The 3D printed guitar that lights up like a Christmas tree when you play it.
This is my first guitar build, always wanted to try but spent several years procrastinating. I wanted to combine my tech knowledge with my love of guitar. For some back drop; I'm an embedded software engineer by trade which is kind of a software engineer smashed together with an electrical engineer.
After struggling my way through Fusion 360 CAD software I came up with a 3D design that I liked. However I had no way of printing it because my printer was too small. I then spent the next two years making my own 3D printer big enough to print this thing. I should mention the only 3D printed part is the body, the neck is good ol' wood 24" fret job that I found for cheap on Aliexpress. I wasn't going to even consider 3D printing a neck, it wouldn't be nearly rigid enough.
Sixty hours of 3D printing and the body was done, it was pretty unreal to hold the thing after seeing it digitally for years on the computer.
I designed a custom PCB with a microcontroller that reads the output from the guitar's pickup and then using FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) I break it down into frequencies that I can then use to decide which of the 50 LEDs I want to light up.
Guitar Of The Month - November 2020
in Guitar Of The Month entry/poll archive
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The 3D printed guitar that lights up like a Christmas tree when you play it.
This is my first guitar build, always wanted to try but spent several years procrastinating. I wanted to combine my tech knowledge with my love of guitar. For some back drop; I'm an embedded software engineer by trade which is kind of a software engineer smashed together with an electrical engineer.
After struggling my way through Fusion 360 CAD software I came up with a 3D design that I liked. However I had no way of printing it because my printer was too small. I then spent the next two years making my own 3D printer big enough to print this thing. I should mention the only 3D printed part is the body, the neck is good ol' wood 24" fret job that I found for cheap on Aliexpress. I wasn't going to even consider 3D printing a neck, it wouldn't be nearly rigid enough.
Sixty hours of 3D printing and the body was done, it was pretty unreal to hold the thing after seeing it digitally for years on the computer.
I designed a custom PCB with a microcontroller that reads the output from the guitar's pickup and then using FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) I break it down into frequencies that I can then use to decide which of the 50 LEDs I want to light up.
I've got a more detailed writeup on my blog along with more juicy photos: https://www.joshendyblog.net/3d-printed-guitar-that-lights-up-as-you-play/
I also made a YouTube video showing it in action and the build process: