Singing solenoids prefer Bach

Music Technology

Woah, I never knew solenoids could be this good at impersonating audio oscillators! — plus I had no idea copy machines had such advanced easter eggs. Dspdude explains –

This test fixture for a photocopier uses solenoids that are driven by a special song. Reminiscent of the Honda commercial for the early 80’s. The easter egg is initiated through the Diagnostic interface, and the solenoids are driven over the CAN bus.

FYI – Originally designed for use in vehicles, the CAN (controller–area network) bus allows onboard microcontroler to chit-chat with each other within system hardware (thanks Wikipedia). And when there’s no good gossip about toner levels and paper jams, I guess they have band practice?

6 thoughts on “Singing solenoids prefer Bach

  1. Dax says:

    A solenoid is basically just a speaker without the paper cone attached.

    1. Collin Cunningham says:

      very true, but without the cone they’re not much fun @ parties :(

      1. Anonymous says:

        That depends on what sort of parties you go to. ;)

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