I ordered a male/female pair of mini-DIN plugs, to make it easier to separate the pedalboard from the console.  These arrived today, and I’ll do some soldering tomorrow.  Watch this space.

Last week, I also bought a box of 3 1/2″ wood screws, to screw down the manuals.  Only, I can’t find it anywhere.  I feel that it may have inadvertently slipped through a rip in the space/time continuum, and is now sitting unloved on someone’s garage shelf in Guatemala.  I’m really quite cross.  There are only limited places where I could put a box of wood screws, and it isn’t in any of them.  Out of an abundance of caution I’ve also checked the fridge, and it’s not there either.

Grr.

Never mind busy, it’s just been far too hot to slave away over the pedalboard.  There has been some progress, however.  I have now completed the testing (and relocation where necessary) of the neodymium magnets.  As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, I’m not absolutely happy with all of them, but I need to actually use the pedalboard before I make any further adjustments.  Here is a progress photo.

You can see that the magnets are not linear.  This offends my sense of aesthetics, but I will just have to live with it.

I am currently looking for a 4-wire connector that I can insert into the long MIDI cable – as it is, both ends of it are rather inaccessible, and there is the risk of damage if the pedalboard is separated from the console.  Problem is, I can’t quite describe what it is I’m looking for, so I don’t know how to buy it from an internet shop.  “4-wire connector” is apparently not descriptive enough.  What I want is a… thing… that, you know, does… stuff.

Work has taken up much of my time this week, and there doesn’t look to be much improvement until the end of July at the earliest.  So the delay in starting work on the kneeboard, toe-pistons and expression pedals caused by various experts going on holiday is not actually going to inconvenience me.  This week I have continued work on the reed switches.  I have mounted all three banks of switches, and adjusted the magnet distance on the central bank.  Most were fine, but a couple needed raising by 2mm (four washers), and a couple more needed the magnet relocating  I’ll work on the remainder this week, if I get time.

I’ve no doubt that once I start using the pedals properly I will find a few which need additional fine tuning, but I’m happy with how things are going so far.

Where does the time go?

Last week I was mostly preoccupied by aligning the reed switches to the magnets.  There is still more work to do on this.  The challenge is getting all the magnets the correct distance from their switch.  I am waiting for some nylon washers to arrive, which will allow me to raise individual magnets by 0.5mm at a time until I get the correct distance, but I suspect that one or two of the pedals will need a fraction shaving off the end to increase the distance when in the ‘off’ position.  Hysteresis is a harsh mistress.

Expecting the toe pistons to arrive next week, but there is quite a bit of cabinetry to be done on the kneeboard, to make them fit.  This will probably turn out to be the most complex part of the build.  Fortunately I have expert help.

Normal service should resume next month.  Pedal reed switches have arrived, and now I need to think about how to attch them to the pedalboard frame.

I have been introduced to draw.io.  I am hooked.

My stand-offs have arrived, and also the wrong screws (wanted M3, but seem to have ordered M2 for no discernable reason).  To pass the time, I ordered the pedalboard reed switches and MIDI interface.  That’s another £115.

I have a bit more free time next week, so I do hope I will be able to spend some of it on the project.  I want to get cracking with the piston interface, but I need to get the MIDI modules secured first.

Not much free time this weekend, but there’s not a lot I can do with the organ at the moment either.  I am waiting for some nylon stand-offs to arrive (around Wednesday, I estimate) so that I can affix the various MIDI components to the console.  Once that is done, I will begin the laborious  process of connecting up the pistons.  The MIDI channels I will be using are:

1: Great
2: Swell
3: Choir
4: Pedal
5: Pistons (thumb and toe)
6: Tabs
7: Control

…although this scheme is subject to alteration approximately as and when I feel like it.  I also have to read the documentation to see if the toe pistions go through the pedal controller.  I know the expression pedals do.  I would prefer all the pistons to go through a single controller and on a single channel, but I’m not wedded to the idea.

Meanwhile, this evening I indulged in a little creative destruction.  The pedalboard contacts are a mixture of 3-wire and 4-wire contacts, and are badly damaged.  Those which are not damaged are corroded:

Given a choice of cleaning the corroded contacts and replacing the damaged ones, or swapping the whole lot out for reed switches, the choice of the latter was the obvious one.  Reed switches, which are controlled by proximity magnets, are a bit fiddly to set up initially, but once installed are far more reliable and need no maintenance.  So this evening I removed the old contact assemblies.  Here is the denuded pedalboard, just needing a bit of a brush down.  You can clearly see where the contacts were secured.

I have two new strips of pedal felt, but on closer inspection of the business end of the pedals it would appear that the existing felt is in fairly good condition, and not significantly compacted.  Still debating whether or not to replace it.

For now, I believe it is time for tea.