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Documents Ben Heck’s Intel Edison Laser Harp Part 2: Assembly Episode -- Episode 254
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  • Author Author: pchan
  • Date Created: 8 Sep 2016 9:19 PM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 2 Sep 2016 7:24 AM
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Ben Heck’s Intel Edison Laser Harp Part 2: Assembly Episode -- Episode 254

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Inspired by Music Tech Fest in Berlin, The Ben Heck team finishes work on the Intel Edison Laser Harp. Ben and Karen handle all the electromechanical work while Felix, the Linux guy, finishes the coding. Have you ever made an electronic music instrument? Let us know!

Episode 253: Ben Heck’s Intel Edison Laser Harp Part 1: Design

 

The Ben Heck team finishes work on the Intel Edison Laser Harp. Earlier, they got the Intel Edison working with SoundFont: a group of audio samples that can be played back by a MIDI. They also built the top half of the harp which had the laser emitters. They now go to work on the bottom half of the harp which has all the laser detectors and ensure that the 24 emitters on the top of the harp line up with the 24 detectors on the bottom.

 

Ben and Karen handle all the electromechanical work while Felix continues working on the Intel Edison, the audio codec, an amplifier, and managing the voltages. He builds a 24 pin header with ground and a 3V plug for the lasers and 5 V plug for the detector and NOT gate. He also connects all the GPIO of the Intel Edison board to level shifters. The level shifters take 5V from the NOT gate and bring it down to 1.8V for the GPIO of the Intel Edison. The Intel Edison GPIO runs at 1.8V and if they supply more voltage than that they could burn out the pins.

 

The way integrated circuits work is the output is set by the value they put into the integrated circuit supply. As a result, they cannot take 1.8 V from the Intel Edison and use that as voltage supply to do the level shifting. Also, the way level shifters work is if the voltage supply isn’t present the output will be whatever the value of the input is. The solution is to use LM 317, a popular voltage regulator.

 

Felix connects the Intel GPIO to the level shifters and makes three headers for Ben to plug his circuitry into. He attaches two voltage regulators to a protoboard. They both have 5V as the input. One of them is the LM 317 that is going to set 5V down to 1.8 V and the other is the LM 3904 and that is going to set the 5V down to 3.3V. Felix wires up a “for sure” button test to ensure the IO works before connecting the harp.

 

Ben uses a laser cutter to make the pieces for the receiver assembly inside the harp. The receivers are recessed so that indirect ambient light has less affect on them. He glues pieces together to make the basic frame and then inserts the photoreceivers and standoffs. Karen pokes holes in the frame and adds LED indicators to ensure each one of the lights is lined up. There’s an LED indicator for each sensor, so they can test alignment without the entire system running. Once the emitters and receivers are in sync and aligned they glue and screw the entire harp together.

 

Ben wires up the voltage dividers on the light sensors on the cartridge and puts it in the harp. He wires all the photoresistors to four hex inverters for 24 total outputs. He then attaches these outputs to both the LEDs on the harp and then duplicates them into another ribbon cable which plugs into Felix’s Intel Edison board. The Intel Edison goes into a board that all the level shifters and audio drivers. A battery pack is attached to the Edison to keep it booted up while they test other things. The laser harp is attached to the board and the main unit is powered up. 5V goes to the driver board, 3.3 V goes to the laser emitters, and speakers are plugged in. The laser harp is fully assembled, tested, and working.

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 8 years ago in reply to tariq.ahmad

    Ok, No, No... I was not knocking what they did, (somewhat I guess)... The problem is as an Integration Engineer,  all I did was solve other peoples problems. both hardware and software, and the twiddly bits inbetween. My quote "No Intel thingy. No programing" referred to the fact that his harp was over complicated.

    The first rule is:          make it work.

    The second rule is:    make it elegant ie. don't Southern Engineer it; please no duck tape.

    The third rule which is one of my favorites: Do No Harm to the equipment.. That is Don't cut it up. Find the problem, by working the symptom.

    So go back tariq.ahmad  and look at the show 1 more time but now with the commandments in mind.@

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  • tariq.ahmad
    tariq.ahmad over 8 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    Hi phoenixcomm ,

     

    I think I might have come across wrong in my reply to your original comment and if I did then I apologize.  That was not my intention.  With that being said...  I am a huge fan of music and that's why this was one of my favorite my episodes.  The challenge for this episode was to use an intel edison to create a laser harp.  It wasn't to create a perfectly engineered musical instrument as simply as possible.

     

    The idea for the laser harp was inspired by the music tech fest in berlin.   If you haven't seen that then you should check out the following discussion thread I created as it has a bunch of videos from the event:

     

    How Would You Use Technology to Push the Boundaries of Music?

     

    I've never attempted to make a musical instrument even though I'm a big fan of music.   The most I've ever done is take some guitar and piano lessons which I was never able to follow through with to the level of being good at playing either!  I was very interested in hearing about the instruments other people created and seeing all the cool things people did with technology to change the way we experience music!

     

    I admire anyone that's attempted to make their own musical instrument no matter how simple or complex the process was.   I watched the episode and I was very impressed by the job the team did.  It was one of my favorite episodes because the team took on a complex challenge and everyone contributed and did an excellent job explaining what they did.  I learned a lot from the episode and I imagine many people did.

     

    If you were making musical instruments in the seventh grade that's very impressive.  The only thing I took issue with was you appeared to knock someone else's work in the process which in hindsight I should have come up with a way to better express how strongly I disagreed with you!   It was almost like we were watching two different episodes!

     

    Music is something that's best heard or experienced such as in a live event like a concert.  If you feel strongly that you have a talent for making instruments then share it with the rest of us!  As for the Intel Edison Harp...   I'd love to have one of those myself because I was able to see how the instrument was made and I was very impressed by the finished product.  You can see how hard they worked and how well they worked together to put together the final unit so not only did they come up with something very cool, the way they came about making it was very cool as well.

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 8 years ago in reply to tariq.ahmad

    I see this is going to be one of those days. I just don't know how to respond to you.

    If we just take the last two lines: no it's not really courage, it's more like trying to think a problem through, build it and then describe it. (tell the story).

    As I said this could have been done with a few caps, resistors, and transistors, to make RC oscillators. and a second stage to hold the note for decay. And Yes I did it a long time ago! What I was trying to  say was that he overcomplicated his harp! Engineering is not only a science but art as well, in other words, how elegant you can get. I have a seen a lot of things held together with Ducktape and bailing wire.

    Now about Ben's gig, it's ok some of the time, sometimes very cool. And yes he "builds it and then describes it. (tell the story)".

    Now, sir, it's your turn. I did not know that you were the moral compass of E14. BTW I have a blog NexGen here on E14, but I have never seen one of your comments.

    You know if you don't like what or how I say it you can always change the channel.

     

    Cris H. image

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  • tariq.ahmad
    tariq.ahmad over 8 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    I have not seen you posting on here before but I am familiar with your comments on other areas of the website.

     

    Its possible you are either not a fan of the Ben Heck Show or you don't understand what the show is about.

     

    That's fine.  There are other areas of the site or the Internet you may want to explore and leave your feedback.

     

    If you would like to be a part of this discussion then I would suggest you show images or video of a musical instrument you made and share your brand of expertise with the rest of the community.

     

    Let's keep the dialog constructive so everyone can learn from one another and benefit from each other's knowledge.

     

    If you want to share knowledge with the rest of the community, please demonstrate it to us by showing us what you've done.

     

    Make sure you do so in a way that everyone can draw some benefit from. 

     

    It takes courage to show people what you've done. 

     

    Anyone can talk about how great what they're able to do is.

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 8 years ago

    Ben you did it.. on the finger scale of 0 to 5. I gave it a 3 really a 2 but i'm in a good mood. Funny you asked if I ever built a instrument. Yes I did it was a 1 octave electronic organ. Now you have to for give me but, all you needed was some rc time constants,  and oscillator 1 per key. Feed the outputs into a buffer. and then into an amp. done!! fins!! And all the lasers would complete the RC network - Transistor combo. No Intel thingy. No programing.  oh yes by driving a 2nd rc network you could design the hold - or drop off of a key... BTW I did this in the same year Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I was in the 7th grade.

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  • modalpdx
    modalpdx over 8 years ago

    Nice!

     

    Now...a laser guitar! image

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  • makerkaren
    makerkaren over 8 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I can address both of those.

     

    1. We considered whether to make it a diatonic or chromatic scale. We settled on chromatic because one, we could have two octaves totaling 24 notes, which made the NOT gates easier. Also, Ben needed the half step notes to play Jurassic Park. So that settled that.

    2. We originally had the notes play as though the strings were being "plucked", but it kept crashing the Edison in "piano" mode. So Felix switched the notes to play only when the beam was interrupted and that is also why the played mostly the "throw-up" mode, because it crashed less. We definitely preferred the sustain mode better.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 8 years ago

    I love this project and really want to make something like this now.  I have two suggestions, though, that relate to how a traditional harp works:

     

    1. Harps are not tuned chromatically (by half steps), they are tuned diatonically (to the 7 notes of a single key) and have pedals or levers for making half-step changes.  This way they can play in any key, but only one at a time.  This would also give you 3+ octaves instead of 2.

    2. Harps are plucked.  Make the sound start playing when the laser goes from blocked to unblocked, and fade out over time, or stop when the laser is blocked again.  The trick I haven't figured out is how to silence a note with your hand, but then let the harp remain silent when you take your hand away...

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  • DAB
    DAB over 8 years ago

    Great show.

     

    Now that you have the basic setup, you can experiment with different types of sound combinations for an actual performance.

     

    DAB

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  • ravelox
    ravelox over 8 years ago

    Great project and very comforting to see the number of boards that had to be built to produce it.

     

    I toyed with building a midi drum kit as my first Raspberry Pi project with the intention of interfacing it to Logic Pro X but never got around to building the hardware. However, I did write a piece of software to proxy note "events" from something on the Raspberry Pi over a network to music software using the MIDI over RTP standard. A couple of other people have taken the software and implemented it into their own projects successfully.

     

    The code is available at https://github.com/ravelox/pimidi

     

    The relevance to the harp project is that you could network the Edison and send the MIDI events to recording software for editing.

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