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Some friends of mine introduced me to this Hohner Pianet T, which had been stored in the corner of a barn for many years. For those unfamiliar with the instrument, it’s one of the first portable electromechanical keyboards, first produced in the 1970s, and was revolutionary at the time.
- Restoring the Hohner Pianet T – Part 1
Unlike the later electronic synthesisers which employed oscillators to produce notes, this instrument uses tuned metal reeds. Each key is connected to a small rubber pad, which ‘lifts’ the reed to set it vibrating, and each reed has its own individual pickup coil, which provides the signal.
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The screen on our Tektronix TDS210 was lacking brightness and contrast, so we thought it was probably the backlight. After some trawling around online we discovered it was fairly easy to replace. - Restoring the Hohner Pianet T – Part 1Unlike the later electronic synthesisers which employed oscillators to produce notes, this instrument uses tuned metal reeds. Each key is connected to a small rubber pad, which ‘lifts’ the reed to set it vibrating, and each reed has its own individual pickup coil, which provides the signal.
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The digital operations were converted into a Boolean logic map, and subsequently implemented using diodes and SPDT switching relays. The advantages of this approach are manifold, as standard automotive five-pin micro relays are readily available at any auto-shop and the diode assemblies used to create ‘OR’ gates, although custom, are small, cheap, easy to carry as spares, and are fitted to plugs, making the LRU of the unit a fuse, relay, or a diode gate, any of which can be replaced in a few moments without tools as a roadside fix. - Water Jacket Replacement on the VW T25 DG Engine
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