Daphnis - A 3D Printable Pan Flute v1.0

         Daphnis - A 3D Printable Pan Pipe that's tuned and plays as expected!*

       *Fine tuning might be required as well as skill to actually be able to get sound out of it…

   A quick feature video. Jump to 1:32 if you'd rather just go straight to how it sounds like.

05-04-2023                                                                                              

First photo reveal and project is baptized!

• Been playing around with it today and studying deeper the design behind the Pan Flute. Dropped by my local music shop today to analyze a real one up close and came up with I believe is a significant improvement in the open end of the pipes.
• After close analysis, I saw that all the best pan flute pipes are not round at the open end but instead sort of chamfered on front and back sides. I assumed this had to do with airflow so I set to make the same in the pipes I designed. All pipe files have been updated with this new style of open end so please redownload if you have already downloaded! (again…)
• While remaking the open ends, I noticed a couple pipes were wrongly named. It seems pretty innocuous, but it actually made me organize the different scale folders wrongly, that has been fixed.

04-04-2023                                                                                                          

First test prints are successful!

• The pipes are playing as nice as my ability (which is next to none) allow. I'm hoping to have photos and a demonstration video soon!
• A note on printing the racks:
  • I designed them so that they would be tight enough to keep the pipes in place but not too tight so not to allow removal of the pipes again. This is a fine balance and you might have to slightly resize them in the slicer.
  • My suggestion is to start by printing a 2 pipe connector (it's a 10 minute print) and test the fit out. Resize until you are happy with the fit and then use that percentage on all the rack files. I tested with two different printers and the variation was less than 1% but it does make a difference.

03-04-2023                                                                        

Readjustments needed, again… And something new!

• Tolerances too tight on the racks, fixed but please redownload files.
• Wax Tool to help press down / remove wax inside the pipes added. Not tested yet.

02-04-2023                                                                        

Readjustments needed.

• Reworked racks as an error during the design stage caused a couple holes not to be 100% round. Root cause was found and fixed but please redownload files.
• 3 new rack designs were added (Angled 7, 8 and 13 pipe).

                                    Thank you for having a look at Daphnis!

I have a musical background so when Printables released the contest to (re)create musical instruments, my brain immediately jumped on what seem an obvious choice, the Pan Flute.

The pan flute (also known as panpipe or syrinx if you feel fancy) is an instrument based on the principle of a closed tube, usually consisting of pipes of gradually increasing length to achieve different musical notes. They're usually made of bamboo or canes but can also be found in plastic, metal, ivory among other materials.

By far the trickiest part about this design was determining the pipe lengths to hit the right frequency, but once I had the mathematics down and I had my measurements, it proved itself very simple to design in Fusion 360. 

I tried to design as many notes as possible that would usually fit in a hobbyist 3D printer. The pipes need to be printed standing up as it is the only plain surface available, so I set myself a height limit of around 22cm high. This turned out to be about 28 notes, which allows for plenty of variations.

I made folders with some common scales you can get with combinations of these notes based on key of A, but there are hundreds so experiment away!!

                                             PRINTING INSTRUCTIONS

USE VARIABLE LAYER HEIGHT! This allows for best quality on the open ends and for more precision at Z height while ensuring a speedy print. Also, I have printed all pipes with a 10mm brim to ensure good adhesion and no movement. All printed using PLA or PLA+.

A couple more suggestions, not essential but may be nice touches:

• Colour change at the bottom to get a different colour on the note ID (and gives a nice ribbon color effect at the bottom of the pipes).
• Try using different colours for different notes. Not only it will help you identifying them during play but also rainbows!
• Using Fuzzy Skin on the outer walls of the racks gives a pretty nice texture effect to them and hides your seams perfectly!
• Fun fact, the diameter of the pipe doesn't affect the note nearly as much as the length of the pipe, so if you fancy scaling it up or down a bit, you should be ok doing so on the X and Y axis ONLY but I have not tested this so do so at your own risk.

                                                   TUNING THE FLUTE

You can tune the pan flute using a tuner on your phone or a guitar tuner with microphone.

The pipes can be tuned by filling them with wax (beeswax works best, candle wax also works) or adding a few grains of rice inside to fine tune the pitch. If using wax, use the Wax Tool I've provided for this: the flat end will help pressing the wax down and the pointy end should help you remove any excess wax by rotating it inside the pipe.

Important Note: This method of tuning will bring the pitch up only. If you find the pitch is too high without anything inside, please let me know as pipe length will need adjusted!

                                                             FINAL NOTE

I'd like to finish by thanking everyone for checking this project out and a special thanks to my loving wife, who is always so supportive of my crazy ideas and allows me the time and space to get into my creative mood.

Finally, if by any lucky chance, this sparks your interest in music, PLEASE tell me in the comments section as you will absolutely make my day! :)