Pipe Organ

[W2PFY]

An update for some more large motors and blowers that we can imagine cooling out large triodes that have provisions for a crane to just pick them up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIDKH8AuK90

Below we have one of the very large diaphone pipes made of wood, located in the pedal division of the organ that the producer of this video, now must climb up about 60 feet to the top of the pipe to demonstrate the power of that one pipe. It certainly doesn't sound musical in the demonstration but when played in FULL organ, it's another thing!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAj0mMWHzxc

This organ is being refurbished and is to be completed around 2024. It will be the largest playable pipe organ in the world when completed. I know this is not radio but it shows the excesses to a subject that most of us like? BIG PIPES MAN!

One last comment about this organ, there are over 600 horsepower of electric motors to run the blowers in this organ. I've often wondered about the actual power consumed by the motors vs the power in acoustical watts delivered by the pipes. Just guessing on my part but if this were and electronic organ, it would probably be way in excess of 50,000 watts to have the same level of sound in the building? 

[W2PFY]

Thanks Pete! I put this out perhaps in the wrong place but in doing so I was hoping to invoke some thought with others on here that are far brighter than me when it comes to relationships, between things such as electrical power in a blower system and derived acoustical power as a result of that energy that was spent. I have never seen a study on the subject? 

[w8khk]

Well, Terry, you invoked some thought, and I thoroughly enjoyed wasting, er - spending an inordinate amount of time looking at videos of monster pipe organs. 

It is interesting to note that the organ in Atlantic City was built in approximately four years, from 1928 through 1932, yet the restoration has been in progress for many years, and is expected to continue for more than another decade!

Looking at the blowers in the basement, two are 1000 HP and one is 500 HP.  Assuming a conversion factor of approximately 746 watts per horsepower, we are looking at a combined electrical power of 1,865,000 watts, or almost 2 megawatts!

I have often wondered what is done in these organs to maintain a reasonable level of pressure regulation between many keys down, and no keys down.  Perhaps the pressure builds up, or maybe there is some sort of relief valve in the works to limit the maximum pressure?  Another factor to consider is whether the motors actually consume the full power for their horsepower rating when no keys are pressed.  Think of the change in pitch of a vacuum cleaner when there is no air flow, either by restricting the intake or the output.  The motor speed rises as the impeller is unloaded.  So the power consumption may in fact be variable as different pipes are energized.  Measuring the motor current would certainly be interesting!

If we were to consider producing the same sound with amplifiers and reproducers, it would be a tall task to obtain the same sound as produced by the pipe organ, especially the very low sub-sonic notes that are felt instead of heard.  Providing enough power for the reproducers would not be very challenging, but converting that energy to sonic vibrations, with the proper frequency response and minimal distortion, would probably be an exercise in futility.  When you consider the careful tuning applied to each pipe, in order to simulate brass and woodwind instruments, it would be very challenging to obtain a multi-track recording with decent fidelity.  Bottom line, there is probably no substitute for the massive number of pipes in that organ!

[W2PFY]

Well Richard, there are many parallels in pipe organs and large power supply's for large HV systems. In voltage regulation we use chokes and capacitors to smooth things out. In pipe organs there is a box or boxes called of all things, regulators. There are internal valves that open and close depending on the demand for more air or less air. They are usually a big square box that has a lid so to speak on it that when filled with air expands to a maximum volume for anticipated air volume when presented with a predetermined demand. On all four corners there are large springs along with weights on top the lid, that when a large volume of air is required, the energy in the springs and the weight of the weighs on top the regulator force it to collapse forcing the air stored in the regulator into the pipe chest and into the bottom of the pipes. If there were no regulators on the organ, it would be a sorry sounding thing where when air volume was low the pipe sound would go flat and when the air pressure was high, the pipes would speak sharp. You should look into an organ club in your area and have someone take you on a tour of an pipe organs internals to show you how things operate.  These people love this stuff and I'm am sure that there is someone out there that would show you around