Author Topic: organ keyboard reed switches  (Read 2600 times)

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Offline minibutmanyTopic starter

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organ keyboard reed switches
« on: July 23, 2014, 05:17:17 pm »
Lately I have been working on a pipe organ project and right now i'm trying to get the keyboard to work a bit better. I was thinking I would replace the mechanical switches with reed switches so that it wouldn't have that "click" when you push the key down. I Don't know much about reed switches and I was wondering if I would even be able to use them in such close proximity of each other, about a 1/2 inch apart. My fear is that when the magnet comes down to the switch it will trip the other switches around it. Will this be a problem and is there anything I should look for on the data sheet? Thanks.
 

Offline Richard Crowley

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Re: organ keyboard reed switches
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2014, 05:27:29 pm »
Are you sure you want to remove the tactile "feel"?  One of the great disadvantages of electro-pneumatic pipe organs is that they remove all the "feel" from the keyboard.  And it ends up feeling like pushing an electric doorbell button.
That is why people still make "tracker" organs with hard mechanical linkage between the key and the "pallate" valve. Here are photos I took at the Rieger Orgelbau factory in Bregenz, Austria...

 
 

Offline minibutmanyTopic starter

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Re: organ keyboard reed switches
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2014, 05:34:27 pm »
The tactile feel I was getting from these switches was nothing like a tracker organ. I have considered doing a complete tracker overhaul of the project, when I started this two years ago my woodworking skills weren't really up to the task of completely mechanical. I have never played an electric organ that felt anything like a tracker so I don't really see how I could come close to replicating that. The main advantage to the reed switch is that the pipe can start to play before the key is all the way down, then I could use some felt pads as a depth stop.
 


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