Come on, Build Your Own Electronics Piano!

Human beings have been creating musical instruments and music from a very early age, enjoying the happiness brought by music.

So far, there are countless wonderful musical instruments in the world. Even a cup or a bowl can become an ‘instrument’ and participate in music production. After months of designing, debugging, and producing this product, we are able to launch it and we really hope you’ll like it.

It contains 8 sound effects-

piano,

guitar, music box, bell, mandolin, trumpet, violin and organ, among which piano is the default sound effect.

It also contains 4 kinds of percussion instrument sound effects-bass drum, snare drum, pedal and cymbal.

When you finish the whole project, you can play or record tunes. You will learn useful knowledge and skills with our piano kit and lay a good foundation for further study. Please carefully follow the instructions to solder it and hope you will enjoy a satisfying project.

Tools You Might Need:

• Soldering iron (recommend it has 40-60 Watts, around 350 ℃/662℉with 1-2 seconds soldering time)

• Some solder wire (recommend lead- free solder with flux, diameter: 0.8mm)

• Tweezers

• Crossed Screwdriver

• Needle-Nose Pliers; Diagonal or Flush Cut Pliers (optional)

• Rosin / Sponge Pad (optional)

To prepare for soldering, check the list of products in the paper instruction with the components you got to see if there are any missing parts.

• Please note that the IC1 and IC2 have been soldered on the circuit board before leaving the factory for your convenience.
• Try not to touch the chip directly with your hands to prevent static electricity from destroying the chip careless.
• Please note that having good solder joints is very basic and important part. Here is a picture for your easy reference at below,

If you are a really new starter on the electronics, you may get solder joints problems at first time, it is ok, please don’t worry, no one could be perfect at first time. But if you learn and practice the skills more and more, you will do a good job!

Let us start to assemble it!

We recommend that assemble the components from the lower components to higher ones. Everyone has his/her own soldering habits so it’s okay when you change some orders of the steps.

For avoiding electrostatic damage on components especially the IC chips, you could do something such as wear anti-static gloves, wash hands, touch metal objects on a large area to discharge static electricity, ect.

Soldering and Installation Steps

• Install the Circuit

1. We’ll start it with the resistors R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8 and R9. They could be identified by referring to resistor color code, or use a multimeter to identify them. It’s a little bit difficult to find the R9, it’s between on the SW19 and SW20.

2. Solder the tantalum capacitor C1 (474PF), ceramic capacitor C2 (224PF), C3 (104PF). They all don't have polarity.

3. Solder the diode D2(1N4148).

· Please note the black side of it corresponds to install to the side with white rectangle on D2 position on the PCB board. Refer to the picture at below,

4.Soldering the red LED.

· It also has polarity. Please pay attention to the positive and negative direction of it.

· The short leg of the LED is the cathode/negative pin and corresponds to the flat side of the outline on the PCB and the marked is ‘-‘, The long leg of the LED is the anode/positive pin and corresponds to the round side of the outline on the PCB and the marked is ‘+’.

5. Then let’s solder the electrolytic capacitor E-1 (4.7uF/10v).

· Pay close attention to the capacitor’s direction.

· The long pin is the anode/positive pin which goes in the hole marked “+” and insert the short pin into the negative hole marked “-“

6. Install the self-switch K1.

· Check the bottom of the switch, you'll see there is a gap under it. And here's a small white rectangle symbol on the PCB, too.

· Please make the notched side of the switch corresponds to the white square on the PCB.

7. Now we’re going to assemble the keys/buttons.

· There are 15 white keys should be soldered in the first row (SW1-SW15), which for playing music. The 12 black keys should be soldered in the second row (SW16-SW27). The other 12 red keys just near the center of the board (SW28-SW39).

· One tip about how to install the keys:

place the keys horizontally so that the 4 pins are parallel to the board, then press it into the hole horizontally, if you don't place the keys horizontally, the pins may be broken during powerful pressing. When you hear a sound of 'KA/DA', the button has been fixed into the hole tightly. Even before soldering, there is no loose trace, which is convenient for soldering. After soldering, the buttons are flat when you playing the piano. Please be careful do not miss or false solder.

· Refer to the picture at below, you will see we marked the number notation for each white key.

8. Install the speaker.

· Turn to the back of the board, let's install the speaker. We need to use the wires to connect it with board.

· Soldering the wires (yellow) onto the speaker firstly, then add some solder tin on the SP1 and SP2 separately. That is more easily to solder the wires on the pads of the board. No polarity because of one speaker.

· Use 3 round head screws and 3 metal pieces to fix the speaker as figure 8-1 shows at below.

9. Install the battery case.

· Before you install the battery case, please check all the soldering joints are well soldered, because the battery case will cover a part of them.

· The red wire of battery case should go to the pad with ‘+’, the black wire of it should go to the pad with ‘-’. Organize the wires then fix the battery case by using the flat head screws and nuts onto the board.

· The two white cylinders are for increasing the distance between the battery case and the board. Not use them would be okay.

1. Install the legs of the ‘piano’

· Use the round head screws to fix the black plastic hexagonal tubes on the board which marked T1, T2 and T3.

· Put the whole kit on the desk, a beautiful piano shaped project just showing up.

Congratulations！You have done the piano kit if you follow the steps here, and can't wait to play! Let's see how the keys work!

Key Instructions

After the soldering part is completed, put 3 AA batteries (4.5V) into the battery case, power it up with press the switch, the red LED will light up and ready for you.

Refer to the following brief instruction of function keys at first.

• 1. The SW1-SW15 keys are melody keys, SW8 is Middle C, which is the pronunciation of the midrange 1 of the piano keys. SW1-SW7 is the bass zone and SW8-SW15 is the middle range in the piano keys.
• 2. SW16-SW21 are independent keys can compose music composed of four instruments. (SW17 bass drum, SW18 snare drum, SW19 pedal, SW20 cymbal.) SW16 is responsible for adjusting the rhythm of SW17-SW20. Press SW21 can program the rhythm of SW17-SW20.
• 3. SW22-SW25 are independent demo function keys, SW23 and SW25 are adjust the speed of playing the tune slow or fast. Press SW22 to play all songs, and press SW24 to play next one.
• 4. SW26-SW27 are buttons for sound level, SW26 is to increase the volume, and SW27 is to decrease the volume.
• 5. SW32-SW39 is the piano sound effect selection: SW39 (piano), SW38 (pipe organ), SW37 (violin), SW36 (trumpet), SW35 (mandolin), SW34 (bell) SW33 (music box), SW32 (guitar).
• 6. SW28 is the stop key. Play this button to stop during playback.
• 7. SW29 is the mode of playing along with the song. Each key of SW1-SW15 has 'hid' a song and music. You can press the SW29 key once, and then press any key of SW1-SW15 at will. The key you press for the first time means that you select the music in the key. Each time you press it, a note of the song will be output, and then you can press the key continuously until the song is completed!
• 8. SW31 is the recording button. After press it, press any of SW32-SW39 or not, then press SW1-SW15, you can record the sound of piano or other instruments at will.
• 9. SW30 is the play button. Press this button to listen music after programming and recording! Enjoy!
• 10. If you leave the piano along with it is powered on for 3 minutes, it will ring a cheerful tune to remind you that it is still working. Keep playing or press the K1 again to save battery power.

l Give It a Simple First Try:

Press one or several white keys (SW1-SW15) to feel the melody. It is piano keys as default when power the kit.

Try to press and choose musical instrument keys (SW32-SE39) to change the sound effect. Meanwhile, you could press the SW26 or SW27 to up or down the volume; Press the rhythm keys (SW17-SW20) to add some rhythm.

l Recording Melody:

Press "RECORD" SW31, sequence of melody on the white keys, then "REPLAY" SW30 to hear it back. The sequence of the pressing could up to 35 units. If you want to record other instruments, just choose it before pressed the ‘Record’ key.

When you replay what your record, you also could press the rhythm keys or change the types of the musical instruments.

l Recording Rhythm:

There is a basic rhythm sequencer ("SWITCH" SW16 key accesses a second layer of rhythm instruments on SW17-SW20). You can record rhythm/drum loops by pressing "PROGRAM" SW21, then the sequence of hits (using SWITCH to access the second set of drums), up to 48 hits. This will play in a loop when you press "REPLAY" SW30, and you can play a melody concurrently on the white keys, you could also choose different sound effect of musical instruments, too. Stop the recorded rhythm by pressing the ‘STOP’ key.

l One Key/One Note (OK/ON):

There are series of many tunes that play one note per white keypress (any white key will do). Press the "OK/ON" SW29 one or more times, and select the tune by pressing one of the white keys.

l Add Your Rhythm for the Demo Tunes:

This is a very relaxing part. Press the demo SW22, the demo tunes are very light, fast speed and sounds happy, you could add your own rhythm for them by pressing SW16-SW20. SW24 is for exchanging the next one, SW23 and SW25 are for adjusting the speed of it.

At last, we would like to attach 3 pieces of music number notation for your easy start.

If you like it, please don't hesitate to give me a thumps up, comments or share it, that would be a great helpful and encouragement! Thanks ahead! :-)

Check the link of it at Amazon, VOGURTIME DIY Piano Kit

Have and build it on your own! Then have a great time with your family and friends!!!

Thank you for reading!