Spent this week largely in the shop, trying to get a prototype for the physical side of my NIME project up and running. After spending half of a day in Home Depot buying all sorts of parts, I think I’ve worked out some sort of shape that’ll work.
This was the initial idea — brass rods cut to length to serve as push-pull points, a big-ass electronic junction box to hold it all, and metal strips to guide the rods’ movement. This was my idea of how it’d look, minus all the electronics and, err, everything else:
I started out bending and cutting some metal strips to serve as frames for the sliders, which was accomplished with the help of an angle grinder and some vices and pliers. Action shot:
Angle grinders are fun! Here’s a close-up (same model as ours, except before someone lost the hand grip).
While working on that, I got the sliders in order and soldered them to a perf board (because they’re too small and awkwardly-shaped to be attached to any structure otherwise).
Then I cut the boards up so I had 8 individually-boarded sliders, and bent the sliders around brass poles to get access to push-pull mechanic.
And to hold everything in proper place, I used epoxy putty on the joint to keep everything in place. That stuff dries quickly, and is SOLID. Thanks Lesley for the suggestion!
So, all things set up, I started testing out the push-pull mechanic. Works quite well, actually!
And finally, all eight sliders in the rough frame:
This is a biiiiig step forward, but I’ve still got a lot to do in the next two days before presenting. Mostly, I have to attach all the sliders — right now, they’re sorta floating in space, and they need to be anchored at the bottom (and ideally, top too). I have to re-attach all the wiring, and I have to work on the travel path of the sliders, because right now they occasionally bonk each other as they move. Hopefully that’s something that I can fix as I attach things better. Oh, and I have to put a final material over it and test it.
Yay/yikes!
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