Kalimba CAD Design

A conceptual 13-key kalimba designed as an academic semester project in Autodesk Inventor 2023, with technical drawings and Blender visualizations.

Project overview

The project covers the complete CAD development of a kalimba-style musical instrument:

• resonance box and top plate,
• 13 metal keys arranged from C4 to A5,
• custom key support and clamping mechanism,
• wooden and metal components,
• complete Inventor assembly,
• standard M3 × 0.5 × 25 fasteners from Inventor Content Center,
• assembly and manufacturing drawings,
• bill of materials,
• Blender renders based on the exported CAD model,
• an additional tuning-hammer model.

All non-standard instrument parts were modeled specifically for this project.

Gallery

Open the Inventor project

1. Use Autodesk Inventor 2023 or newer.
2. Open and activate:

cad/inventor/Kalimba.ipj

3. Open Kalimba.iam from the cad/inventor/Workspaces/ directory.

The repository contains the portable project structure generated with Inventor Pack and Go, including the required Content Center component.

Saving the project in a newer Inventor version may migrate the files and prevent them from opening in older releases.

Technical drawings

Editable Inventor DWG files are available in drawings/source.

PDF exports:

• Assembly drawing
• Assembly parts list
• Manufacturing drawing
• Isometric view

Documentation

The original Polish technical documentation is available here:

Technical documentation — Polish

It documents the modeling process, component design, assembly structure, technical drawings and visualizations.

Repository structure

Kalimba-CAD-Design/
├── cad/
│   └── inventor/
│       ├── Kalimba.ipj
│       ├── Design Data/
│       ├── Libraries/
│       ├── Presets/
│       ├── Templates/
│       └── Workspaces/
├── drawings/
│   ├── source/
│   └── pdf/
├── docs/
│   └── technical-documentation-pl.pdf
├── media/
│   ├── preview.jpg
│   ├── top-view.jpg
│   ├── key-mechanism-closeup.jpg
│   ├── key-mechanism-side.jpg
│   ├── inventor-mechanism.png
│   └── tuning-hammer.jpg
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

Design scope and limitations

This is a conceptual academic CAD project, not a manufacturing-ready instrument.

The project was not validated through physical production or acoustic measurements. The following areas would require further engineering work:

• assembly sequence and workshop instructions,
• adhesive selection and wooden-joint specification,
• threaded inserts or another validated method of fastening into wood,
• dimensional and manufacturing tolerances,
• material selection supported by mechanical and acoustic testing,
• physical prototyping and tuning validation.

These limitations are preserved intentionally to present the project honestly in its original academic scope.

Additional model

A tuning hammer was designed as an additional project asset and visualized in Blender.

Academic context

• Author: Bartłomiej Bondek
• Software: Autodesk Inventor 2023, Blender 3.4.1
• Course: Engineering Graphics and Project Documentation
• Field of study: Acoustic Engineering
• Institution: AGH University of Krakow
• Year: 2023

Usage

This repository is published as a portfolio and educational archive. No manufacturing or commercial-use license is granted.