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A piano’s internal mechanism for translating a key press into sound is surprisingly complicated. It has to do a lot of things simultaneously and quickly: provide precise control over velocity, ensure the hammer doesn’t press itself against the strings, ensure the hammer rebounds without accidentally hitting the strings, allow for quick, continued strikes of the strings, and dampen the string after the key is released. Not only is that a mouthful to say, it’s a tall order for a mechanical device and took (arguably) around 150 years for the idea to be refined into what most of us would recognize as a piano. But could [dovetail] do it with a 3D printer in a few weeks?
[dovetail]’s design relies on compliant mechanisms, which are solid parts that flex in specific and controlled ways to provide movement. The action took many iterations to make sure that all of the feelings of all the parts of a real piano action were accounted for in this model. Pianos have more than one key, though, so [dovetail] also had to design a modular system to piece all the keys together. The modularity extends to the piano’s electronics as well, with a set of PCBs daisy-chained together, each of which supports a set of keys. This is a hybrid piano, a style with a real action but digital sound production. Using infrared sensors allows the instrument to behave as a MIDI keyboard, but one with the goal of feeling somewhere between a digital piano and a fully analog one.
