Sean's Toy Blog

Sean's Toy Piano

 Dissection Of Star Mate Piano Toy

Removing the screws from the Piano, from the plastic part.

View of the toy before taking the screws out of the circuit board.

Bottom of the plastic part of the piano.

Another view of the bottom part of the piano.  Top right of the photo is where the batteries are put in.

Process of removing the screws from the circuit board.

Removal of the circuit board.  The internal speaker is still attached.

Taking the internal speaker out of the plastic part of the piano.

Overview shot of the circuit board.

Shot of the piano keys and the buttons.  No circuit board attached, except the speaker.

Final shot of the dissection.  The circuit board and the internal speaker for the Star Mate Piano.

Project 5 History and Features.

History of Toy Pianos.

Pianos have been around for a long time.  It wasn’t until Albert Schoenhut, son of a German toy-making family came along.  It added metal sounding bars to a piano to make it more durable. 

In 1866, he was offered a job in Philadelphia to repair German toy pianos which were damaged in transit.  1872, he started the A Schoenhut Company to manufacture toy pianos.  

In the late 1950s, the J. Chein Company of Burlington, NJ manufactured the Pianolodeon, a child’s piano.  This piano was a great achievement because it operated by a mechanism that resembled a real piano player.  The child could play the keys or press a button to let the piano play by itself.  The metal rods inside of the piano are struck by hammers propelled by a vacuum driver by a blower, which makes the piano play by itself.  

In the 1970s, toy pianos began to become more popular, which led to many toy companies to produce their own toy piano.  Many children became fascinated with the fact that they could play a piano or listen to the piano play by itself.  

In the early 2000s, Star mate became to release it version of the toy piano.  It feature many electronic components, like piano keys that could make noise, buttons to play different sounds, and replaying sounds on the piano.  Many children became interested in the piano, since it featured many new features that other toy pianos on the market didn’t have. 

In the late 2000s, the Star mate toy piano became increasingly unpopular due to other toy companies releasing improved toy pianos.  However, Star mate had a major impact in how toy pianos have evolved from metal rods being struck by hammers. 

The Star mate piano has many features.  Including the following.  

There are many different types of instruments that have premade sounds on it.  For example, you can switch the piano to play organ sounds or trumpet sounds.  Also, there are different music genre sounds.  Like playing the piano in blues, disco, or waltz sounds.  You can turn the tempo of the piano up or down.  There is volume controls to adjust the volume of the sounds being played.  There is settings for bass, snare, high top drum, and cymbal sounds on the piano.  Finally if you play a song that you really like, there is a record button so you can record your favorite songs. 

Overall, this electric piano can play all sorts of sounds.  It has a variety of sounds that it can play.  It can surely entertain children for hours on end.  

My initial thoughts on the Star mate piano before taking it apart.  

I thought that this toy piano was pretty complicated at first.  It seemed like it was very hard to use just by looking at it.  But, after playing with it, it became very easy to use.  It was pretty easy to make different sounds and songs with.  I like how there is so many different sound settings on the toy.  It makes it very unique compared to other toy pianos out there.  Its going to be cool to see how the toy operates and how all the sounds are made.

Uses of the Star Mate Toy Piano today.

The Star Mate toy piano still has many uses today.  Many people have decided to take apart or modify the piano to make new sounds.  For example, in the photo below, someone has used hooked this piano up to an amplifier to increase the sounds being played.  Many people like to use this version of the piano because of all the sounds it has.  Which is why many people decide to take it apart or modify it to their liking.  There are also some people who are interested to see how the piano makes sounds.  


The Main Components of the Circuit Board. 

 A shot of all the buttons on the piano.  The dark colored buttons are all the button inputs.  The top row is the piano keys.  If you take this photo and compare it to the photo below, you will see what each component does.

  This is a whole diagram of what operates what on the circuit board.  Basically a quick summary of what does what. A overview of each component of the circuit board.

Instrument Component 

 This is where the different types of instruments are located at.

 A flipped shot of the instrument connections.  

 If you bring power to both power spots in the picture, you will get to be able to make different instrument noises.  

Power Component

 A view of the power cables.  If this was still connected to the battery section, it would give the whole piano power to operate.

 A close up of the power connection to the piano and the Bass, Snare, HT, and Cymbal buttons.  

The four dark buttons in the middle are the Bass, Snare, High top drum, and Cymbal buttons.

This is where the power comes into the circuit.  It basically brings power to the whole circuit board.

 The battery compartment of the plastic part of the piano.

Sound Component

A close up of the speaker section of the circuit board.

 This is the one side of where the internal speaker produces sound.  If you connect power to bottoms power spot in the photo.  You can put the top power to any of the connections to produce a small sound that comes out of the speaker.

 

A close up of the Speaker section with the connectors attached.

A step by step list of how the piano works. 

And that is my Project 5 Star Mate Piano Toy
By Sean.