The MIDI Laser Piano

So back in 2015, I played about with cymatics (a way of mixing physics and music through visualization). The results were great, but it didn't really impress a crowd, my setup was far from perfect. Disgruntled by this, I set out to design a completely new device that visualized music and looked impressive to a viewer. Something I could show to a crowd.

And so I present to you, the Laser Piano™. The Laser Piano is a device I have came up with that is simply a bank of 88 lasers connected to an Arduino connected to a computer. Since there are 88 keys on a standard keyboard/piano, there is one laser for each MIDI note. I have programmed the device so that a user can play a MIDI keyboard and the note pattern will be reproduced in the lasers. However, the real show starts when you play a full MIDI song file from the computer (especially one of those impossible Synthesia songs that have hundreds of note changes a second!)

To top it all off, when the device is used in a dark room, the smoke machine I have built (see previous post) can be used to make the entire beam of all 88 laser clearly visible. This system coupled up with some catchy, well known and out right fast MIDI tunes through a 5.1 surround sound speaker system and a crowd makes for a prismatic overture!

I started this at the end of 2016 and have only just finished it (this summer literally has been just me finishing old projects xD) At the end of the day, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It works, looks amazing and is something I cant wait to show anyone who visits the lab, especially people who like music. And of course, I designed this myself and as far as I'm aware, there is nothing else like it out there making this one of the few projects completely devised by me, and not something I've recreated which makes me quite proud of it.

In this youtube video, I showcase the hardware of the system, how it works, and how I got the idea to make it as well as some demo footage of it working. In later videos, I will post entire songs played through it with proper sound editing and better lighting. If anyone has a song they would like to see played through it (or a MIDI file), just write a comment and I will be sure to make it happen. 

The electronics behind this project is simple. The difficult part was that every component had to be glued and soldered 88 times, once for each laser! This took a long time but the main damage was not to my sanity, but to my wire supply. Hopefully the pictures illustrate just how much wire was required.

Testing the shift register library:

Here is how far I got in 2016 when I started the project before I ran out of lasers.

And here is it finished before the wires were tidied up:

A little bit of hot glue and cable ties were required for cable management.

For now, enjoy the video and stay tuned for at least 10 videos showing at least 10 songs being played through the Laser Piano. These should be released in a few week time.

I Built A Smoke Machine

Ok, so it certainly wasn't on my list of projects to do, but I needed a way to make lasers look even cooler, and smoke was the answer. But instead of buying one, I did what any good engineer should do and built my own; the perfect and FREE solution to my problem.

Now its nothing special on its own, it doesn't produce a jet of smoke its more passive. It slowly fills a room with a haze which makes it easy to clearly see the whole beam of a laser when its shone across the length of the lab.

Now to address the elephant in the room. The lasers I'm talking about are a part of a project I started at the end of 2016 but, as usual, never got round to finishing. (There's definitely a pattern going on here isn't there?)

I'm not going into details as to what is is, that's the subject of my next post. But it is essentially a way to visualize music by tying each of the standard 88 MIDI notes to a laser and playing a song through it for an awesome light show!

The smoke machine works by heating up a heating element (Nichrome wire, if you look far back enough in this blog there is a very old video of me messing about with some) to essentially evaporate the same liquid they use in electronic cigarettes, vegetable glycerin. This is then sucked out and diffused through the room using a fan and pipe system. The construction pictures below describe it better then text can.

The vegetable glycerin isn't suppose to look black and gooey I assure you! The system got too hot and some of the hose melted down into it and made the chamber look horrid. Its perfectly safe to breath in don't worry.

And here is my large tub of pharmaceutical grade vegetable glycerin which should last me a lifetime.

Again, the youtube video explains all the details and shows what the lab looks like full of smoke,so go watch that here. The purpose of the blog is really for behind the scenes and construction pictures, not technical explanations.

The Farnsworth Fusor

A long time ago, when the pyramids were still young...

(2013)

I started a project called a fusor, a type of proof of concept fusion reactor that you could actually build at home for cheap. Don't believe me? Check out the original blog I made about the project (originally made before this blog existed) - http://myfusorproject.blogspot.com/

Long story short, I never finished it because the vacuum pump was not powerful enough and I didn't really have the funding to buy a bigger one after I had just invested in one already. Only now, 5 years later did I have the time, money and facilities of the lab to finally finish it.

There is a lot of information regarding this project that I'm not going to repeat. To get it, firstly read the old blog posted above, there are only about 6 posts in it. Then watch the video I have made showcasing it:

The video above will explain what a Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks Fusor is, how it works and tons of footage of it in operation. It produces an amazing blue/purple visual effect, similar to a tesla coil so its worth a watch just for that.

Here are some construction pictures that I have taken over the past few months as I've overhauled and finally finished the project.

The first job was replacing the rubber sheet under the chamber with a metal plate that I machined and filed to prevent it damaging the air hose from the pump.

Here is an early attempt at making an air tight seal. Needless to say it would take many many more iterations before I found a method that worked!

Here are a bunch of pictures showing all the pieces coming together. I modified the pump so it could be secured to the top of the fusor, built the diodes array, mounted the high voltage microwave over transformer into the box and soldered everything to the control and monitoring circuits.

And here is the finished product complete with the new and powerful vacuum pump. Its great to see it finally finished after 5 years!

                            

And of course, here are some shots of it running. Keep in mind the pictures turned out REALLY BAD, it looks much better on video so go check out the video which I linked in the paragraph above!!

 

In the next post, I will be showcasing a smoke machine I built for my MIDI laser project which you will see in the post after that.