A ballerina music box is a charming ornament, but it remains one that is limited by its mechanism to a very short performance. [ShielaDixon] has one, and decided to make so much more with it.
The music box mechanism is a simple clockwork motor with a comb that’s picked by a drum to make the notes. Her box retains the mechanism to give the ballerina her performance, but replaces the comb with a microcontroller and audio channel. This is no mere MP3 player though, instead it’s a music box in itself. Each note of the comb was sampled, and the board plays them just as the music box would, under instruction from a text file containing the music. The repertoire can now go on for far longer, and contain many more compositions.
We like this hack, for its effectiveness, and for its recreation of the music box rather than simply playing a recording. Meanwhile if you recognise [ShieldDixon] from these pages, we’ve in the past featured another musical project of hers, a MIDI recorder.
I like the box — and I have seen a fair bit of them with broken combs, so this is a good way to keep the idea intact and save wear on the comb.
One thing, though. I would probably have hidden the switch by embedding a strong magnet in the lid and a reed switch in the box to keep the look intact.
I wish I’d thought of that! I’ve even got some reed switches here.
Thanks for your comments.
Let’s say this is the proof of concept, and from some people pov it may be enough, even if the case is in a poor state as only the glue shows the lost design on the front panel.
The main functions are restored (storage and tune player), yet the lack of visual perfection reminds us of our passing through life as it’s containing the nostalgia of a better but gone times.