SamIAm

I was very surprised also. I went for Nylon filament (Overture Easy Print Nylon to be exact) as I gather Nylon has the second highest tensile strength of 'conventional' £d filament and I printed the parts on the large side ... touch wood they seem to be holding with no ominous cracking or even creaking! I printed at 0.15mm layer height.

With Twiggy's asymmetric, thin, non reinforced pine neck I suspect that it will not be long before physics start to come into play and I get unwanted twist. I'm toying with routing out a channel to drop in a dual action truss rod, but will that help with any twist I might get? I've been surprised how much I like the feel of the fretless neck, so Flo is likely to have the same. But this time a more considered neck profile, with internal supports and truss rod. If I were to craft Flo from a single piece of wood ... which wood should I go for? Or is it a better design to go for a through body neck made from a different piece/kind of wood? With the equipment I have available at the maker space I've joined I will be able to plane/fit/joint wood and I've the clamps & space to assemble them. If I go this route, what recommendations for neck wood/body wood? I think I will got for a dark fingerboard (either stained wood or 3D printed if it works well on Twiggy) but I love the idea of the natural wood of the body showing with a protective oil (or similar) finish to give her a nice satin sheen. I feel that Twiggy is short enough for me not to have to try out the pulley system I was thinking of, tho it would allow me to hide the tuners on the rear leading to a really minimalistic look from the front. My plan for Flo is that the electronics will live in body cavities, the knobs for such will present on the top edge and be hidden (From the front view at least) by a recess. S'manth x

The Trampa-nator is not on the loose, Zena is safely quiescent on my desk, Twiggy is far from firewood. (I did laugh at the comments tho!) Things have been progressing. I reprinted the ball-end holders for the tuners; they now have an extension that sits against the 'body' to prevent them just spinning. The Nylon filament is well strong enough, but it does tend to 'string' (Hence all the fuzzy bits which I was in too much of a hurry to play and so did not file down). I also mounted some ball races to cut down on the force required to turn them; it's still not great but it's workable. In the first photo you can see I've also printed strap buttons and a case for the electronics (Well apart from the battery lol), there is an active 3 band tone control + volume in there). I've also printed a new style pup holder, the pup was sitting too high in the body forcing a crazy high action ... it's a fair bit better now. I've settled on a 780mm B0 to 740mm G2 and started to shape the neck accordingly. The neck is asymmetric (by choice) and meanders all over reflecting the relaxing just go for it hand crafting (with some one eye closed, tongue poking out, power jigsawing) I've been doing. I was so chilled, I goofed and did not leave enough space at the edge of the fingerboard so whilst my B0 is just about OK, my G2 tends sneak off the edge. With an unfinished pine fingerboard I'm not getting the flatness nor hardness of surface that I think I need, so I'm trying to print a fretboard. I've actually got a 500mm radius on it. I should be in a position to try it out in the next week or so. So ... S'manth, why have you fitted a strap!? Twiggy had her first outing to band practice on Tuesday ... the reception was warm! OMG that's amazing was repeated a few times. We are not in the habit of taking a photo at practice, this was our first time all together, our new lineup, where everyone remembered to bring their "shirt"; some 'photoshopping' to be done before they go on the web site, but you can see Twiggy! To be honest, I need to do a lot more practice with her. The longer scale length than I am used to, the fact she has 5 strings, her being multi-scale and fretless ... all new and different for me, but I'm enjoying the journey! And she sounded pretty good! We've our first "performance" in a couple of weeks (We are playing to entertain (hopefully) the folks who will be taking part in the Worthing Pride march whilst they are getting organised) ... I am hopeful Twiggy will make her first public appearance there Once I've got the fretboard printed and on I'll try to get a recording to share. S'manth x

You're absolutely right, they do spin; something I can sort when I reprint. At present they seem to be holding up, I'm pleasantly surprised! Currently printing knobs to mount on the brass collets.

Progressing with Twiggy. I took her into the makerspace and did some chopping to try to slim down the neck; I'm just going for it! It will probably turn out badly, but I'll be learning loads. Aiming for a C profile with a thickness of 18mm at head to 25mm at body end. I just rasping, shaving, sanding, repeat and feeling/measuring it now and then. I'm finding it amazingly relaxing; total immersion in the process; the smell of sawdust; loving it! Sadly a crack has developed in the bottom section (body as such) of Twiggy; it does not seem to have compromised the structure much (if at all) I'm going to try to glue/clamp it and hope it hangs together for a while. I'm totally prepared to need to set Twiggy aside at some point as having met her intent of providing a platform for me to prototype some stuff, but it would be great if she actually survives and plays ... the sustain I've been getting on trial tune-ups has blown me away and with a lovely grunty growl! The tuners are a nightmare tho, they shift position as I tune and require two hands to stabilise; I can tune up but it is a trial! I got hold of some Nylon filament (Nylon has one of the higher tensile strength ratings of printable material) and am printing some tuner ball catcher bits, something like these. But with a cylindrical cross section rather than the pictured flat one. I've recessed the ball hole slightly at the bottom so under tension it should not pop out of the slot. I'm just going to see by trial and error if they are strong enough to cope with the string tension; I do have a backup plan to add in a couple of thin longitudinal M2 bolts to add strength, the other option is to mill them out of some aluminium rod (But I don't have any to try with at the moment). S'manth x

I suspect that 10mm or less would do; I can take slack up in the string mount at the neck. Design looks good ... but the bits I've got to hand are I can also 3D print stuff ... and (If Xena plays ball) I may be able to mill the 3mm aluminium I've got. (Think like a metre ruler but without markings lol) It's a bit like doing a puzzle, I keep shifting bits around on the table to see if an idea springs forth. S'manth x

Flippant is good and very welcome! Glad you're enjoying it, it is great fun to be doing it. I shall ... tho the next step is getting the tuners "better" and an elegant approach is escaping me at present. S'manth x

That would be The Logical way to play a Song.

I love it! Not something I'd considered (I'd need to write a tuner app). If I did this I could also drive the position of the saddles to autocorrect intonation using a different set of motors. Mad as it seems I was pondering with making the fretboard out of perspex and mounting a number of flexible e-Ink panels underneath, these would be used to display the fret lines & markers. Want single scale? Set config A, want a multiscale ... config B ... it could even allow for Righty/Lefty swapping of multiscale. And with the AutoTune, press one button and the whole thing reconfigures. I could even envisage an approach that would work for fretted basses. Sadly, cost is prohibitive lol S'manth x

Saddles are nearly done. A two part assembly. One holds the fret wire, these are all the same size. The other holds the first bit, these have a uniform receptacle size but the bottom thickness varies. Once I've tuned in my desired bridge action I can reprint some in just a few minutes. S'manth x

Good idea! My whole approach to tuners is giving me a headache! lol S'manth x

And so in the wee hourse of 12th June 2022, Twiggy burst into life! I am now a builder of basses (Well, builder of one bass ... so far) I printed a 0 fret mount The fretwire and 0 fret unit are held in place by friction. You can also see the string clamp unit in place, now with a NeoMag Allen key mount. Tuners all set up Mounting plate printed for the pickup. Mid mounting With the pickup mounted also And with the addition of a pen saddle (I ran out of steam!) I am pleased to present Twiggy We moved to the music room (My living room lol), I plugged her in, tuned her to pitch and ... The B0 string sounds OK and is not too floppy. Given these are a £5 set of random bass strings from Amazon I am happy that a 780mm scale length will work for me. The tuners are stiff but seem to have a reasonable ratio. I shall see what happens overnight, if anything pops or the tuning drops. Definitely need to revisit these (Tho there are a couple of commercial options that would make sense, I particularly like the look of the Nova system ... just need to figure out how to afford them) The action is way too high. I can resolve this by milling out a recess at the head for the string clamp and 0 fret (Given the noise this will make and my tiredness this will wait till tomorrow). Pen-saddle was expedient but will be upgraded tomorrow with 5 separate smaller versions of the 0 fret mount. I might even add a couple of grub screws to allow me to adjust the saddle height; the intonation will be adjusted by moving the saddles up/down the string. I am starting to fall in love with Twiggy so am now pondering how I might shape the back of the neck to something ... well, less like a 2x4! I guess this will have a limited lifespan as there is no stiffening or truss rod fitted (Hmmmm ... I suppose I could mill out a space for these) And I need to add something to house the electrics, gaffer tape is just a stopgap! Once I've modified the string clamp, 0 fret and added the saddles I'll adjust the intonation and try to get a recording of Twiggy in action. Time to sleep now ... perchance to dream gif.mp4 S'manth x

CLS Timber for Studwork and Framing Finished Size 38 x 89mm (4x2 inch) 1.2m Long Perfect for making stud walls Consistent dimensions Kiln Dried for stability Smoothed with rounded corners for ease of handling Imported for better quality Purchased last year to use as a mount for a projector but never used ... until now! Cost me £7 It started as a POC, to allow me to try stuff out, make mistakes without minding and generally learn before embarking on Flo. The problem is that I am starting to fall in love with Twiggy ... I can see me keeping her, maybe even adding an extension at the bottom and playing it in an upright style ... S'manth x

Thanks Andy! The specs quoted for the wire are: A= 2.7mm(.106 inch) B=2.80mm(.110 inch) C=1.05mm(.041 inch) D= 1.80mm(.071 inch) E=0.60mm(.024 inch F=0.95mm(.037 inch) So if I cut a slot that is say 2mm deep to accommodate D, should the slot width be 0.60mm to match E or closer to 0.95mm to match F? (Or something else lol) S'manth x

Thanks @Bassassin. S'manth x

Some more progress on Twiggy. (For clarity, Twiggy is a 2x4 early prototype where I can learn from my mistakes). Fretboard marked (The correct orientation this time!). Cavity cut out for the pickup. xena.mp4 Using Xena I've learned several things. It is possible to CNC a metre long 2x4 on a 3018 ... just not all at once! There are a number of skills I didn't even know existed that I need to learn. It is probably not as fast as a skilled woodworker doing it by hand. The CNC does exactly what it is told unless you tell it to do something impossible (it still tries tho) ... I told it the wrong thing to do a few times so have a cavity that is quite a bit larger than I intended. Starting to think how I'll create the saddles. The fret wires are curved and the "fretboard" is flat so I'mPondering how I will setup the 0 fret. I'm thinking to use the same suggestion by @Andyjr1515as I'm intending for the saddles and embed the 0 fretwire in a 3D printed carrier, I may recess this to avoid having a crazy high action at the head end. In fact I think I need to recess and drop the head string mount for the same reason. Given the flatness of the fretboard is in question and Twiggy will be fretless, what would be a good height to aim for the top of my 0 fret? S'manth x

Oh dear, ever had that D'oh feeling!? I was doing a final scale length measurement and realised I've reversed the strings! I'm going to struggle to play a fretless, let alone if it was a leftie! S'manth

I've even incorporated an Allen key holder as suggested by a couple of folks 😃 And now to marking up some stuff ... with a high detail reference on the right for guidance.

Not sure, I only ran it for about 30s at which point I started to wonder if I should break out some eggs to fry lol I've not played with an RP2040 per se, but I did assemble a tone generator using a pico ... nice little unit. But the dark side of integrated wireless calls to me ... and I was powerless to resist. So a couple (cause I always blow one up!) of the C3 mates are coming my way. 😊

Very nice! I'm aiming for a similar but smaller setup. A synth of some sort will fit in top right; I'll move power to below the pedalboard and have a floating expression pedal. I just wired up on of my booster circuits to the Stomp. It did power the stomp from a 5v USB input, the Stomp was drawing apx 800mA@9v (Much as the video you posted suggested) but it was pulling 2.3A (yes 2300mA)@5v from the USB ... not gonna cut mustard for me. I'm searching down the USB PD approach to see if it is any more efficient. And on an ESP note, my eyes bugged out a little when I saw this beauty! £6 from the Pi Hut! No idea what I need it for but I want one! lol S'manth x

EBB5 Head String Anchor Rev 2 lol The brass connector thing is held in place partly by the face being too small for it to pass through and also by the protrusion of the string holding grub screws into their channels. We shall see if this bears up any better under the load. S'manth x

https://buildbrighton.com/

OMG I stumbled across a makerspace not 15 minutes drive from where I live. Various shop woodwork machines (saws/planers/sanders), lathe, laser cutter and a kick donkey 3D printer and a couple of industrial size CNC machines being nursed into life. Seem a really nice bunch of folks and and their monthly fee is within my budget .... hmmmm S'manth

Thanks ... a few folks have suggested the tuners by @Andre_Passini, they sound really well made and look totally gorgeous! S'manth x

Were we separated at birth!? lol It sounds like you've some great fun, what's your pedalboard like these days? I've a R4 Pi with a HiFiBerry DAC+ADC Pro hat on it. I've tried Zynthian, Squishbox, Modep/Patchbox ... the treefallsound pi-Stomp Core is the one I'd really like to get running but it's all been a massive fail so far mt32-pi looks cool too! and I really fancy having a play with sonic-pi. But I just can't get any sound out of my HiFiBerry; Jack fails to start ... my knowledge of Jack/ALSA/etc is 0.5/10 at most which doesn't help. I've gone back to basics and am playing with HIFIBERRYOS just to make sure my HiFiBerry is actually working ... but I've yet to have any success (I think I've a cheap I2S audio card in my ESP32 starter kit I could repurpose). I've a box of 1/4 jacks, push-rotary encoders, pretty LEDs etc all set to go but ... but other projects are taking up more of my attention; I guess I just need to focus! So much fun to be had. I also have a "vision" (Cue inspiring music) of combing various elements into a single box and wrapping them all in a nice uniform html5 UI (Playing with masonite and FastAPI). I stumbled over this the other week and really fancy implementing a web based HX edit type tool using this kind of approach ... it would also allow really tight integration between a Trampa type scribble strip foot controller with my Stomp. S'manth x