Now there are 4 motors singing together! Perhaps this is an early Christmas video…? It was originally just going to be a test, but I decided to upload a proper video of it. Still, the sound recording is experimental. I want to find a way that doesn’t hear a thump when a DC motor starts and stops spinning.
The music was used in the Christmas special of the anime Love Hina, and is originally sung by Yui Horie and Yukari Tamura (“Yamato Nadeshiko”).
My laptop runs a program of mine that plays a MIDI file, and sends info about certain notes to an Arduino. The Arduino then shows info on an LCD, switches the 2 stepper motors via 8 MOSFETs, and passes on info for the 2 DC motors to a separate motor speed controller (Sabertooth 2X5), which controls those 2 motors. I think these DC motors are much more suited to the higher notes of a singing voice than the stepper motors are. Likewise, the steppers are certainly better for bass notes. Together, they make a team. =D
The stepper motors and DC motors are running from separate power supplies – 12V for steppers, 15V for DC motors – as I haven’t found a reliable way to compensate for the drop in voltage that the stepper motors cause when they run (this causes the DC motors to slow down a little).
More info is in the video! =)