I've made two of these in my career. One was in Rawlins, WY and the other in Lake Osweo, OR. ........ a suburb of Portland. I had to make the power supply for the Pianocorder solenoid in Wyoming (many years ago) and the other was the PianoDisc power supply, pedal control circuit board and solenoid. In both cases I used the mercury switch found in a silent light switch. They don't make them that way anymore but any organ tech that has some junk laying around might have one from a Lowrey organ. HP made a thermostat that had them in it as well. Most older thermostats probably have one. The pedal control circuit board is no longer made. The circuit I made in Wyoming was crude but effective. A huge capacitor was needed to overcome inertia. It gave the solenoid the kick it needed to get moving. I mounted the switch on a plastic hair band wrapped with yarn to hold it in place. The wires had a disconnect at the piano's keybed. In both cases the piano player was unable to bodily control anything from about mid-chest on down. They both adapted to the device quite readily. Tipping the head to activate the pedal became a natural looking movement for the last one in just a matter of a minute or so of play. The solenoid was mounted very much like a PianoDisc installation only I added a bar of metal to extend the existing pedal mechanism on the piano. I have a few pix of this to share for those who wish to see. My website is under destruction at the moment so I guess email is the best way to handle this. Larry Fisher RPT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091005/3c7d6a13/attachment.htm>
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