Patent ID: 8865989

Claim:
A method of measuring the mechanical characteristics of a piano key mechanism, comprising the steps of: a) moving a contact, originally at a home position, in a substantially vertical direction by having said contact follow a predetermined motion profile, b) simultaneously measuring resulting forces acting upwardly on said contact, for a time period that includes said contact's movement, and c) locating a transitory collision string from said resulting forces, and wherein: (i) said contact touches the key for some portion of said time period, at or near an application point, and (ii) said contact at said home position corresponds to one of the group of: (aa) a key clear state, (bb) a key adjacent state, or (cc) a key embed state, whereby a series of measured forces acting on said contact during said time period is obtained, with the force signature of a significant collision event being located within said series of measured forces.