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Registered Member #61695
Joined: Sun Jul 16 2017, 11:22PM
Location:
Posts: 31
Hi everyone, new here.
A recent project of mine is a musical neon oscillator circuit. I got the idea from a very old electronics magazine which someone put online. It is made from small neon bulbs, capacitors and resistors, and the output then goes to an amplifier. There are no microcontrollers, transistors or diodes in it! The original circuit diagram had a 90v battery, which I replaced with a nixie tube power supply. (107V!)
The original circuit used push buttons for the keys. I am using copper foil for the keys, and holding the output, so I am part of the circuit. The tremolo effect is by varying pressure on the foil. The current is very low (microamps) as the resistor values are very large. Tuning is very difficult with my method.
I would like to change the tone with maybe more capacitors.
Registered Member #2906
Joined: Sun Jun 06 2010, 02:20AM
Location: Dresden, Germany
Posts: 727
Did i understand correctly that you are part of the resistance that determines the oscillation frequency to make the tremolo work ? If so, what happens if you sweat? Does the frequencies need to be re-adjusted, or will the frequency-ratios between be constant (so it would still sound nicely)? Another way to ask the same question: did you adjust the frequency of each tone by resistance or by capacitance? (judging by the row of potentiometers i can guess the answer.. i mainly want to point out the difference of using R vs C for tuning when R itself is variable)
Did i understand correctly that you are part of the resistance that determines the oscillation frequency to make the tremolo work ? If so, what happens if you sweat? Does the frequencies need to be re-adjusted, or will the frequency-ratios between be constant (so it would still sound nicely)? Another way to ask the same question: did you adjust the frequency of each tone by resistance or by capacitance? (judging by the row of potentiometers i can guess the answer.. i mainly want to point out the difference of using R vs C for tuning when R itself is variable)
Yes. Sweating does change the resistance, so the frequencies do need to be re-adjusted. Using this method to play it, it needs to be tuned just before playing. A few minutes later it might be totally out of tune. The tuning is by resistance only. The original circuit with push buttons produces a basic sawtooth wave tone and is very easy to play. My method is much more expressive, but it is very difficult. If you don't get the pressure and area of contact right it sounds like a seabird colony.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4059
I think this was in "Electronics World" or "Practical Wireless". Really annoyed that I didn't keep all those articles now, had literally boxes of old magazine cuttings ages ago.
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Musical Neon Oscillators
