My midification of my 70's Baldwin 210

[tonyn41]

This post will be on the laptop mount.

Tools:

Skill saw or table saw to cut hardboard pieces.

Hand drill for holes.

1/8 inch drill bit for #8 32 inch screw holes in hardboard

1/4 inch drill bit for 1/4 inch bolts

7/16 inch open end wrench to tighen nuts.

Pliers to hold nuts to tighten screws onto.

Screwdrivers to screw #8 32/ inch screws and 1/4 inch bolts.

C Clamps to clamp hardboard pieces together.

Parts:

24 #8 32 x 3/4 inch flat head machine screws

4 #8 32 x 3/4 inch round head machine screws(for top braces, since they are mounted a bit different)

32 #8 32 washers( 4 extra for top braces, to have a washer for both sides of hardboard)

28 #8 32 lock washers.

28 #8 nuts

4 1/4 inch x 1 1/2 inch machine bolts.

12 1/4 inch washers for bolts.

4 1/4 inch lock washers for bolts.

4 1/4 nuts for bolts

4 1/4 wing nuts for bolts.

4 1 1/2 inch corner braces

4 1 1/2 inch double wide corner braces

2 hinges

4 3/4 long nylon spacers

4 1 inch long #8 32 machine screws

4 #8 32 wing nuts

2 14 3/4 inch x 10 inch 1/4 inch thick pieces of hardboard

(this is the outside demensions of my laptop, + 1/4 inch).

The 3/4 inch nylon spacers, 1 inch #8 32 machine screws

(buy machine screws at same place as nylon spacers, so you can make sure the screws fit into nylon spacers),

#8 32 wing nuts, and 1/4 inch wing nuts were bought at True Value Hardware.

Again, the wing nuts were expensive

($.50 each for #8 32, and almost $1.00 each for 1/4 inch wing nuts).

But the wing nuts make for easy attachments/removal.

The rest of the parts can be bought at Home Depot or Menards.

True Value and Ace, I use for specialty parts, Home Depot/Menards for common, cheaper, and bulk parts.

Making the mount:

1. Measure the laptop:

Close laptop, and measure outside demensions, add 1/4 inch for a bit of play, etc.

You can always trim down if needed.

2. Cut the hardboard pieces(clamp them together so they are both same size)

3. Measure for angle piece placement:

Sit laptop on bottom hardboard piece.

Take a look at the front of laptop to see if there are any ports, DVD, etc., if so, note.

Look at the sides to see if there are any ports,DVD, etc., note.

I had no back ports, etc., so I was OK there.

Then insert double wide corner brace pieces in front , under laptop, and mark placement.

Do the same for the side angle brace pieces.

4. Remove laptop.

5. Put front and side angle brace pieces back, mark holes, drill 1/8 inch holes.

6. aline 2 corner braces on top sides of top hardboard piece, mark holes.

7. Drill 1/8 inch holes for top braces.

8. Butt back hardboard piece to bottom hardboard piece, aline hinges, mark holes.

9. Drill 1/8 inch holes for hinges, and mount hinges using screws, washers, lock washers, nuts.

10. Remove pipe flange from arm to use for marking holes in hardboard

11. center pipe flange on back hardboard piece, mark, and drill 1/4 inch holes.

12. attach side, front, top angle brace pieces with #8 32 screws, washers, lock washers, nuts.

13. attach 1/4 inch bolts, washers, washers,lock washers, nuts

14. move back piece forward 90 degrees, hold there, and insert double wide corner braces to be snug to top and bottom hardboard pieces, mark holes.

Note: make sure back braces and hinges do not interfear with any back ports of laptop.

13. Drill 1/8 inch holes for back braces.

14. Attach back braces with #8 32 screws, washers, lock washers, nuts.

Attach mount to arm:

1. Screw pipe flange back onto arm.

Note: Before I put the pipe flange back onto the arm, I tried attaching the pipe flange to the bolts to make sure they alined right.

I had to ream out the 1/4 holes a bit to make sure pipe flange alined right,

so that when I came to mounting the monotor to the arm, it didn't give me any trouble.

2. Now all you have to do is lift laptop mount, aline bolt ends onto pipe flange of arm, put a washer on each bolt, and tighen with wing nuts.

Insert laptop:

Sit laptop onto mount, insert 1 inch #8 32 machine screws into nylon washers, then into side and top braces, and tighten wing nuts!

The side, top, and front braces are to hold the laptop in, and keep it from sliding forward, and sidewards.

The nylon spacers further hold laptop in and are easily removable with the wing nuts, to remove laptop if you want.

The back braces keep laptop at 90 degree angle.

I wanted these back braces to be removeable, so maybe to use different angled braces for a different angle of laptop.

Thus, the hinges allow the angle to be changed, if wanted.

All done, that completes the laptop mount!

There is room for improvement and cosmetic work yet, but this gets you there for cheap, sturdy, and functional!

Plus, I did this all in one day, including design, running to get parts, etc., for both monitor and laptop sides!

Now that you have my DIY, it shouldn't take you but 1/2 hour max!

Stay tuned, since over the next months I will be building amps,

activating the lesie, adding relay boards, etc., and midifying the stops and pistons.

Lot's to do yet on my organ!

I plan to keep this organ for a long time, and pass it down to my son.

So even though it was a 1 1/2 year break , before I came back here, it may take years to complete my organ midifications.

As long as this site is here, I'll keep adding to this thread.

If you have any questions, or suggestions for improvement,

or want a picture of a peticular part to see it closer, etc., feel free to post.

I'll check in here often and reply back.

Now to dust off my laptop, run the cables along the arms, etc., and connect it all back up so I can play again.

I'll post a couple of pictures of that too in next post.

Here are some pictures:

Edited November 5, 2011 by tonyn41

[tonyn41]

OK final note on the visa arms and mounts.

Final adjustments:

With using pipe fittings for the arms, you can easily assemble custom arms.

You can change the lengths of the nipples to suit.

All that takes is unscrewing and screwing them together until you are happy.

As long as you keep the price tags on them, you have a window of 30 days to return parts.

To me, I just lucked out and got the right lengths.

But, I will try maybe a couple of longer nipple pieces

in the last arm part to the flange to maybe bring the laptop down further, etc.

Then when happy, for final adjustment, return non needed pieces.

Home Depot and Menards have good return policies, so that makes this possible.

The only non returnable piece is the 5 inch nipples for the mount that was drilled into.

But, that piece , to me, does not need changing.

Cosmetic:

Well this LOOKS LIKE PLUMBING ON AN ORGAN!

So, one option to make it look nice, would be to box in the pipe of the arm with 1/4 inch plywood!

That would make for a nice looking arm!

Stain it, and it will look great!

This also would allow you to possibly run the cables inside of the arms to hide cables too!

Another would be to figure out the angles of the arm, and cut custom 1 1/2 pieces of wood and make hardwood arms!

Improvements:

The pivot point could be a 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch T fitting that would slide on back piece,

with 2 holes drilled and tapped into it with bolts to tighten it, etc.

That was my initial idea, but that would require careful drilling and a tapping threaded holes into pipe.

Mounts:

Visa monitor mount:

The monitor mount is easy to improve cosmetically with using just one piece of 1/2 inch plywood, or solid wood.

Just ream out one side a bit to allow bolt heads and spacers.

My touch screen monitor was a cheap commercial one that doesn't have a frame, etc.

It was meant to be installed in touch screen medical equipment, etc.

So I need to build some type of wood frame for it too.

Laptop:

This could be changed to 1/2 inch plywood, and wood screws to attach the hardware to hide screws.

If I am happy with the 90 degree angle of laptop, I could use molding to use instead of the hinges and back braces.

So with these improvements you can have nice looking arms and mounts to match the nice wood of the organ.

I LOVE MY SETUP WITH LAPTOP AND TOUCH SCREEN!

The nice thing about controling the organ with a laptop is that, as laptops improve in performance,

the laptop can be upgraded and just swapped out on the mount, and another custom mount easily made!

Then with external sound cards(I am starting with that for now, hopefully taking some CPU processing off of my laptop to improve latency,

etc., but may improve that even more to Allen sound boards),

to my descrete amps, eventually I can have a VERY good modernized midified organ!

But one step at a time as money and time allow.

In the meantime with my present setup I can still play

(until my amps are finished, I have 2 powered computer speakers,

that sit on top of organ and provide enough sound for a small living room)!

Today I received my amp kits!

I should also be receiving my usb sound card within this week too!

So my next posts will be on building the amps and powering the internal organ speakers,

along with getting the leslie motors to work!

I will of cource be designing new circuitry for the leslie motors too,

that will use a relay board, to send midi signals to computer to let computer know if stop is physically pressed,

and also allow the stop to be controled via the touch screen!

To me, the most important part of the midification is to get the leslie working too, else it's just emulated tremino.

All of my stops will also be changed to momentary so they can be controled both ways(physically and touch screen),

with indicator lights to let you know on the organ that a stop is activated.

So this is a bit more involved than just wiring up Douts and Dins.

Thus why I need to thoroughly work this part out.

So stay tuned!

Edited November 14, 2011 by tonyn41

[tonyn41]

OK, now onto thinking out and working on building the discrete amps.

The specs on the amps are 70wrms @ 8 ohms.

My organ speakers are 8 ohms.

These amps are nice since they include the power supply on board, so all that I need to add externaally is a transformer, heatsink,

and optionally a volume pot on the inputs.

Which I all ordered and received. I just need to get the linear pots, and hardware to connect outputs, etc.

The old organ amps put out 40wrms for the center speaker and leslie speaker, and 25wrms for the left speaker.

So I want to limit my new amps to put out less power so as not to blow the speakers.

I could adjust the bias for the amps(but this would limit sensitivity), or build an output power limiter circuit(best option, but a bit involved),

but the simple way is just to antenuate the input volume.

The kits recommend 47k ohm log(audio) pots for input volume control.

I bought 22kohm log pots.

Those I will run in series with 50kohm linear pots and adjust the total ohms to be 47kohm by initially setting the linear pots to be 25k.

22k is about 1/2 of 47k, so that should limit volume to about 35wrms, which should work for 2 speakers.

When I buy the third amp kit, I will order a 10kohm log pot instead, and since that is about 1/2 22k,

I'll set the linear pot for 37kohm so my output for that amp should be limited to about 17wrms.

Not exactly 40w nor 25w, but less is better than more for me and close enough to the old amps.

The speakers maybe able to handle more power and if so, I can adjust the linear pots for more power.

I also need to plan a box to mount these amps in in the organ.

I may use the old metal box for the old amps if it works.

I'll post some pictures of my amp kits in the next posts, and show you all of my work as I proceed.

[tonyn41]

As promised more pictures!

Well I just reconnected it all back up as I had it setup

(laptop, touch screen, powered computer speakers).

As you can see, the arms of my touch screen and laptop do good job and are not too obtrusive

(still need cosmetic work, but that is for another time).

The arms bring my touch screen and laptop down just enough to be easily reachable

as I play the organ, but not too close to the keyboards,

and can swing out of the way for access to organ.

Behind the organ, as you can see, the arm mounts are not too obtrusive either.

Now I just need longer usb a vga cables to extend my cables

that run from the touch screen to laptop

(the touch screen uses usb for the touch part, and vga cables for the monitor part).

The organ program you see on the monitors is Jorgan with my own disposition,

that you saw me develop earlier in this thread.

I presently am using Jorgan and Miditzer.

Everything works!

Except:

Evidently when the moving company

(and I had a good one too, forgot the name, but they had a Semi truck and moved world wide)

moved my organ, other than breaking the plastic part of a key

(they were careless towards the end of the move,

since I had a full 3 bedroom plus house all moved in one day over 200 miles,

and guess they were pissed, and wore out at the end, I had so much heavy things to move),

they must have jarred my keyboard contacts some and some keys and pedals stick.

So I'll have to go over them( I didn't notice that before,

since I haven't played the organ much since I moved).

Other than that, everything works fine.

The other pictures are of one of my amp kits,

and my external sound blaster which I plan to get working.

Right now I am using the internal sound card of the laptop

along with the powered computer speakers.

Today I am also ordering the service manual for my organ,

which will help me out a lot on reconnecting my leslie motors back up,

etc. The guy wants $40 plus $13 shipping!

But, what can you do, these manuals are becoming rare now.

You can also see my son's violin music stand too.

He's in 4th grade this year, and being introduced to music lessons!

I started out on the violin too. So I can help him with that

(when we first got the rental violin for him, I showed him

the old man still had it him to play it, and how to play it,

before his teacher started the lessons).

Along with his school music teacher, he has me to help him teach him too.

So my son will get no breaks with me with violin practice either:)

Every night I tell him if he wants to be as good as daddy.

But it's enjoyable too, and he loves the idea of learning to play music too,

rather than just listening to someone else play music.

I can also get him to play along with me on the organ now too

(well not quite yet, he still needs to get better at it).

Maybe he will follow in my path and graduate to the organ too.

Well, it's his when I die, if he wants it.

Here's the pictures.

Yes, I need to do some more dusting yet(everything shows up on film),

and I own a cat, that just loves to claw at the legs to my organ bench.

The cat has about a year or so left to her life(she's 12 years old),

so when she dies, I will fix the bench legs, and declaw my next cat!

Edited November 14, 2011 by tonyn41

[tonyn41]

Looking at the first picture in my last post:

The angle of the camera seems to make it look

as if the monitor and laptop are way up in the air!

So I took some closer pictures for you,

showing you that both monitor and laptop are not that high up.

As you can see, with showing you my hand reaching to change a stop,

that the monitor is just perfect(for me that is).

Note: if you are just new to reading my thread here,

and are just reading this last post.

I made my own arms to hold my monitor and laptop,

and provide detailed DIYs a few posts back.

My thread reads like a big book, so always check posts back for more(I cover everything).

I hope I provided enough detail for others to be able to easily copy what I am doing,

if they want to.

But my words are only half the story,

my pictures need to be looked at to to tell it all:)

So, join this forum, if you haven't already,

it's free, to view my pictures too.

Also: Post a few coments if nothing to my thread.

Sometimes I feel I am just talking to myself:)

Edited November 14, 2011 by tonyn41

[tonyn41]

Just checking in to let you know I am still here.

This month is December so I am tapped out for spending( even a little for organ parts), because of Christmas,

and my recent SID purchase(read my P.S. below).

So not much I can do right now, except build a core and some DINs I have the parts for laying around,

for my stops/piston part of my midification.

Plus, I do have 2 speaker amp circuits to build.

In the meantime I do have the Organ service manual, and will be going over it to figure out how to finish my stops,

mainly how to midify the activation of the leslie motors( hint: Core+Din/DOUT, and relay circuitry, plus leds, etc.).

I mainly have to see what I removed when I stripped the organ of electronics,

and if the motors are 120vAC or what, and put those circuits back in to the motor control circuit(replacing with new parts of cource).

But I'll take pictures and post when I build anything.

P.S. I also purchased 8x 8580R5 + 1x 6582A SIDs to play with

(the seller even threw in a defective 8580R5 for testing), for a SID synth unit too!

I may also want to wire my organ's rythym section to a seq/synth!

Since SIDs are hard to source now, I figured I would get them first.

So I bought 8 SIDs ( plus a spare 6582A to replace a defective 8580R5 in the future, just in case),

just in case I want to go as far as a MB6582 V2 Synth type unit.

But this set me back $300!

When/if I build seq/synth units, I'll possible start new threads on just those in the Seq/Synth sections.

If I change my mind on the SIDs, I can always resell them here to you.

But, for now, they are mine! :)

Edited December 13, 2011 by tonyn41

[Jay999]

Tonyn, I have found your thread to be wonderful, and encouraging, to an absolute neyophite (like me) in electronics, and computers. Based on this thread, and a lot of other reading I'm doing in wiki, and other (shorter threads), I am getting ready to order my own MIDIbox kits, and take the "plunge".

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences about your project. In this time, so many of us are inclined to "keep things to ourselves", rather than openly share. I, personally, find you to be a first class gentleman for taking us through your pitfalls, and victories.

I hope you don't mind being asked a lot of questons. I'd certainly look forward to you're being here, and helping me when I don't know which way to turn.