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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think that a motor designed specifically for
variable speed would be a better choice than a fan motor. A sewing
machine motor and control would be a good choice. Hmmm. How about an old blender
motor with 8 push buttons? You need a series wound motor. AC only motors
require VFO (variable frequency oscillator) to change the speed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Take care,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>John</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=Robotboy8@aol.com
href="mailto:Robotboy8@aol.com">Robotboy8@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=synth-diy@dropmix.xs4all.nl
href="mailto:synth-diy@dropmix.xs4all.nl">synth-diy@dropmix.xs4all.nl</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, May 27, 2004 8:50
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [sdiy] Tonewheel questions</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2
FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">I'm thinking of building a vastly simplified
tonewheel organ. What I'm looking at doing is a fan motor running off of
wall-current with a dimmer (the kind used on house lights) to vary the speed
of the motor (overall pitch), this motor being connected to a shaft with 5 (or
howeverman) wheels. My questions are as follows:<BR>1) Will the fan
assembly work? I know some fans don't 'like' lower currents than they're
used to seeing, what sort are these?<BR>2) Anything I should know about these
dimmers beforehand?<BR>3) How many wheels is it reasonable to have on the
shaft? (As I said, I'm thinking five, but could be swayed in either
direction).<BR>4) It's mainly for drones, so a dimmer as pitch control isn't a
problem and no EG's shouldn't be a problem, but what about output level?
What should the line-out level be? And howsabout a 'to modular out'
level?<BR>5) What's the cheapest sort of inductors to use? I don't like
the sound of guitar pickups, they end up as a little more expensive than I'd
like to use. I would like to have separate ones for each wheel so I can
use pots as 'drawbars'.<BR>6) Unrelated, but I have a keyboard labeled
GC-7A. It has no maker label on it, and basically outputs a square wave
with pitch determined by key being pressed. Ugly sound. It has two
'timbre' controls that change the sound - one seems to add tremolo, the other
something I can't quite identify. It has an output labeled 'karaoke' but
no line out, which shares some solder with the 9v in (I run it from
batteries). I'm thinking I may circuitbend it, but I can find no info
whatsoever on it. Anyone have any clue? Oh, and it plays a wide
selection of obnoxious Christmas melodies.<BR>(I got it for 2.50 USD from the
thrift store. Maybe if I didn't blow all my money on crap like that I
could afford the 100 dollar organ they have, unlabeled maker but it has enough
stops that it looks like fun).<BR>Any help much
appreciated.<BR> -eric</FONT>
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