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MMD > Archives > April 2006 > 2006.04.28 > 03Prev  Next


Key Switch Contact Bounce in Organ Keyboards
By Phil Duclos

Spencer,  It is hard to see how an unfiltered power supply would help
contact wear without actually reversing polarity.  I can't see the
ripple doing anything to prevent or reduce contact build up.  However
unfiltered supplies are cheaper than filtered and in this case it
doesn't matter.

I would expect a DC supply with a standard bypass cap near the
contacts, much as in typical spark ignition circuits.  In a truly
modern organ the solenoids and relays would all have clamping diodes
but, alas, this will likely _not_ be the case in any real organ.

Thus you _will_ have large reverse emf from the coils, probably in
excess of 50v at the peak.  I would plan to clamp the input to your
board with something that will limit the peaks, either a fast Zener
diode or some sort of Schottky diode arrangement.

I would plan for _tons_ of contact bounce noise as these large
mechanical contacts are in no way related to the small, clean world of
PC-mount relays.  If you are debouncing in software then it is pretty
simple to choose a sample count to eliminate the bounce, e.g., three
samples in a row must be the same to be a valid input.  The same idea
can be accomplished with cascading flip-flops in hardware.  You could
even optically couple the inputs to avoid all the noise from the organ
environment but that might almost be overkill.

So I would plan for the worst, and I believe that your expectations
will be met sooner rather than later.

Regards,
Phil Duclos

 [ In a multiplexed organ the voltage at the keyboard contact may
 [ also respond to coupled keys, like the octave below.  I added
 [ a diode to isolate the key signal from the bus signals in my old
 [ vacuum tube Allen organ (+125 vdc).  Contact bounce and switch
 [ noise was filtered by 10 millisecond R-C filter and voltage
 [ divider followed by a Schmitt trigger inverter.  -- Robbie


(Message sent Fri 28 Apr 2006, 12:53:15 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.)

Key Words in Subject:  Bounce, Contact, Key, Keyboards, Organ, Switch

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