The Incredible Grand Piano Action Mechanism V2 | Detailed Assembly Guide 

Hey Matthias! Sorry for the late reply as I was busy moving to a new place, I had to rebuild my entire workspace, and it was a massive disruption to my workflow 😂. My initial design process is usually an assessment of feasibility. The goal is to whip out a physical model as fast as possible. I took a side view snapshot of the action model, trace all the components, modify them slightly, so they are printable, and build a first prototype. The prototype does not usually work very well, but having a physical model helps understand how it works and identify most of the major issues/errors. Once I verified that it was a feasible project, I started doing my so-called "RU-vid research" and watched as many videos as possible for more in-depth learning and I'll try to polish the design along they way. The next phase of the design is to reduce the model's size as much as possible. I prefer smaller models since print time and material consumption are significantly lower. In this case, the determining factor for scaling is the width of the white keys. I sized them to be comfortable to be pressed without accidentally hitting the adjacent keys. The other components are then scaled down accordingly. The final design phase focuses on aesthetics and optimization, such as reducing the part count by merging components or tweaking the design to simplify the assembly flow. This is usually the longest (and least fun) part of the design process as it involves many build iterations. Sorry for the super long response 😨, However, If I were to summarise, it involves lots of head-scratching, sleepless nights, and frustration, which I'm pretty sure you can relate to 😂.

Hi Mattias! it's a pleasant surprise seeing you here

@@mechanistic3d wow thanks for taking the time to talk through your process. Sometimes that’s revelatory of the true commitment and brain scratching gone into this project! Bravo

@@mechanistic3d last question are you a pianist? I have been only starting to understand the tip of the iceberg of the mechanics of my piano (and I drive my piano technician crazy hovering around him like a gnat). Obviously I can’t take apart my piano because I need it to still work. How do you go about learning about the components of a piano?

@@mechanistic3d Thank you for the detailed response.

Isn’t it great that we have an assurance that we can do crazy stuff without what we already have? I’m so excited to get better at all that!

Thanks, yes and in fact, that's the main objective for my next project. I will be exploring a way to integrate a compliant driven motor that hopefully fits within the mainspring barrel, so that it can be integrated into the original TBM and Tri-Axial. My fall back plan is to have an auto-winding mechanism via a power reserve mechanism that will toggle a winding motor on and off after a specific number of barrel turns. I think the first option is a much more elegant solution but the auto winder seems to be more feasible at this point.

I was about to write the same. I once made an electric glockenspiel and I found that it's quite important to support the tonebars at the places where they oscillate the least.

Hey Arne, the files are available separately on its own. They are also included as a part of the grand piano pledge. you can find the links in the video description, you can also try this link: www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-grand-piano-action-model-13-keys-215446

@@mechanistic3d "Both 5 and 13 key models are also included with the purchase of the Grand Piano Model via crowdfunding" is what it says. But I can not find the download links when going through the myminifactory page.

@@ArneSchwarck oh sorry I interpreted it wrongly. The files are already included in the grand piano file package to make things easier. You just need to re-download the grand piano zip file (dated sometime march) and you will find both models in a separate “action model” folder.

@@mechanistic3d Grand Piano Update Mar_23.zip must of just missed it, had Grand Piano Update Mar_4.zip

@@ArneSchwarck yeah pretty recent. I hope backers will get a notification from MMF on the update.

You can find them in the assembly guide (download link in the description) under the Part list page. There are links to every single non printable components but you can also source them locally based on the details provided :).

Probably not, since real pianos don't either.