Building A Custom Music Box (Part 1)

Well, I looked everywhere to find the music box. I suppose not literally everywhere, but I found myself searching obscure websites. From Chinese wholesalers to upscale artisanal music box makers. I even emailed a few people on Etsy, but was forced to select from a limited selection.

So I'm building it myself ヽ(´ ー｀)ﾉ

There are still a few things to work out, most notably:

• The gear mechanism is of poor quality.
  • Made of cheap plastic that a gear has already been stripped clean. I've replaced it, but saying it's a delicate process would be an understatement.
• There's a weird buzzing that occurs during playback.
  • This should be an easy-ish fix. In the video, you can see I'm pressing down to help with the buzzing.
• Everything must be mounted within an actual box.
• Sheet music needs to be taped together to create a continuous loop.
• Finally, solder everything to an actual breadboard.

The Process

After finding the sheet music online and marking the notes, the process went like this:

Step 1 - Punch the notes out.

Step 2 - Wire everything up!

Step 3 - Add some code!

Normally, I would create a whole repo for the code used. But for now, this is all there is.

int REED_PIN = D0;
int MOTOR_PIN = D3;
int LED_PIN = D7;
int MOTOR_SPEED = 255;

void setup() {
    pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);
    pinMode(REED_PIN, INPUT_PULLUP);
    pinMode(MOTOR_PIN, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
    bool lidIsOpen = digitalRead(REED_PIN) == LOW;
    if (lidIsOpen) {
        digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);
        startMotor();
    } else {
        digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW);
        stopMotor();
    }
}

void startMotor() {
    analogWrite(MOTOR_PIN, MOTOR_SPEED);
}

void stopMotor() {
    analogWrite(MOTOR_PIN, 0);
}

Here's the actual song for reference: Pan's Labyrinth Lullaby