Thread: Another haunted organ build

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I promised some pictures of the haunted organ I am building. (Thanks again to MsMeeples for the awesome idea, pictures, and videos of her build).

This is a 1960 ElectroVoice organ. It had been in storage in my neighbors crawlspace for many years and wasn't working right when I powered it up. My neighbor sold it to me for $20 and was hoping I could use it for Halloween. The only stipulation is that I have to make sure her in-laws wouldn't recognize it when I'm done with it! No problem there! I plan to make it look like a pipe organ.




Lots of vacuum tubes in there. A few of them actually say "Made in U.S.S.R".


After the guts have been removed:


I had to remove about about 50 tiny bolts to remove all the electronics from underneath the keys:


Here you can see the plunger-style metal shafts with little red rubber boots. When you press a key, this shaft would push a tiny wire onto a bus bar, completing the circuit for that key. I didn't make those nasty cuts in the plywood. It was actually already like that! I'm not sure if that was done during the original manufacture or if it was done for a repair. It's rather crude and doesn't fit with the rest of the construction.


I originally built a PVC shaft that goes underneath the all the keys and created little PVC ridges using slightly larger PVC that was glued to the shaft. Unfortunately, it did not work. The plungers got stuck when they should have been going back up.


I'm going to change the whole mechanism to look something like this:


I think this will work better. I will have to cut more of the wooden floor away to allow enough room for the bigger cams. Hopefully I will have better luck!

Looking good. Do you plan on adding a cam to the foot pedals also?

On the small metal push rods, could you replace the red rubber boots with a round plastic bead. I think the smooth rounded surface would ride easier along the cams.

Oh great pics X! That looks much more complicated than ours.
I'll have 'the prop builder' of the family take a look at them when he gets home and see if he has any suggestions as well.

MsM

I'm not sure if I'm going to animate the pedals. It's a possiblity. I have lots of projects already, so I'll have to see if I have time to tackle that once I get the basic organ functionality working.

That's a good idea about the plastic beads. I think I'll try that.

Oooh....I'll take the tube power amp, please!

I can't wait to see how this turns out! I vow to make an organ prop one day!!

It's projects like this that make me wish I knew more about mechanics and electronics... that is going to be so cool once you get it all working!

Hey X.....hubby is looking at your pics now and said he originally built a cam similiar to what you are going to try. Getting them the right size and to line up with the keys was a problem so he ended up switching over to the pvc pipe with the screws in it. Anyway, something to consider when you make you cam shaft.

MsM

Hey X, just came up with an awesome idea. Instead of using a cam to work the keys, what if you were to connect the metal rods to small electronic pull solenoids an wire them to the Insteon I/O Lincs. Then use your LightShowMaster software to control the solenoids causing the keys to press. Not only would it work, but you could actually program the correct keys to play with the music that was playing. Now that would be a wild prop!

Yes, that would be cool, but it would also be pretty expensive. The IOLincs are not cheap. They are $45 and only have 1 output each. I would need one for each solenoid. That would really be cost prohibitive.

Hey, you did just give me an interesting idea, though. What if I attached some solenoids (looks like I can get them for about $0.99 each) to the keys, and then wired the solenoids to a bank of momentary push micro switches (or make my own). Then I would have a slowly turning drum with pins on it. The pins would push the microswitches causing the solenoids to pull. Dang, that would be cool! It's sort of like electronic and mechanical at the same time!

Edit: Shoot... the solenoids I was just looking at are too big and more than what I would need. They have a pull of 3.7 lbs! Powerful 12VDC to 24VDC Spring Return Solenoid-The Electronic Goldmine I need to find something different. I don't know if I'll go this route, but it might be neat to experiment with.