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Fan Noise Synth

On a recent trip abroad the wife and I ended up taking an overnight trip for two days & nights and needed to drown out some of the noise at the place we were staying. At home we use the Sleepy Noise Machine which actually plays an audio file of a fan running to create some white noise. We don’t travel with the machine though, so my first thought was to use my iPad to play one of those 10 hour long YouTube videos of a fan running…

Problem 1. The hotel said “Free WiFi” which, you know, there was, but it was not actually connected to the Internet. Whoops. Problem 2. I could have tethered my iPad to my phone for Internet access but since we were traveling abroad the slow data rate and roaming data make that a bad idea. So…

I fired up AudioKit Synth One, screwed around with customizing a square wave, set it to hold the note, and pressed a few keys to get a (satisfying?) imitation fan noise, which you can hear in the video below.

I think I’ll probably just load some suitable audio files onto the iPad before the next trip abroad just to be safe, but I was pleased I came up with a solution when needed.

(When playing the video below you might think “That sounds nothing like a fan!” and, it sort of doesn’t, but trust me, in a hotel room where you want to drown out the noise from the next room… it’s close enough!)

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MIDI Controller 4 Button LC

I was contacted by someone who really liked the Four Button MIDI Box I had built but was hoping for a less expensive version, so I built one. The Four Button MIDI Box had some specific design requirements regarding size and power, which made it more expensive, but this version (dubbed “LC” for “Low Cost”) does not have such constraints, uses a different source of power, and different components.

This one actually gets power via Micro USB, so any old cheap phone charger should work just fine. Also, while this specific one only does MIDI out via the 5 Pin DIN port, it is capable of doing MIDI out via USB as well. In fact, it can send different data out of the DIN port and the USB port if desired, which is kind of cool.

I usually start these kinds of projects doing some simple sketches to get an idea of size & scale of things. Once the customer and I agree on things I do a 3D model of the enclosure so it can be 3D printed.

It usually take between two and three prints to get it perfect. Sometimes I just do partial prints of certain parts (like the holes for the jacks) to make sure it’s all good. This time I did the math wrong so I did three prints to get things perfect. (I also printed a spare right away in case it was needed.)

I’m pretty happy about how this one turned out. Leaving a bit more room for wiring inside the enclosure really helps. I also used silicone wiring which is more flexible and easy to shove into place. In fact, I may build another one right away and add it to the shop in case someone else wants one.

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Adafruit NeoTrellis M4 808 Drum Machine

A while back (umm, last year?) old pal Kirby gave me an Adafruit NeoTrellis M4 with Enclosure and Buttons Kit Pack which I believe he got in an Adabox. At the time I was like, “Hey, this is neat!” and put it aside because I was busy with work. Well, I finally found it when I was cleaning the office and decided to dig a little deeper and discovered the demo code it shipped with was already running a minimal drum machine! They had some samples loaded up and it was a super-basic tracker. Fun!

The provided samples were not that great so I grabbed a kick, tom, snare, and hi-hat from the classic Roland TR-808 which, well, you probably know. As for the Adafruit NeoTrellis, it’s is a fun little drum machine! A bit challenging, and definitely minimal, but worth spending some time with. The audio is running out of the NeoTrellis and through a Bastl Dude and filmed/recorded to an iPhone.

Note: I found this guide to Trellis M4 Beat Sequencers which should prove extremely useful! It’s way more capable than I imagined, which shouldn’t be surprising since it’s from Adafruit.

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Parametric Sink Strainer / Sifter

Continuing on the journey of improving my OpenSCAD skills I worked up this parametric sink strainer for the slop sink in our basement. It’s a useful print because sometimes we clean dirty things in the sink (like muddy shoes) and keeping yard waste out of the drain is probably a good idea.

Here’s the sink drain in question. I just measure the diameter and depth of the hole and created a strainer that could fit inside.

It’s not a super snug fit so it’s easy to remove the strainer by just sliding it out when not needed.

You can also make a sifter, which is something I designed and printed before when I needed to sift the rocks out of some concrete.

You can customize the diameter, height, wall and floor thickness, and size and spacing of holes. I didn’t add the capability to switch to round holes versus square holes, but that may be an improvement in the future. There’s also no lip/edge like most strainers have, so maybe that should get added to the list as well. (Or you can check out Customizable Drain Strainer by fardog.)

You can get the .scad file from Printables.com – Parametric Strainer / Sifter. Just open in it OpenSCAD, set the size of things and render your object.

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Fan Shelf Brackets

Once again my fan can sit on the window sill and cool my home office! We got new windows installed this year, and since it was a complete tear-out the new windows have this large lip that prevent you from placing a fan on the sill. 3D printing to the rescue!

Here’s the giant lip, which is about 6mm thick. I guess this is how they make moderns windows… I’m not sure I’m a fan. (Ha Ha.)

Here’s the giant lip, which is about 6mm thick. The bracket has a 6mm slot that fits onto the lip. The bracket also has different heights on each side of the lip to accommodate the different heights of the sill on either side.

I used 1/2″ long #4 screws to secure the brackets to a piece of 1/4″ thick Baltic Birch plywood I have lying around. (The brackets were designed with using that hardware in mind, so the lip on the bracket would be enough to prevent the 1/2″ screws from pocking through.)

Here is shelf. Good shelf. Shelf works. Shelf is removable. The only downside of the shelf is that I do not think it will support our 10 pound cat. And it definitely will not support our 20 pound cat/ Which is a shame. Obviously I’ll need to come up with a solution for those problems.

You can get the STL file from Printables.com – Fan Shelf Bracket, though unless you have the same windows, it’s not going to work. Feel free to use it as inspiration to fit your own windows.