Mechatronic Music

Redefining the electronic keyboard with an FPGA and $1500 worth of servo hardware. More of an elaborate joke than a project but worth sharing.

 

About

The Yaskawa servo system that I have been performing one axis motion control with has a habit of resonating when stopped suddenly. As a joke, one of my coworkers linked me to a page called Physics of Music which lists the frequencies in Hz of particular notes. The video above is the result of about 15 minutes of coding and is one sweet rebuttal. I have redefined the electronic keyboard.

Make a request in the YouTube comments.

Considerations

The musical note heard is a result of switching the direction of the servo at a particular frequency. While commanding a servo to change directions 200 times a second may make a pleasant noise it also produces allot of heat and pulls allot of current (since the servo does have mass). By lowering the servo speed, the amplitude of the note is lessened but so it the power requirement.