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This flute design is a common one on the net, and for good reason. Not only is it simple to build, it's also relatively simple to learn and rewarding to play. It only took a month of on and of playing to be relatively proficient (meaning I could get a clean sound from the first two octaves without difficulty.) The flutes are keyed instruments and only play in one scale (without more complex fingerings) which is actually a plus when just noodling around since you can't easily hit a note outside of the major scale of that flutes key. My G flute can hit about 2 octaves easily and 2.5 octaves if you push it.
My D fife can hit 2 octaves. There are already a number of good sites out there on how to make flutes, but I thought I would add some of my experiences making my own flute collection that haven't been addressed. For a primer of how to play a PVC flute check out my website. I used tested designs for my flutes which I found with construction information on Pete Kosel's. I made a G flute as originally designed and a CPVC D fife to which I also made a modified version. The G flute works great as is, but I was having a lot more trouble playing the fife.
It was very difficult to reach into the second octave. Part of the problem I found was to do with the thin walls of the 1/2 inch CPVC. To create for thicker walls with the same pipe, I decided to add a lip plate (like those used on metal flutes) made out of a 1/2 inch CPVC connector. I also made some original flute designs out of the same material as the G flute but higher pitched in the keys of A and C. These are both easier to play in the bottom octave, but take more coaxing to push into the second octave, especially for the C flute. To make your own designs or to adapt these designs to different PVC tubing or drill sizes, the is a handy tool that automatically calculates the hole placement from the tubing specs, drill sizes and key you would like to play in. The basic construction of a PVC flute is simple.
Six holes provide the western seven-note scale; one blown hole initiates the sound. Insert a block to the correct depth at the blown end and you have a flute. The steps can be performed in any order, but I tend to drill the embouchure first since is the most important hole to have a clean cut. It also tends to be the largest hole and most difficult hole to drill.
To start the flute, I use a hacksaw to cut the pipe to length and sand the ends on the disc sander for smooth finish. It is easiest to lay out the holes with a pencil and then follow up with an awl to make an indent for more accurate drilling. Now that I have made a few flutes, I often use another flute I0019ve made to mark the positions of the holes: for a first flute you will have use a ruler to measure from the open (not the embouchure) end for each hole individually. The most important trick to getting a clean hole in PVC is to commit.
The bit tends to grab and quickly rip through the pipe, but if you keep going, it will finish the hole cleanly. Stopping half way through is the kiss of death. It leaves large pieces of material which are difficult to remove without the momentum of the initial attempt. Workbench I hold my pipes for drilling and cutting in a workbench which has two move-able table sections with a grove on their sides that can clamp together.
If you don't have something like that, then a v groove or two pieces of wood spaced apart the right width will help to hold the pipe from moving around while drilling and cutting. Which Drill Bit? Either brad point or standard twist bits will do an equally effective job at a clean hole, but they are different. Brad point is easier to make an accurate hole with while they tend to be more likely to hurt the opposite side the pipe when punching through.
The tip of the brad point has almost punctured the opposite wall on some of the holes I've drilled. I also tried using a drill press thinking it would be easier, but the feedback and control you lose with the drill press made it more difficult for me to use than a hand-held drill.
It is a good idea to test out your drilling skills on a test piece before you invest time in your flute. It took me a few shots to get a clean hole the first time. Some builders make the hole in one shot by drilling a hole on an angle.
I find that this tends of cause more trouble than it is worth for me, so I use a straight hole then shape it afterwards with needle files to its final shape. The most important part of the hole is the blown edge on the opposite side of the flute from the player. This edge should stay as sharp as possible.
To get the right angle on the blown edge, I use the needle file to carefully undercut the hole. I start on the interior edge of the pipe where the most material will need to be removed with the needle file held at the angle I'm shooting for. I continue to work the angle back until the entire edge is uniform and cleanly cut.Start with about 45 degrees between the outer and inner edges. Depending on the size of the tubing compared with the diameter of the embouchure hole, it may not take much to reach the right angle, but it is critical to getting the most out of the flute. More filing is needed on larger pipes and on smaller embouchure holes to get to the correct angle.
It may be easiest to go ahead and finish the rest of the instrument so it is playable, and then tweak the blown edge until you can get the best tone and control. But don't get greedy: you can always take off more material later but you can't put more on.Edit: Thought I'd add a picture to clarify how to undercut the embouchure as I've gotten a few of questions about it. The flute will probably work without any undercutting, but they are much easier to play over a wider range with the right angle and a sharp edge. The blown edge is to the right in the new image. After the hole is drilled (the straight lines), undercut the side of the hole by removing the red material in the image.
Make sure the edge marked by B stays sharp and the surface marked by A stays straight and smooth. Don't remove any material from the outside of the tube, only from the inside surface of the hole. After you're done undercutting the blown edge, the tube and hole should look no different from the outside from when you first drilled it. The cork can be made of any number of materials. It is more a matter of finding something that fits snugly, won't come loose and is easy to fit into the flute. I have used a cork from a wine bottle, wooden dowels and a rubber stopper.
Regardless of the material, the face of the cork should be about one embouchure diameter from the center of the embouchure; you may way to experiment with this to get the best sound. Cork My preferred cork material is, not surprisingly, actual cork. It looks professional in the end of the flute and doesn't swell or shrink and come loose when moist. This is what I used for my favorite G flute. The problem with cork is I haven't found source that doesn't need modification for it to fit 1/2 schedule 40 PVC. A standard wine cork needs to be cut down to fit with a plug cutter.
This was difficult, labor intensive and frustrating. I also couldn't find any workable cork locally or sufficiently thick cork pads to cut plugs from Wood Dowel So, I tried wooden dowels. With a bit of a bevel on the end for easy entry and some sanding, a 5/8 inch diameter dowel fits well.
I inserted the dowel to the correct depth I then cut off the dowel and smoothed the ends of the pipe and dowel to one smooth surface on the disc sander. This worked well for a while, but eventually moisture caused the dowel to loosen and fall out of the PVC. Rubber Stopper This brought me to the rubber stopper from my local hardware store. The stoppers are tapered but to big to fit in the pipe without modification. To install a rubber stopper, I insert it as far as it will go, then cut of the excess with a wide chisel using a smooth slicing motion. This works fairly well, but isn't as clean or nice looking as actual cork. For CPVC Flutes For 1/2 inch CPVC it is probably easier to find cork stoppers at a craft store of the correct size (there were non large enough to fit the 1/2 inch PVC pipe.) I haven't tried to make a cork of either actual cork or the rubber stopper method for this type of pipe, so I don't know how well they work or how hard it actually is to find suitable material.
Dowels are much more difficult to use for the 1/2 inch CPVC since no standard sizes fit. I had to turn down a dowel on a the lathe to get it to fit properly (although it hasn't loosened like some of the dowels in my PVC flutes.). I used two different designs to act as the tuning slide. Both of these have problems, the largest for both designs being the disturbance to the smooth inner surface of the tube. This can mess with the flutes tone and playability. This isn't a huge deal but I have noticed the flutes I have with a tuning slides do play differently from my non-tunable flutes. On the plus side, this type of tunable system also (and probably more usefully) allows you to mix and match head joints and bodies.
You may want to only make one embouchure and use it to play a family of flutes in different keys or experiment with different embouchure diameters on the same flute for comparison. PVC Connectors The easier method uses the 1/2 inch connectors already available for the pipes. To add one of these, it only requires that you use two sections of tubing for the flute. One section of the flute, the head joint, has the embouchure; the other has the finger holes. The only tricky part of this design is getting the head joint the right length so it is within range of the correct pitch, when near the center of travel in the connector. This can be difficult due to the small range over which the tuning slide can move. Acetone Although more time consuming, the acetone method can make for a better tuning slide since it can be as long as needed.
The acetone softens the PVC so it can be stretched to fit on another piece of PVC. To start this method you will need acetone, which is sold as a solvent in the paint section of home centers. You also need a container that won't degrade sitting with acetone in it for a few days. Glass works well for this. The container should be as tall and narrow as possible so as to not waste acetone (once the acetone is used once, it is best that you dispose of it properly or store it separately rather than put it back into the original acetone container since it probably leaches all sorts of unknown chemicals from the PVC.) To make the slide, I started with enough acetone in my container to submerge as much of the PVC as I wanted to stretch.
The PVC sat for at least 24 hours before it was soft enough. At this point I took out the acetone soaked pipe and stretched it over another piece of pipe. I let the pipe dry in this position for another 24 plus hours before it was solid again at which point you can finish the flute as usual. You can stretch either the head joint or the body but it would be best to do this labor intensive process to which ever part you plan on sharing the most between other complimentary sections. For the lip plate, I used a 1/2 inch straight CPVC connector (They also make them for 1/2 inch PVC, but I haven't made a modified version of the G flute yet to see if it also improves that design as well.) These connectors are very cheap and, of course, fit the pipe perfectly.
Unlike the end caps some homemade flutes use, the connector still allows you to place it anywhere on the pipe. The only difficulty in using them is the ridge in the center of the connector which is meant to stop the pipes you're connecting from sliding all the way through. I used a round rasp to carefully remove the ridge so the connector could slip all the way over the pipe. With the connector in place, you can drill the embouchure as usual. I was worried about the connector slipping of, even though it fits snugly, but it hasn't been a problem. If this becomes an issue, a bit of glue meant for PVC or some epoxy would ensure it would stay in place. I realize your post is 10 months old!
But maybe you will see this! So if Jnkyrdguy has no interest in selling you one! I can make them outta just about any kind of pipe but better yet my favorite is Bamboo, also White Cedar or White Fir make nice looking and more important great sounding with a nice timber and tuned in scale could be played in a band/ orchestra and be awesome! So if this is of further interest to you then your more than welcome to hit me up and we can discuss this further however suites you be it FB, email or phone if it comes to that!
I do have sound samples of myself playing along with some standard blues tracks although im not a great woodwind player but it does sound nice! Both of those features are completely optional. You would add the lip plate before cutting the hole for the embouchure and installing the cork. I haven't even tried adding a lip plate to the larger flutes.
(I would highly recommend adding the lip plate to the CPVC D fife.) The tuning slide could be added at any time with the connector method. The acetone method requires a longer pipe for both sides so you have to plan ahead for that one. With both methods the tuning slide goes between the embouchure and the first fingered hole.
The flute will sound a lot better without a tuning slide so unless you plan on using the flute in very different temperatures with a band you need to more easily tune with then I wouldn't add the slide. Hey JnkyrdGuy, I need your help. I have already made PVC flutes. But the softwares that I use like flutomat do not give accurate dimensions. So I end up making some holes little wider than I want them to be(I prefer.8 - 1 cm dia). Also the higher octave in my flute plays a little off the tune. I have low D scale flute currently.
I need Low E flute(indian Scale), In the designer I need to enter Low B as my desired scale(it must be around 65 cms long). PVC specs:- Ext. Dia 25cm, Internal dia 22cm. Need Low B scale(Low E note while 3 holes are open).
Also I need one with 7 holes, so that lowest note is easier to play. Please see if you can provide accurate dimensions. The dimensions are accurate. And you can check different designing softwares to see what I mean, say flutomat and 'Whistle and Flute Hole Calculator' both calculate different hole separation for same flute.
I don't have much tools. I use different sized screw drivers to make initial holes and then use a separate tool to finish the hole so that it ends up as a clean hole. And honestly, I take about 3 hrs making a flute. So, I didn't want to waste 3 hrs of work. That's why I needed accurate dimensions. But I guess that is my last resort now.
Top Device:Our initial experience occurred in Atlanta, Georgia - Southeast USA where the unit originally shipped to, and it was deployed up into Minneapolis, Minnesota - upper Midwest USA, before we identified that there was a real problem.There were a couple of random latchups that occurred during software installation (which we - incorrectly - blamed on install packages), but there were only a couple, and it ran fine for hours afterward. We have never seen a BSOD. This was also the unit that had memory installed by Dell under the keyboard in slots C & D, rather than in the correct slots A & B under the bottom cover. Didn't make any difference, but there is obviously some build out variability in Dell's production.The only other detail that comes to mind is that the latest nVidia driver has desktop transparency issues with SolidWorks, forcing us to go back a revision. If Dell can address the freeze issue, w/o crippling the machine, we will be happy (and tired) campers.We still suspect that this is a power management issue, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, removing DPM, flashing BIOS to A06, and updating everything we could find (meaning MSWIN Update, and Dell support posted drivers), as well as disabling every single power management setting we could find, greatly minimized the freezing.
THE next step for us will be to disable C states in BIOS to see if that has any effect.probably get to that when we get the unit back in house next month.but Dell needs to fix this issue w/o effectively killing power management, because that is one of the major features of a laptop, that it can run on a battery for a reasonable time. Disabling C states is a diagnostic step, not a solution.Does anyone at Dell care to refresh us on the status of this issue?
@TopDevice I'm in California and received the laptop in late October 2013 - I imagine all of these are put together in the same place and if so perhaps the time they were assembled could be the clue? Could Dell still possibly be sending out bad units? I would hope not!@ET& Natedogg Thanks for your comments! Hello frustrated DELL customers.I have owned Dell mobile workstations for over 10 years (for MAYA and PSD) and was about to buy the M4800 till I too found this thread. Not very encouraging, nor are Dell's sporadic responses. I am holding off for a few weeks to see how this goes. I wish you guys all the best on resolving this and hope to find that youve just been unlucky.
I see no other threads but this one on this subject.The fact that QHD and optimus are not compatible is a real downside too. Is the FHD screen really that bad?
How does it compareto previous Precision FHD screens. Eg on the M4400?I have been a loyal Dell customer for years and was very clear I would buy from Dell again. However I hear customer services has now been moved from UK to India, which means possibly dealing with someone whose first language may not be English, and their understanding of UK culture could be compromised too. I have no issue with dealing with anyone from any background, but this can effect subtleties of communication and so rapidity and smoothness of resolutions.I am now considering a BOXX 1920 or better, a Thinkpad w540 or an HPEliteBook 8570w.I was considering an XPS15 too, but I have also heard that the Dell XPS15 has a critical design flaw which means meltdown on the motherboard is likely within the 1st 2 years. All this is putting me off Dell very quickly. If you are interested in the XPS15 issues further details can be found through this post:'Guys, I'm an XPS 15 user. My xps got fried after using it for 1.5years.
Let me warn you. Don't buy a xps if it has a nvidia graphicscard in it. The nvidia cards in all xps laptops are faulty in design.and they will last only for maximum of 2 years (just as mine did). When igoogled, i saw many frustrated users like me. Here's the proof -.just think about it.
After the problem starts, you will have to callthe dell customer care, and they will tell you to replace themotherboard (because u can't just replace the graphics card, since it isintegrated to the motherboard) for another 8000 rs!! The main part is -this new replacement motherboard will also be having the faulty nvidiagraphics card in it, and you can use the laptop again for another 2years max!!!! SO GUYS- THINK a 100 times before deciding on laptopswith nvidia graphics cards.' Top Device:My M4800 was delivered to the state of Ohio in the United States of America as was the replacement M4800. Both failed after disability the C-State with BIOS A05.
I never tried A06 (since it was not available at the time) nor did I try disabling Dell's Power Management, but I did disable the sleep mode and always ran on AC.My lockups occurred when I just copied a large data set (about 150 GB) from a Network shared folder to a USB 3.0, 3 TB Hard Drive attached to the M4800 USB port. I also tried copying the 150 GB data to the local hard drive and that failed too. Lastly, I tested:1) with only factory installed software, and2) with installing Windows 7 Operating System patches and the Intel Rapid Store driver that Dell techs had me change.No joy on any configuration.I have since returned the 2 M4800's.
I would have loved to have kept my M4800 because I really liked the specs. But I needed it to be reliable, and I could tell early on by the symptoms (and later from this thread) that this lockup issues was no ordinary 'install a new driver' problem. So, I returned the M4800 and the replacement Dell had sent me.Best of luck to all.
Just a quick update:I installed all updates last night and the system survived.First started by using a firmware/driver app from Seagate's website to check the disk and it reported I had the latest (so some of us shipped with old drivers?).Did a 'urgent' Nvidia driver update first and decided it to do it via Windows Update to test to see if the Dell Client System update app would later detect that I had already installed it. I was concerned about the different driver update results that the app reported vs the Dell support website (set to my Dell Service Tag) which reported none of the things the app found.The driver installed fine and when I reran check updates on the Dell System Update app it did indeed detect it so the app seems stable for me (I read others had trouble even with that). Seems the Dell support site is buggy though in reporting about drivers to update.Next I installed are recommended driver updates minus the BIOS - it was 6 updates total.
These took close to 10 minutes of heavy churning, hot fan blowing and boot cycle to install. Afterwards used the computer to surf around for a while, checking even log, and seems stable. Noted I no longer see any of the WHEA-Logger errors which maybe were CPU driver related.Lastly I installed the A06 BIOS update and that too went fine. It did indeed fix the empty DVD drive seek noise issue. Again ran some more diagnostics to give the system a workout (using the MyDell app which I reinstalled) and everything reported passed (for what that's worth)However, not knowing the true definitive root cause(s) of these issues all of this may not mean much but we'll see after another work week under my usual routine. It seems like some people have units that are way 'sicker' than mine, or perhaps it could be the different ways we use the system, or a whole other combination of random factors that Dell has not fessed up to or don't know themselves.For now my system seems 'healthy' with a good fast boot cycle and a bit cleaner event log so we'll see.
I really want it to work as I too really like the specs and good performance of the system (when it's in a good mood and behaves).The only slightly annoying thing it is still doing is on boot up sometimes (maybe 1/3 of the time) the speakers make a static/farting noise when the windows start up theme plays. It actually did this the very first time I started up the computer in the office in November, with my MacBook coworkers watching, so it seems it does still like to mock me by farting in my face and embarrassing me;) Has anyone else had this issue?I've also had performance reports running with the 'Dell Precision Performance Optimizer' and I just upped the frequency of the logs to help with any future troubleshooting - has anyone used this app and is it good for anything? Just had my M4800 returned after call from Dell Tech Support on Friday telling me it was being returned, but the system had not been tested with the OS running (again!!).New Mobo, New Screen.Powered up the M4800, The optical drive seek issue occurring even before I logged in.This is just sloppy service, now at least though the Dell Client Update is working, so I'm letting that find and install whatever it can find before making the decision to return the laptop again, though I really don't know what I'm burning even more time on this. Narcil, so much of service today is dependent on a) computerized tools that identify and log a problem, or failing that, b) blindly swapping out components in the hope that the problem goes away.
Anyone who has owned a new vehicle in the past ten years is probably familiar with this. How often has the owner of a new vehicle been told that 'we hooked up to the computer and it said the vehicle has no problems, so we put in a new xxx. Give it a try.' Diagnostic skills are a dying art because margins are so thin, that companies can't afford to spend the time it takes to figure out what the problem is.
Hey guys,I read some user comments regarding their M4800 as I was checking on the internet to see what is going on with my M6800, which fantastically is the same issue as you all are facing!I still don't know what is going on but I have my laptop freezing, doing werid noises on my DVD drive and crashing when it turns off the screen when not used.I saw that many of you is from USA and as I see the problem is not in only one country, I bought my laptop and got it straight from the factory in hong kong and brought it to china where I currently live. Received my new Dell M6800 one week ago, located in Minnesota, USA. The machine was a new pre-build:Intel Core i7-4800MQ/ Windows 7 Pro/ 8GB DDR3L/ 500GB Hybrid/ AMD Video.Have been experiencing approximately two freezes and two black screens per day, usually at idle. Arrived at this site via Google, looking to see if others were having a problem. Not too happy to discover that the problem has been ongoing with no end in sight. Will call Dell tomorrow.
Lots of wasted time loading programs and transferring files. Except for the mentioned problems, I really loved the machine. Flieger,Go ahead and DM with your service tag. I'll seewhat I can do for you.Community:I've heard of a few lockup cases that wereresolved by uninstalling the factory installed Mcafee. It hasn't worked foreveryone but it's worth a try if you already have not done so.No new updates. We're still waiting for systemsto be received at engineering.
I'm still testing the few units that I have inmy own lab and I have more on the way to test. I know of a customer that received2 M4800s about 3 weeks ago. No lockups since he took them out of the box. Oneof my other customers has had 1 M4800 for about 2 months. I've followed up withhim multiple times after his case was closed and he still hasn't had anylockups.
He formatted and re-installed Windows 7 as soon as he received it though.I'll be in touch! No factory installed AV here either. Freezes occurred before, during and after AV installed.
There was a freeze during AutoCAD installation, there have even been freezes at the Windows START menu w/o anything running but the OS (and whatever drivers came from the Dell site.This past weekend, there was a freeze while throwing a group of relatively small files up to a dropbox. There is no common thread we can identify (except that it has to be on). So far, that's the only stable state of the machine - off. If McAfee or any other software were the problem, you would see an entry in the System Event logs.
These lockups never cause an entry to appear in the System Event logs. So, the root cause is not software.
The cause is a firmware or hardware design issue. This kind of problem is hard to determine what the root cause is without special tools. It is likely a race condition involving more than one subsystem where a subsystem is not responding in a way that the system expects.
And the system is just waiting for the response, which never comes (i.e., lockup). 4 days and no freeze or BSOD so far. I installed a VM running a simulation package to stress the system, opened and closed the lid (hibernate) still no issue. Dell Client System update now works (previously it didn't recognize the system so Dell changed something that made a difference).Re-installed the OS from the partition, then Office and the usual essentials.
Now letting it go through its updates.One change was the system does not stutter anymore, I remembered from an old issue with an XPS that this could be caused by the dell laser mouse, so now using a standard MS mouse, (ok maybe random, but I thought I'd mention it).Optical drive seek still happening & still annoying. Stuffing a DVD in the slot to shut it up seem to have the same effect as a baby dummy.Fingers crossed that some progress has been made.