[tonyn41]

OK I am going to start the FULL DIY now!
Since I wrote out quite a bit on my last post
(recheck it out, I edited a few times, adding more and more, as I usually do),
I'll just cover a few details in this FULL DIY to break it down a bit more.

So in this first DIY post I'll list the tools needed, and parts to make the arms.
Along with the costs, so you get an idea as to how much it will cost per arm.
Some of you may only want or need one arm for a monitor or laptop.
The arms are identical up to the monitor and laptop mounts, so let's start with the arms first :

Tools:
Drill press with a clamp to hold pipe.
Hand drill to drill holes in organ.
7/16" open end wrench to tighten lag bolts( if you get 2 inch, 1/4 inch lag bolts, the heads use 7/16" wrench).
1/4 " drill bit for the holes through the pipe.
1/8", or 9/64" drill bit for the pilot holes into the wood of the organ(I forgot what I used, but read note below).

Note: Whenever you screw into wood, it is always important to first drill pilot holes, so you do not split the wood,
they make screwing easier, and allow you to aline the pilot holes so that the bolts go in streight.
For pilot hole drill bits, I look at the screw or bolt, and pick a size that is smaller than the inside non threaded part of the screw or bolt,
then go a bit smaller.
You DO NOT WANT YOUR PILOT HOLES TO BE TOO BIG, ELSE YOU WILL NOT HAVE THE THREAD OF THE BOLT BITE INTO THE WOOD,
AND NOW YOU HAVE DESTROYED THE WOOD FOR SCREWING INTO.
You can alwsys start smaller, then go larger if bolt is too tight to turn in.
You are drilling into a fine piece of furniture, and you do not want to detroy it!
There maybe recommended sizes listed somewhere, but this is how I determine the sizes.
Pilot holes are just there to remove a bit of wood so the bolts do not split the wood, etc.
So they need not be that big.
Just make sure the pilot holes are not too big else you will not have a thread in the wood to secure the bolts!

Parts:
2x 2 inch long, 1/4 inch wide lag bolts $0.50 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inchx5inch Galvanized nipple $1.75 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inch Galvanzed Coupling $1.76 (Home Depot)
2x 1/2inchx12inch Galvanized nipples $7.32 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inch black pipe(normally gas pipe) 90 degree elbow $1.37 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inch black pipe(normally gas pipe) 45 degree elbow $1.59 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inchx4inch Galvanized nipple $1.49 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inch black pipe(normally gas pipe) 45 degree street elbow $2.32 (Home Depot)
1x 1/2inch Pipe Flange $5.60 (Home Depot)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total parts cost: $23.70

Lag bolts are found in the hardware section with screws, etc.
The rest are all found in the plumbing Ile, even the black gas pipe fittings.
The galvanized parts are cheaper than the black pipe parts(and look a bit better, I think).
So try to buy as many galvanized parts as possible.
But for some fittings I had to get black gas pipe fittings, since there were non in galvanized.

So for less than $25 each, you have arms!

In my next post I'll post a few pictures of the tools, parts, and touch on the drilling and assembly.
This is pretty much streight forward, so this is not too involved.
But wait until my next post before you drill or assemble the arms,
since there is a sequence in which to drill and screw them together right.

This post has been edited by tonyn41: 31 October 2011 - 21:00

[tonyn41]

Don't worry I'll continue the DIY of my visa arms for my laptop and touch screen monitor .
I just wanted to take a break to think things out a bit before I continue, since I decided,
that while I was at it, and before I ran my cables, that I would upgrade my system to a
USB external sound card!
So right now I am awaiting delivery of that.
Here is the sound blaster I am getting(I am getting a used one for only $40):
http://www.amazon.co...duct/B00030099O
This is an older unit, but it was the one that was reccomended on the miditzer site.
It should be better than the internal sound of the laptop, and offer me 3 channels of audio out.
The idea is to use an external decent sound card that I will either mount inside of the organ, or under the laptop.
Then from the sound card the audio out would go into 3 discrete amps, which would power the 3 huge speakers in the organ.

There are 3 speakers:
One on the left side of the organ, one in the center and the leslie to the right.
According to the organ manual, the original amps had 2x 40w, to power the left and center, and a 1x 25w to power the leslie.
So I wanted to try to match that with either a 3 channel 50w amp, or 3 discrete amps, 50,50,25.
I have been searching all over the place to see about what I could use for amps that would have good sound.
I want class AB amps for low distortion, else it doesn't pay.
Most cheap amps seem to be Class T, which has distortion, etc.
So I keep coming back to these 200w kits:
http://www.electroni...it.A/id.1900/.f
They do offer 50w amps, and 25 w amps, but these have all of the parts available for them including heat sinks, and cost less.
I will need to build 3, one for each channel/speaker
They will cost about $100 per amp to build, but they have EXCELENT SPECS!
They may also be overkill with providing 200w music power per 4 ohm speaker, 100wrms per 4 ohm, and 70wrms per 8 ohm speaker.
My speakers are 8 ohm, so that means I should be able to get up to 70wrms to each speaker.
But the distortion is 0.02% @ 1KHz/10W, and the frequency response is 3Hz to 200KHz (-3dB)!
I will add pots and resisters to adjust and limit the volume so as not to blow my speakers.
But then I have the ability to add more speakers too, and not worry about not having enough power!
The purchase of those amp kits will have to wait until next week.
In the meantime I do have 2 powered computer speakers to use, that can be temporarily set inside of the organ, to have some sound.
Once I have the amps, I will then wire up the leslie motors to work too.

Then it's on to the stops to finish up the organ hardware midifications.
As I stated earlier in this thread, since I have a touch screen, the stop and piston wiring has been delayed until I figure it out completely.
I can still play with using the touch screen!

This post has been edited by tonyn41: 03 November 2011 - 16:14

[tonyn41]

Since I openly advertized the amps that I am going to use, and the supply is low:
I ordered 2 complete kits!
I ordered 2 kits, 2 heat sinks, 2 transformers,2 fuse holders, and 2 22k log pots.
Log(or audio) pots are hard to get ahold, or expensive, so I ordered them right away from the same source(to also cut down on shipping costs).
Then I will add 50k linear pots to the 22k to pots to limit the volume for each amp.
The linear pots and the rest of the hardware to mount and enclose the amps, etc., I can easily get locally.
Total: $232.99 including shipping.
I didn't have enough for 3, besides, there isn't enough heat sinks from them to do 3.
So I may have to buy the assembled one for my third amp.
This is the only USA source for these amp kits I found.
Their supply is low, so I hope when I can order the third one that they still have it.

This post has been edited by tonyn41: 03 November 2011 - 15:34

[tonyn41]

OK back to the DIY of the visa arms.
I posted a picture of the tools I used:
Hand drill, drill press with clamp for pipe, drill bit set,
and 7/16 inch open end wrench to tighten lag bolts.

First you need to open the organ to measure where,
there maybe any internal bolts that go into the side pieces of the organ.
There were no bolts at about 1 inch down
I found one at about 4 inches down.
So my bolts need to be 1 inch down and 3 inches down.
So, from the bottom of the top thread on the 5 inch nipple, I measured down on the pipe 1 inch.
Made a mark for my first hole through pipe, and another at 3 inches down from bottom of thread.
I then put the pipe against a streight edge to make a mark down the length.

Now that I had my marks, I adjusted the drill press pipe clamp so that the drill was centered on pipe.
Drilled my first holes, carefully moved the pipe down the clamp so as not to move it sideways, and drilled my second holes.
These were 1/4 inch holes to allow the 1/4 lag bolts to go through.

Then I alined the pipe to the organ, making sure it was square and plumb with the side piece of organ.
Put the drill bit into the top hole of the pipe to make a mark(just make mark with the bit) on the organ.
Removed the pipe, leveled the drill square and plumb, and drilled the top pilot hole.
First I screwed the top lag bolt through the pipe piece into the organ, tightening it up , making sure pipe was square and plumb.
Second I drilled the bottom pilot hole through the pipe into the organ, making sure the bit was square and plumb as I did so.
Last I screwed the bottom bolt in.
Repeat this for both sides if you want 2 arms.
Now I had my mounts!

The rest is just screwing the pipe pieces together, starting with the coupler on the mount.
Make sure you start on that end.
Tighten the pipe pieces as tight as you can get them and as close as possible to where you want them.
If you tighten them tight enough, backing up on the threads to adjust still leaves some thread and tension to hold the arm in place.
You could use loctite or epoxy on the threads when you are statisfied with the arms to lock them in place once set.
But make sure you do not put anything on the pivot point thread!

To swing arms to the sides to open organ for access(I wanted to be able to do this, to work inside of the organ,
without having to disconnect anything), I just use that elbow as the pivot point and unscrew it a bit to swing the arm.
Note: Let me clarify unscrewing. I do not dissassemble the arm by unscrewing the elbow to swing it.
Swinging the arm screws and unscrews it. So it is a swing arm!
Swinging it does not unscrew it enough for it to come apart either, and it is still solid.
Works well and is stable enough for a laptop or touch screen monitor, even with typing and pressing on screen(they do not move).

All of this for under $25 per arm(go back a couple of posts for the parts list)!

Next post will be on the mount for the touch screen monitor.

Here are some pictures:

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 14 November 2011 - 16:39

[tonyn41]

This post will be on the touch screen visa mount.

Tools:
Skill saw or table saw to cut hardboard pieces.
Hand drill for holes.
1/8 inch drill bit for 4 mm screw holes in hardboard
(I found my screws for my visa mount to be 4 mm, yours maybe different)
1/4 inch drill bit for 1/4 inch bolts
1 inch hole saw bit for spacer holes.
7/16 inch open end wrench to tighen nuts.
Screwdrivers to screw 4 mm screws and 1/4 inch bolts.
C Clamps to clamp hardboard pieces together.

Parts:
4 4mm x 3/4 inch screws( original screws were 1/4 inch, so add 1/2 inch to allow for 2x 1/4 inch hardboard pieces)
4 #8 x 32 washers(I found these to work for 4mm screws, and cheaper than 4mm washers, a specialty item)
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.
2 4 1/4 inch x 4 1/2 inch 1/4 inch thick pieces of hardboard.


Getting the right parts:
First I removed the screws that attached my old visa stand mount to my monitor.
Took those screws to my local True Value hardware store
(I go to True Value, or ACE for specialty parts, Home Depot or Menards for cheaper common bulk parts)
I had them measure and determine that the screws were 4mm, and 1/4 inch long.
Then I bought 4mm 3/4 inch long screws
(1/2 inch longer than the origional screws to compensate for the 2 pieces of 1/4 hardboard).
While I was there I got the 1/4 inch wing nuts, since they were specialty.
The wing nuts cost almost $1.00 each, so those were the expensive parts,
but make for attaching the monitor to the arm easy.
Hardboard and the rest of the hardware can be bought at Home Depot or Menards for cheap.

Making the mounts:
1. Remove pipe flange from arm to use for marking holes in hardboard.
2. I cut 2 pieces of 1/4 inch hardboard to be 4 1/2 inch square(the size of the plate for my old visa mount).
3. I used my old visa mount to get the holes marked for the 4 mm screws onto one piece of hardboard.
4. I centered my pipe flange in the middle of that hardboard piece and got those holes marked for the 1/4 bolts.
5. I clamped the 2 hardboard pieces together.
6. I drilled my 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch holes.
7. I unclamped the hardboard pieces, and used the 1 inch hole saw bit to drill out the 4 1/4 inch pipe flange holes to make them
1 inch wide, using the 1/4 inch holes as guides.

Assembling, in this order:
1. 1/4 inch bolts, to washers, hardboard, washers, lock washers, nuts.

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. 4 mm screws, along with #8 32 washers, through hardboard pieces into monitor.
3. Screw pipe flange back onto arm.
4. Now all you have to do is lift monitor, aline bolt ends onto pipe flange of arm, put a washer on each bolt, and tighen with wing nuts!

As you can see, the 1 inch holes were for the spacers and heads of bolts, and by using 2 pieces of hardboard,
one hardboard piece acts like a spacer for the head of bolt and washer,
so that the mount, mounts flat to the monitor.

I like to use washers for when I put screws/bolts into wood/hardboard,
since they help from screws/bolts coming through(inforces the hole).
Plus, if your holes are off, and you need to ream them out some( larger drill bits to ream holes bigger if holes are off),
the washers cover that.
I use lock washers to not only keep nuts tight, but allow nut to stay in place as you tighten bolts with screwdriver.


All done, that completes the the touch screen mount!
There is room for improvement and cosmetic work yet, but this gets you there for cheap, sturdy, and functional!

Next post will go into detail on the laptop mount.

Here are some pictures:

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 04 November 2011 - 22:55

[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:

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 05 November 2011 - 01:00

[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!

This post has been edited by tonyn41: 14 November 2011 - 15:53

[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!

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 14 November 2011 - 16:20

[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:)

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 14 November 2011 - 17:26

[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!

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This post has been edited by tonyn41: 13 December 2011 - 14:40

[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.