Safety

ECE 445 Safety Guidelines

  1. No one is allowed to work in the lab alone. At least 2 people must be in the lab at all times.
  2. Everyone must complete a mandatory online safety training in order to be allowed to work in the lab. Certificates of completion must submitted on Canvas.
  3. Any group planning on working with high voltages is required to complete additional safety training.
  4. Any group charging or utilizing certain battery chemistries must read, understand, and follow guidelines for safe battery usage.
  5. If you're working on any project involving electric current running through a human subject, you must read through and understand these guidelines for Safe Current Limits!

Requirements and Grading

The Laboratory Safety Training must be completed by all students enrolled in ECE 445. This module can be found on University's Division of Research Safety website.

Submission and Deadlines

Certificates of completion must submitted on Canvas. The due date listed on the Course Calendar. Students who have not completed this requirement will have lab access revoked.

Automatic Piano Tuner

Joseph Babbo, Colin Wallace, Riley Woodson

Automatic Piano Tuner

Featured Project

# Automatic Piano Tuner

Team Members:

- Colin Wallace (colinpw2)

- Riley Woodson (rileycw2)

- Joseph Babbo (jbabbo2)

# Problem

Piano tuning is a time-consuming and expensive process. An average piano tuning will cost in the $100 - $200 range and a piano will have to be retuned multiple times to maintain the correct pitch. Due to the strength required to alter the piano pegs it is also something that is difficult for the less physically able to accomplish.

# Solution

We hope to bring piano tuning to the masses by creating an easy to use product which will be able to automatically tune a piano by giving the key as input alongside playing the key to get the pitch differential and automatically turning the piano pegs until they reach the correct note.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Motor Assembly

A standard tuning pin requires 8-14 nm of torque to successfully tune. We will thus need to create a motor assembly that is able to produce enough torque to rotate standard tuning pins.

## Subsystem 2 - Frequency Detector/Tuner

The device will use a microphone to gather audio measurements. Then a microprocessor processes the audio data to detect the pitch and determine the difference from the desired frequency. This can then generate instructions for the motor; direction to turn pegs and amount to turn it by.

## Subsystem 3 - User Interface/Display Panel

A small but intuitive display and button configuration can be used for this device. It will be required for the user to set the key being played using buttons on the device and reading the output of the display. As the device will tune by itself after hearing the tone, all that is required to display is the current key and octave. A couple of buttons will suffice to be able to cycle up and down keys and octaves.

## Subsystem 4 - Replaceable Battery/Power Supply

Every commercial product should use standard replaceable batteries, or provide a way for easy charging. As we want to develop a handheld device, so that the device doesn’t have to drag power wires into the piano, we will need a rechargeable battery pack.

# Criterion For Success

The aim of the Automatic Piano Tuner is to allow the user to automatically tune piano strings based on a key input alongside playing a note. We have several goals to help us meet this aim:

- Measure pitch accurately, test against known good pitches

- Motor generates enough torque to turn the pegs on a piano

- Tuner turns correctly depending on pitch

- Easy tuning of a piano by a single untrained person

Project Videos