Hello, I am working on an end-of-year project and I am going to make an automatic playing guitar. now I want to push the strings using a solenoid. I have now discovered that a normal Arduino Uno/Mega does not meet the requirements to move a solenoid. Do you perhaps know what I need to do/buy to make a solenoid move automatically? By the way, it concerns 60 solenoides that I want to be able to operate simultaneously. If you know of another microcontroller that has been specifically built for this purpose, please let us know.
Thank you in advance.
It depends on the specs of your solenoids. How much current do they draw. How much voltage is required? Share a link to the specs...
You need to supply the actual specifications for your solenoids. What speed of movement, both directions, do you require?
Here is a motor/solenoid driver circuit.
serial addressing to address/control an almost unlimited number of outputs (i.e. solenoids or LEDs, etc.).
That's going to take a ship-load of power... More power than a guitar amp... But no guitar player has 60 fingers. 
This isn't real, but have you ever seen Animusic?
No, but they can move their arm up and down the neck.
Maybe an array of solenoids that would cover the practical reach of a player's fingers, mounted on a linear rail driven by a servo to change position?
But then they would also have to vary their spacing to account for wider or narrower frets.
You said "simultaneously". I'm not questioning the number of solenoids.
I would recommend trying one solenoid (without the Arduino) first. It takes quite a bit of pressure to fret a string.
@pieter12
You have less than two months to the end of the year…
You have a complex mechanical build ahead, then to develop the software.
I hope your team are ready for some hard work and late nights !
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I didn't say it, but, yeah, that makes a difference.
That tells us you want operate them all under some condition!
Why is it that beginners always pick very difficult projects and think they are going to be easy, or indeed possible?
Why 60?.
Last time I looked a guitar has 6 or 12 strings. How are you physically going to fit them on a guitar?
Are you using an existing guitar or are you going to make one yourself?
Wishful thinking, but such a processor would have very little market wouldn't it? All processors are designed to be able to do a whole number of tasks.
As my metal work teacher at school said back in the mid 1960s. If you can't draw it you can't make it.
Are you suggesting a solenoid because you can't think of another way to pluck a string? Many years ago I made an automatic lute harp player with motors designed for controlling CD ROM head movement. This is a video of when I was half way through the construction.
Other ways of plucking strings is to have an ordinary small DC motor spinning rapidly with a piece of 0.4mm thick plastic glued to the end mounted over the string.
Personally I think you have bitten off more than you can chew.
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