DIY SYNTHESIZER | LIGHT THEREMIN
I’ve spent a few months designing and hacking up a variety of circuits then soldering into the wee hours of the night to make my own analog sound machines. It’s been therapeutic during the pandemic and tons of fun.
I hopped into Fusion 360 and banged out a quick base for the head and the hand and fired up the 3D printer. The head’s base also integrates the battery holder and makes for easy access to swap out the AA batteries (it’s a 3v circuit so there’s two of them).
This is a pretty simple dual 555 IC based circuit with a few capacitors and resistors creating two square wave oscillators. Once I worked out the circuit diagram, soldering the components in place on stripboard was fairly straightforward. It could have potentially been confusing tracing all the wires from the head back to the board for final assembly though. Imagine a decapitated C-3PO. Luckily, I had placed little pieces of tape on each wire labeling where it was coming from and where it was supposed to go so I didn’t get too lost in all the spaghetti.
