John Smith Organs - Topsy 3 Plans

As Topsy 3 represents a major advance in the design of a small portable organ, it is only fitting that the standard of the package supplied for its construction should also be much more sophisticated. As can be seen from the adjacent illustration, the building instructions are supplied in a spiral-bound folder, as are the constructional drawings. Separate folders have been used so that references to drawings, associated text and the DVD can be made at the same time, without having to flip between sections. Everything has been professionally printed, to make both text and illustrations easy to read.

Considerable effort has been expended on making the constructional details as clear, logical and easy-to-follow as possible.  Clicking here will (slowly!) open up a .pdf file showing a sample section of the text (use your browser's Back button to return to this page).   The whole publication is much larger than those in previous packages, so you will see that a contents page has been  included - to ease navigation through the 76 pages of text and drawings.

As shown on the contents page, there is a considerable amount of information provided over and above that needed for making Topsy 3 itself. Details are provided for 20/32/42/52 note versions, and to enable a larger organ to be constructed, with references to John's own 'Juliana' 98 Key MIDI dance organ - which lives in a small converted caravan.

There is also a section entirely devoted to circuits for including Registers to control sections of pipes, with many innovative ideas.  It is worth pointing out that these designs are not specific to Topsy 3, and that they may be suitable for use in any MIDI organ. Each circuit is printed adjacent to its associated text - again to ease the task of cross-referencing.

It would be fair to say that these plans represent a major step forward from the other much simpler versions for previous organs.