Schlagwort: Jukebox

  • Raspberry Pi transforms old Wurlitzer into modern digital jukebox

    Raspberry Pi transforms old Wurlitzer into modern digital jukebox

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    It’s been a while since we saw a good jukebox retrofit project, so when we saw this old Wurlitzer transformed into a modern, all-in digital jukebox, we had to share it.

    Maker Marc Engrie’s cousin came across an old Wurlitzer on a local online second-hand store. The seller had imported it from the US and intended to convert it himself but never got round to it, so he ended up selling it on. Marc’s cousin enticed him with some photos of the Wurlitzer and asked how much it would cost him to breathe new life into the jukebox.

    Name your price

    Marc already had three Raspberry Pis at home running music streaming software Volumio, so he felt confident he could harness the power of our tiny computer to bring this classic objet d’art back to life. Adding on hardware costs, he figured he could restore it to its former glory for €600 (about £500).

    Once the jukebox was delivered, Marc stripped everything away, including the unfinished work of the previous restorer. The iconic enclosure was all that was left, along with the loudspeakers.

    Adding new hardware

    A 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and a Raspberry Pi Touch Display form the new brain and face of the Wurlitzer. HiFiBerry‘s DAC+ Pro allows music to play from a USB stick. Other devices can play music from an auxiliary-in port.

    The two sides of the new face of the jukebox

    Marc added a 2 x 2-channel audio amp (2 x 100W for the woofers plus 2 x 100W for mid/high). It’s easy to install and uninstall in case the jukebox ever needs repairing.

    And as a final modern finishing touch, he swapped all the original lights for LEDs.

    NEAT wire control

    Lots of docs

    Marc is a super diligent maker and has crafted a spreadsheet showing all the hardware, prices, and retailers. You can also get your hands on a comprehensive software setup instructions, as well as a hardware map showing you how all the Wurlitzer’s new insides fit together. Better still, there’s a whole user manual showing you how every single button and switch works. We think his middle name should be ‘Thorough’. Super, top, detailed job, Marc.

    Play me!

    See more from Marc

    Check out more of Marc’s electronics projects here. There’s a weather station, an automated greenhouse, a chicken shed with an automatic door, and more.

    Website: LINK

  • Raspberry Pi-powered wedding memories record player

    Raspberry Pi-powered wedding memories record player

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    We’re a sentimental bunch and were bowled over by this intricate, musical wedding gift. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi and has various other bits of geeky goodness under the hood. Honestly, the extra features just keep coming — you’ll see.

    This beautifully crafted ‘record player’ plays one pair of newlyweds’ Spotify accounts, and there’s a special visual twist when their ‘first dance’ wedding song plays.

    Midway through the build process

    First, a little background: the newlyweds, Holly and Dougie, have been sweethearts since early highschool days. Their wedding took place on a farm near the village they grew up in, Fintry in rural Scotland.

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    Throughout the wedding day, the phrase “Music is a huge deal” was repeated often, which gave the bride’s older brother Ben Howell the idea for a homemade, Raspberry Pi–powered gift.

    Custom tagline laser-cut and spray-painted

    He built the couple a neatly finished music box, known as HD-001 (HD for ‘Holly Dougie’ of course) and home to a ‘smart turntable’. It can connect to a wireless network and has a touch screen where the record label would normally sit. When you lift the lid and switch it on, it asks “Hello. Who’s listening?”

    Once you tap on the picture of either the bride or groom, it accesses their Spotify account and fetches the album artwork of whatever song it plays.

    What’s inside?

    The main brain is Raspberry Pi 3 running Raspberry Pi OS. The interface is built as a web page in mostly PHP and JavaScript. It uses the Spotify API to get the ‘now playing’ track of the bride’s or groom’s account, and to fish out the album artwork URL from the return data so it can display this on a rotating panel.

    The audio side is a powered by a 50W Bluetooth amplifier, which is entirely independent from the Raspberry Pi computer.

    The build details

    The enclosure is all custom-designed and built using scrap wood wrapped in green faux leather material. Ben sourced most of the other materials — rubber feet, hinges, switches, metal grille — on Amazon.

    The HD-001 also features a hand-built 4-way speaker system and a custom-made speaker grille with that famous phrase “Music is a huge deal” on the front.

    The lettering on the grille was laser-cut by a company in Glasgow to order, and Ben spray-painted it metallic grey. The LCD panel and driver board are also from Amazon.

    To play and pause music, Ben sourced a tone-arm online and routed cabling from the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins through to a micro-switch where the original needle should sit. That’s how lifting the arm pauses playback, and replacing it resumes the music.

    Getting the audio to work

    Ben explains: “Essentially, it’s a fancy Bluetooth speaker system disguised as an old-fashioned turntable and designed to behave and work like an old-fashioned turntable (skeuomorphism gone mad!).”

    Oh, and our favourite adorable bonus feature? If the first dance song from Holly’s and Dougie’s wedding is played, the album artwork on the LCD panel fades away, to be replaced by a slideshow of photos from their wedding.

    And for extra, extra big brother points, Ben even took the time to create a manual to make sure the newlyweds got the most out of their musical gift.

    We have it on good authority that Ben will entertain anyone who would like to place a pre-order for the HD-002.

    Website: LINK

  • Steampunk radio jukebox

    Steampunk radio jukebox

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Spyrul breathed new life into his great-grandparents’ 1930s Westinghouse with a Raspberry Pi, an amplifier HAT, Google Music, and some serious effort. The result is a really beautiful, striking piece.

    Steampunk Radio Raspberry Pi

    The radio

    With a background in radio electronics, Spyrul had always planned to restore his great-grandparents’ mid-30s Westinghouse radio. “I even found the original schematics glued to the bottom of the base of the main electronics assembly,” he explains in his Instructables walkthrough. However, considering the age of the piece and the cost of sourcing parts for a repair, he decided to take the project in a slightly different direction.

    “I pulled the main electronics assembly out quite easily, it was held in by four flat head screws […] I decided to make a Steampunk themed Jukebox based off this main assembly and power it with a Raspberry Pi,” he writes.

    The build

    Spyrul added JustBoom’s Amp HAT to a Raspberry Pi 3 to boost the sound quality and functionality of the board.

    He spent a weekend prototyping and testing the electronics before deciding on his final layout. After a little time playing around with different software, Spyrul chose Mopidy, a flexible music server written in Python. Mopidy lets him connect to his music-streaming service of choice, Google Music, and also allows airplay connectivity for other wireless devices.

    Stripping out the old electronics from inside the Westinghouse radio easily made enough space for Spyrul’s new, much smaller, setup. Reserving various pieces for the final build, and scrubbing the entire unit to within an inch of its life with soap and water, he moved on to the aesthetics of the piece.

    The steampunk

    LED Nixie tubes, a 1950s DC voltmeter, and spray paint all contributed to the final look of the radio. It has a splendid steampunk look that works wonderfully with the vintage of the original radio.

    Retrofit and steampunk Raspberry Pi builds

    From old pub jukeboxes to Bakelite kitchen radios, we’ve seen lots of retrofit audio visual Pi projects over the years, with all kinds of functionality and in all sorts of styles.

    Americana – does exactly what it says on the tin jukebox

    For more steampunk inspiration, check out phrazelle’s laptop and Derek Woodroffe’s tentacle hat. And for more audiophile builds, Tijuana Rick’s 60s Wurlitzer and Steve Devlin’s 50s wallbox are stand-out examples.

    Website: LINK