About the Retro programmable music box
Punched-strip music box movements play any tune you feed them, but they're tiny and quiet. This project wraps a bought 30-note movement in a printed case with a gramophone-style horn to amplify it, designed in parts for easy multicolour printing, with screw holes for the mechanism and lid.
The neat twist is printing the punched strips too. Download a tune's DXF from a music-box tune website, extrude it as a 0.5 mm-thick strip in Fusion 360 with the holes left open, and print it in 70 × 220 mm sections. The designer's lessons: 15-note movements sounded underwhelming, and an earlier motorised drive was louder than the music. Full-length tunes need four or five strips, so a joining system is on the wish list. A PDF write-up and audio examples are in the files.
What you'll need
Printed parts
- Case and horn parts
- Punched music strips
Bought parts
- A 30-note punched-strip music box movement
- Screws to mount it
Tools
- Fusion 360 or another CAD tool, to turn tune DXFs into strips
Build overview
Print settings
- Strips: 0.5 mm thick, in 70 × 220 mm sections