Planet Arduino

Electric guitars use pickups to sense string vibrations and make music. While a wide variety are available for purchase, what if you would like to make your own custom device for audio experimentation? In the video below, Ezra Spencer from the Mixed Signal shows how to do just that by automatically winding a pickup coil with an Arduino Uno, a CNC shield, and a pair of stepper motors.

Here, the winding-in-progress is mounted on one of the steppers, which spins in the neighborhood of 10,000 times to create a spool of pickup wire. Meanwhile, the carriage is moved left and right by the other stepper to produce an even wire distribution. If all goes well, after 20 minutes or so you can return to find your new pickup assembly, wound and ready for further exploration!

What can you do with ferromagnetic PLA? [TheMixedSignal] used it to give new meaning to the term ‘musicians’ gear’. He’s made a proof of concept for a DIY tone generator, which is the same revolutionary system that made the Hammond organ sing.

Whereas the Hammond has one tonewheel per note, this project uses an Arduino to drive a stepper at varying speeds to produce different notes. Like we said, it’s a proof of concept. [TheMixedSignal] is proving that tonewheels can be printed, pickups can be wound at home, and together they will produce audible frequencies. The principle is otherwise the same — the protruding teeth of the gear induce changes in the magnetic field of the pickup.

[TheMixedSignal] fully intends to expand on this project by adding more tone wheels, trying different gear profiles, and replacing the stepper with a brushless motor. We can’t wait to hear him play “Karn Evil 9”. In the meantime, put on those cans and check out the demo/build video after the break.

We don’t have to tell you how great Hammond organs are for making music. But did you know they can also encode secret messages?

Via the Arduino blog.