the activated stops and turn off the LEDs. Or a piston actually control a physical stop by lighting the LED, etc. Update: Did I get you right? The DOUTS can function as DINS too, so no need for DINS AND DOUTS for the stops if I want to detect and control the stops since the DOUTS can detect AND control? So just use DOUTS, and the push buttons AND program can control the DOUTS AND detect the state? It's hard for me to picture this, so: Are there any schematics of Dout LEDS or Relay driver circuits here anywhere?

Here are my planns for the stops circuits when I get to them: #1 The old stops will have to go, since to work with the virtual organ programs I need toggle type switches. #2 I would like to SEE if a stop of activated. So I want them to light up LEDs when activated. #3 I want them to look nice as if they were made for the organ. So: #1 I will need to order 4 Douts to allow them to be activated from the computer programs (I already have the 4 Dins and a core already). #2 My organ guy has some from various organs that hopfully will eb cheap and look and work. These new stops need to be push buttons. I will add flip flop circuits to them so I have a toggle circuit. This circuit will also drive LEDS. For the leslie control stop I will also need to add a relay circuit to it to drive that. So this is just my planns when I get there. I may need to etch my own circuits for those since avishowtech doesn't have those. Unless the Douts can do this without adding much to them? Anyone else that can make me nice high quality boards for those? They should be simple flip flop LED driver type circuits using simple ICs, etc. I'll provide schematics when I have that part figured out.

Now that the organ is closed up, and I had a chance to actually sit down and try out the keyboard myself: The keys that DO align right with the switches DO have a good feeling and work great. But to align the ones that don't requires bending the hammer metal parts of the keys for precise adjustment. You are talking about 1/8 inch or less of adjustment, and the keys would not all be the same, etc.! Yes, I could do that, but the wood board may also warp more over time, and require constant bending of metal, etc., for adjustment. Plus the push button switches are questionable as to their longevity. The old contact boards allowed for more play with the leef contacts so constant adjustment isn't needed. Baldwin did build the organ to last a very long time, so I wil try to use what they had if I can. So, although my switch boards can work well with adjustments, I can just forsee constant adjusting, etc. Plus bending metal too much can stress it out and weaken and it may break. So, although my push button boards can work well, I'll see what can be done with the old contact boards this week. I also have thought out a bit on the pistons: I should maybe use one of the cores for the keyboards for those. The bottom core would route best to those pistons, which are under the top keyboard, but easily wired from a din from the bottom keyboard. I have 5 pistons, and between the keyboards 6 spare din . But that would require using both cores with wires that may get tangled, etc. I could just add another din to the bottom core for them. But that would add 32 extra, and I only need 5. I had planned on using the top core for the stops to add the pistons to, but that would require a length of wire, etc., too. But my pedal board only has 25 pedals. 32-25=7. Just enough! Plus if I mount my midi circuit for the pedal board in back as planned, the routing would work great! So that is the plan for the pistons now, subject to change. I do have enough cores and dins for all of this, so it's just where I want to route it from.

More thoughts... OK, If I can use part of the old contact boards: As you can see in the pictures I posted of them each set of contacts has 5 or more contacts (this isn't the important part, I will only use one set, whichever I can use). Those contacts I think make contact throughout the key press. But, to maybe use the best of both worlds, my push button pannels(remember that the switches are mounted in a metal strip pannel on the bottom of the wood switch boards), along with the old contact boards... I could maybe mount the push button strip on top, so that in the last 1/4 inch or so of the keypress, you make contact with the push button switches. Guess what that would provide for me? Second touch keyboards! I don't know the specs on second touch, is it the last 1/8 inch or 1/4 of the key press, or? Anyone know? See I wanted to see if I could add that feature. Maybe this way I can! I'll see when I look over and test out the old contact boards, what can be done... So I may not have wasted time and money on the push button idea, etc. I maybe able to incorporate them with the old contact boards!

Well... My wife is really on me to clean up the living room to put up the tree now. So I guess I'll just have to put things away tonight, close up the organ, and let the keyboard as is for now. At least it's somewhat playable for now for the kid to enjoy. I'll check out the old contact boards, but may not be able to actually do any work until after Christmass. Don't be surprized if I do do more work before Christmass and continue to post. So you will have a lot more to read. :rolleyes: I hope you enjoy having something interesting to read each day from my heavily worded posts. :D I am excited now that things are working and want to continue...But one step at a time as I have been doing. Right now it's possibly rethinking out the keyboard contacts. I WILL NOT BE MOVING ON TO ANYTHING ELSE UNTIL I AM COMPLETELY HAPPY WITH MY KEYBOARDS, SINCE THIS, TO ME, IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE ORGAN. So that is why I started with them.

I just took a couple of pictures of one of my old contact boards from the organ. I'll be looking these over over the next week, to see if maybe I should maybe go back to reinstalling them, figuring out the wiring the Dins(not the old electronics, that will be removed), etc. I may also come up with a way to use both (i.e. I'll reinstall one of the old contact baords first and check for stiffness of the keys, if it is not any better, I may use the holes and metal bottom from it with my panel mount push buttons, for better alignment, no warped wood, etc.) Best of both designs so to speak, using what I figured out with my push button board, and what Baldwin did with theirs. If you guys have inputs let me know. Right now my son is enjoying playing the push button keyboard I do have working (if you can call hitting notes playing). So the noise starts of an unlearned kid playing a musical instrument! My son has been waiting for me to get a keyboard working over the last weeks. He was playing with the Miditzer program with the touch screen and mouse. But now he can somewhat play a real keyboard with Miditzer. Miditzer is a great program to start with. Thank you for whomever programmed this nice program! So I'll let my son enjoy for a while before I disable them , etc... I think you can see where I may be heading at now. I am thinking on re-using parts of the old contact boards! Since I did not destroy the integrety of the organ, this can easily be done. Was this a waste of time with designing and building the push button switch boards? I don't think so. It was a trial and error type thing, and I learned some from it. If you want a push button type keyboard, this may work great for you. But in my design for my organ, I am not quite happy with the end results of the keyboards using the push buttons, so...? But the pedal boards may work well with push buttons(I'll see when I get to that point). I may make use of those switches there. When I origionally looked at the old contact boards, I didn't like the idea of tearing them apart and redoing the contact boards, just in case this midification didn't work, and I changed my mind and wanted to put the organ back as it was. So I just went ahead and designed new boards that are removable to just replace the old ones. But now that I know this midifcation thing works great and I am now fully commited to this route... See this organ has memories for me, so I didn't want to destroy it with my modifications.

As you may have seen: I am not happy until it's perfect! I am not JUST midifying an organ to just SAY it's midified, but not really playable for a musician. I NEED it to feel just perfect. Else playing it will not be enjoyable! The MOST important part to me is the feel of the keyboards! They need to have that somewhat weighted key feel (as much as you can expect from an organ keyboard that is), nice touch, without feeling like toy keyboards! So over the next week I will NOT bend any metal just in case I want/need to use the old contact boards. I will look at the old contact boards to see if I can make better contacts using parts of them, see if what I do have working I can live with, etc. The keyboards to me are the most inportant part of the midification. After they have the perfect feel, the rest is just electronics and programming. BTW: When I was looking for the perfect contact and looked at portable keyboards (didn't like those touch switch contacts), my organ guy had some older lowry organ keyboards that did use push button switches. So I thought "if lowry used them, then why can't I"? But he also said they had problems with the switches. All of my push button switches DO work(remember that I DID test them before hooking up the Dins?), but right now I just need to adjust the hammers to make better contact with them, that's all. But they may also cause problems eventually too. Then again, I took that into account by making them easily replaceable.. As you can tell, I also edit my posts a lot too, to update and correct them, etc. So reread all of them for updates.

OK. For those of you who think that after reading my disapointment about the stiffness of the switches, etc., a few posts back, and are now thinking my deisgn is not good: #1 My design is sound with the push botton switches. I would not get much better with touch type switches, since the spring part of the switches is only about 1/4 inch movement. But this 1/4 inch is on the switch side. By having the switches on the end of a lever (the hammer part of the keys are at the other end of a lever, and knowing your lever principles, 1/4 inch on that end is a lot less on the other), the stiffness to the key itself is a lot less than 1/4 inch of the end of the key press. So the stiffness part is just in the end. This is one of the reasons why I decided to mount the switches where I did (I could have mounted them directly under the keys themselves). The bad part of this is that you do not get a sound until the key is pressed all the way down, and the push botton has made full contact. #2 My touch switch idea would require metal to metal contact of the hammers to the screw heads, etc. This would be noisey! #3 The problem right now is that the switch board is made out of wood. I got an 5/8 inch thick MDF shelf, hoping for litle to no warpage(wood can be warped, etc.) It seams that in the middle of the boarc the key hammers are too close to the push bottons, Thus have little movement to the switches, and are way too stiff. #4 my holes are slightly off center, and if the hammer doesn't hit it in the center, the push botton doesn't work right. This causes intermitent contact. So basically I just have to adjust the heights and alignment to the center of the switches. I can adjust the height by adding or removing washers in the switch board mount. But, since the board is a little warped, the switches to the outside may not make good contact, and the oens to the center too much. That has to be adjusted by bending the key metal. The center alingment can also be adjusted by bending the metal of the keys. This bending of the metal is a fine adjustment and would make every key unique in it's bend, etc. If I decide at a later time to change switch boards, etc., I would have to bend them back to be all alike, etc. So decision time: Do I commit to this design and bend the key metal of the keys, or do I rethink the switch part out. Or do I take a look at the old contact board for the organ(which is still intact), tear out the electronics, and use part of it for it's metal part for a switch board, and see if I can somehow use parts of those contacts? There is also a possibilty that usig the old contacts I can maybe design them to have second touch! They are sort of leef spring contacts of 6 per key, that make contact all of the way through the keypress. So I could maybe redesign it to have some make contact in the first part of the keypress, and others make contact in the last 1/8-1/4 inch, thus having a second touch! Right now I might as well just finish up my lower keyboard switch board(I have it all ready to assemble, so might as well), daisy chain the cores, and see if would be happy wth this or? Over this next week I'll take a good look at the old contact boards and maybe come up better redesign. I may use both ideas, etc. At least I do have playable midified keyboards now! So the electronics for the midi parts is at least done!

We have a fully functional Midified keyboard now! I have all of the keys mapped out and they work fine with Miditzer! I just taught my son a simple tune(doe a deer), and recorded it for him! I'll post my midibox128 ini MIDIOUT part here for you. The MIDIOUT part is where the mapping is for the Dins. If you connect up your Dins as I have in that order, and have your PIC programmed for Channel 1(the Number 90 is for channel 1), this will work for 61 key keyboards: Now to test for current draw, fuse it, make some physical adjustments for the key presses to the push buttons, and wrap it up for this keyboard part. Stay tuned for my next part, maybe in a week or so... Feel free to post to this thread if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. I will be checking this thread often. I will continue with this project, and this thread, as I proceed to FULLY midify my organ.

OK. The mapping works. I am not done, but I have it figured out. I thought I would explain how I am doing it before I finish and show you the results. The Dins are sort of upside down. J3 is to the right. The core sees the Din connected to it as the first Din. So in Midibox the pin assignments start with that din, J3. Pin1 in midibox is pin 1 on J3. So Octive 7, C(highest C on keyboard) is pin 5(61 keys remember), pin 6-8 is not used. Although pins 6-8 are not used, I mapped them to Octive 7, C, just to have something in code. But from pin 5 to pin 1 it gos down to Octive 6, G# The sequence for each group of 8 is in order up the keyboard, but in groups of 8, in reverse from Din 2, J3, to Din1, J6. So the the last group 64-57 is for the first Din J6, pin 8-1, Octive 1, G-C I'll post my midibox MIDIOUT part of my midibox128.ini file for you to see what I mean...

Sucess with the midibox128 syx file upload. I have all 3 tools: midiosstudio midi-ox sysexbox All 3 can be used to upload a reconfigured midibox128 syx file. But I was only sucessfull with using sysexbox for the syx file. That may have been because it can be set to device ID 1. See, these PICs I got from avishowtech I ordered preprogrammed for Device Ids 0,1,2,3 The top keyboard's pic is device ID 1 The defaults of these programs is device Id 0. Anyway I was able to map pin 5(the highest C), to it's note of 60(which is Octive 7, C) Now to map out the rest of the keys. Then I will have the top keyboard working right with Miditzer, etc. I also looked at my moving the IDC to the right???? The connections should have been the same if I didn't move it. So I'll take another look at that too. The orders of pins to the keybaord with my conenctions are in reverse: instead of from left to right pin 1- pin 61, it is in reverse order. But in midibox I can reverse the mapping. I am not quite happy now that the keyboard is playable with the push button switches. But I put a lot of work into this, so I'll finish this version up and enjoy playing them for Christmass. They are playable, but too stiff, etc. But I need to do some adjusting yet, so I maybe able to get a good feel with some adjusting. It's too bad that I didn't think of the touch switch type idea I posted a few posts back to start. But sometimes you get a good idea after you already have something else done. But I can always improve what I have. The push bottons work, but I can do better. BTW: After I finish my midibox128.ini file I'll post it so you can take a look at it.