Hi, i'm relatively new to arduino but i love it already.
I've read through the solenoid tutorial at the playground, but i'm still not sure what type of solenoid to get. Is there a brand that makes good ones? Or would you suggest making them yourself?
I need a fairly large amount of power, like a 60N solenoid or something. It's for making good audible tics on a metal surface...
To control the solenoid, i'm triggering a relais (by the 5V coming from the arduino) closing a 24 volt circuit, that would drive the solenoid.
I don't have advice on a specific model, but just remember that you can't drive the Realy directly from Arduino, you need a transistor that can handle the current required by the relay.
I agree with Mike. I saw an artproject at the Pixel festival in Bergen (Norway) last year. It was an installation where a number of solenoids was tapping on windows. These solenoids were small, and made quite a lot of noise.
Thanks for sharing your glockenspiel page. I read it word for word and will probably steal ideas for something similar I want to build-- a doorbell that uses windchime tubes struck under Arduino control. By happy chance, I have a local (Austin, Texas, USA) company (http://www.musicofspheres.com/) that is building me a set of anodized aluminum tubes. Listen to samples on their website. They sound beautiful.
But I digress. My original vision was to have servo-mounted hammers strike the tubes, in much the same way that the the "Ruby on Bells" Arduino project did: Ruby on Bells: The Ruby-Powered Musical Glass Playing Machine. What are your thoughts on this technique vs. using solenoids? Your comment about people enjoying watching automated musical instruments got me thinking that the hammer would be more visually satisfying, albeit perhaps more dodgy to maintain and calibrate.
Thanks for sharing that!
Mikal
Incidentally, that plastic-y stuff in the USA is called "plexiglas" and not "pixelglas"
Grumpy_Mike, i know that's alot, but it needs to be really loud - we're planning on putting it up in an old factory with several rooms. My buddy already found a solenoid that was much too weak, so we decided to go all berserk and take the strongest one.
There's still some time before the prototype has to be ready, so we can still try stuff out in the worst case we've got a really strong solenoid waiting to be used for something else...
thanks for the glockenspiel by the way i'll have a look at it...
in the worst case we've got a really strong solenoid waiting to be used for something else...