Keyboard Pedal

Recently, the sister began learning a piano piece which requires the use of a foot pedal to sustain the key after it is released. Our keyboard however, doesn't come with the sustain pedal, but it's got a plug for one so it got me thinking about a quick solution. 

Some hot glue, a broken pair of headphones, a microswitch and some paddle pops later I had a plan to make a pedal. I first tested the piano sustain output to see which outputs needed to be bridged in order to activate the function. When the first and any of the other wires connect, the sustain function activates. It was fairly simple to burn off the plastic insulation, solder up the microswitch and build a small paddle pop enclosure for the foot switch. 

The paddle pop enclosure was built with a few considerations in mind. The micro switch must be supported upright so that the pedal can be used like a normal one. The micro switch must be supported from bottoming out so that the micro switch lever is not bent and the paddle pop sticks must create a stable base to avoid overturning.

This picture shows the design solution that I achieved, the 3 supports stop the lever on the microswitch from overextending, and the triangulated paddle pops create a strong product, so it can be used normally.

We plugged it in and gave it a run, and it works perfectly!