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The PlanxTone aka The Polyphonic Plank

Narrative
This was created to demonstrate a range of techniques. The capacitive sensing has been set to detect fingers a range of 2cm above the keys. Essentially a contact-less keyboard.. The keys are made from strips of printed circuit board, polished and then varnished along with the wood. Function changing is achieved using rotary switches. These are wired to give either a binary output, or use an analogue restive network. The keys have been angled purely for artistic merit so as to distinguish this device from a conventional keyboard.
The Polyphonic Plank being played by a visitor during a Sound Bytes presentation at a National Museum of Computing "Bytes Festival" in 2019


Components Description / Hardware Functional Areas
Bare Conductive Board

Bare Conductive

  • This is a multifunction board that combines.
  • Sound file playing (MP3 or MIDI)
  • Capacitive Sensors
  • On board processor (Leonardo eqv of an Arduino).
  • Can be power by LIPO battery or external regulated 5v supply.
Sound creation
  • Flute, Piano, Guitar
  • Drum
  • 3.5mm and 1/4in stereo jack sockets
  • Octave shifter
  • Key shifter: C, G, D and F majors
  • MIDI synthesis.
  • Planxtone Code V06c
Rear of planxtone. The strips of PCB are wired back to he capacitive inputs on the Bare Conductive processor board. After some prior experiment it was found running the connecting wires close together via the square conduit did not cause any "cross-talk". Planxtone_Rear
Processor plus function selection switches and wiring.The bottom switch uses a resistive ladder network via the A0 analogue pin. The other two rotary switches are wired to pins 4,5,6 and 7 giving 00, 01, 10, 11 binary selections. Wiring
Proximity sensors wired in. Procimity senors / PCB slices wired in

Controls Wired In

Note the use of one rotary switches usung a resitive ladder and two using a simple binary output.

Controls Wired In
Finished PlanxTone
Control Panel Added Control Pannel Added
Done Done
And some more And Some More
Plank varnished, fitting PCB slices, i.e. proximity contacts Adding Proximity Contacts
Gluing Gluing

Checking the fitting of PCB slices

Checking Fitting of Proximity Slices
Control Switch Cut Outs Control Switch Cut Outs
Slots Cut In Plank Cutting Slots
12 Slices of PCB 12 Slices of PCB
Plank and Blank PCB Plank and Blank PCB
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