[sdiy] Reed Switch and Magnet Keyboard

[Glen]

At 10:07 AM 12/10/03 , Scott Stites wrote:

>I recall having a bit of concern that adjacent magnets might trigger adjacent
>switches, also.  In the time since, though, I either dreamed I read or
actually
>read of at least one commercial design that used reed switches for a musical
>keyboard.  

Reed switches are used for the pedalboard contacts of a Rodgers organ.
They've done it this way for many years and it's much more reliable than
the contacts under most organ keyboards. Over the course of several years,
and several Rodgers organs, I think I've only had to replace one such reed
switch. Compare that to the thousands of keyboard contacts I've had to
clean or replace over the same period of time. 

To be fair, most of that keyboard contact cleaning and replacing was on
brands other than Rodgers. Somehow, Rodgers seemed to have much better
luck, even with their J-wire keyboard contacts, than everyone else. The
only thing different about their J-wire keyboards that I know of, is the
fact that they actually use two J-wires for each contact. Maybe that's
their secret to keyboard contact longevity?

As for worrying about magnets accidently tripping adjacent switches, I
would think that would only be a problem if you used a magnet that was too
large or too strong. If I were doing a project like this, I would order a
few different magnets for testing. Only once I had picked out the one that
worked best, would I then order in large quantity.


later,
Glen