Rat Rod (working title) - first Juke build

[drventure]

That is looking great! I like that hammered finish on the speaker panel.

[reptileink]

Looking great my man! One step at a time gets you to where you are going........ 

[gryhnd]

A couple hours in the shop this morning. Lots of wiring and soldering, and permanently mounting the VU Meters, etc. Popped the ELO back in place, hooked up the basics to the PC, and fired it up. Results below.




It's difficult with the cell phone pics to see the glow from the VU meters and Volt Meter, but it's a nice warm look.

[drventure]

Fantastic! 

[jipp]

thats a great looking jukebox.  when i build my first mame bartop.. im so gonna use this vinyl stuff i think. chrome t-molding and a V8 marquee.  heh. thanks for inspiration for a future project.

very cool project.

chris.

[BobA]

Great details on your juke.   Really a sharp retro classic theme. 

Love meters with real needles.

[Nacimroc]

Those VU meters look fantastic!!  Did you have to buy the board that they sell on ebay along with them or did you do it yourself ?

[gryhnd]

Sidebar: I'll say it again...one thing I hate about this board is that if you accidentally click away while composing, you lose the whole damn post when you back up. Argh! 

So, again:

Thanks guys!! 

Yes, I purchased the driver board from the same vendor the VU meters came from.  They are out of China, and whoever they/he/she is, they are very patient and very knowledgeable. They even coached me through how to change the input voltage on the driver board from the stock 24VAC to 18-24VDC (which I ended up abandoning after finding a 24VAC transformer in my shop).  Highly recommend them.

[drventure]

There's some cool stuff at that link! I especially like the tube style level meter and board



That'd have been great in my build....

[gryhnd]

That'd have been great in my build....

Dude, seriously for your build...I don't think "too late" will "ever" apply!  

[drventure]

 

Yeah, it's kind of become "The neverending build". Hopefully, I won't approach PixelHugger in that respect 

[gryhnd]

Yeah, it's kind of become "The neverending build".

(dating myself?)

[drventure]

Hehe I was kind of expecting a pic of that flying dog thing.... 

[gryhnd]

Hehe I was kind of expecting a pic of that flying dog thing.... 

oh wait...Falcor?

[Nacimroc]

. They even coached me through how to change the input voltage on the driver board from the stock 24VAC to 18-24VDC

Is there any chance you could forward on those details as I would buy these units if they accepted DC as opposed to a 24vac supply! My email is nacimroc@gmail.com! It would be much appreciated!

[gryhnd]

Posting here for everyone for future reference. I did follow these instructions, and using this step up voltage board to boost my 12VDC to 24V, it all worked as expected.

Bad line breaks are part of the original email. Too tired to clean them up 

On the board, connect the negative port of either
the left
or right VU meter to your power supply
ground, and ANY one of the AC
port to the positive
of your power supply. It is best that this to be
done with a voltage controlled power supply with
current limit for the
first time to ensure there
is no error in the connection ( as we always
do
wrong the first time). Otherwise at least use a
voltmeter to tap the
voltage at the output or
input of the regulator chip 7818 ( the center
pin
of 7818 is ground, and the left pin is input,
right pin is output).
Once it is power up the
voltmeter should have the expected voltage say

24V. If this voltage does not appear, don't wait,
turn the power off
and check the connection again.
The regulator chip can blow in a few
seconds if
there is a wrong connection. The DC supply using
this way
must be 24V to 27V. 18V is not enough for
good regulation and proper
operation of the meter
IC.

[Nacimroc]

Thanks

[gryhnd]

Yay! Warmed up enough today, and with the day off and my son away, I opted to spend a few hours in the shop.

Today I mounted the 4 way 6.5" drivers to their plate, and then attached the subwoofer neon rings:



Sealed the speakers to the plate, and the pass-thru hole for the rings' cables. Just used some black latex caulking:



I slid the speakers into place and ran a test to see how things looked (ignore the wire on the right which is no longer there):



Pretty cool! I decided I liked the blue rings by themselves and didn't want to muddy them with the red CCFLs, so I moved the red tubes from behind the speaker grill to underneath the juke:




I'm going to have the rings stay on constant, and the red tubes underneath be sound controlled. It felt more balanced with the rings on, otherwise the lower area of the juke was too dark.

I do have some issues with the rings though. See next post.

(edit for typos)

[gryhnd]

I've got some weirdness with the rings I installed in the preceding post.

First let me say that I have hooked the rings up direct to 12VDC rather than through the sound control module. I don't need the module, it's a waste of space, and just another thing that can go wrong. That said, what I am about to describe occurred with and without the module, and whether or not the step up transformer was getting its power from the PSU or from a lead acid battery.

I'll boil it down to this: the rings don't usually light up fully when power is applied. Typically one will glow more than the other (but not 100%), and the other barely has a glow at all.  If I pull one of the wires leading from the step-up transformer to the rings, then reconnect it...poof they both light up full bright. This is 100% reproducible. If the rings don't light, disconnect and reconnect a wire to the rings and they work.

This isn't temp related either.

Unfortunately I purchased these rings so long ago that even if I could find the receipt they are out of warranty, and I've mod'd things already (   ).

To my eye, it's almost as if the step up transformer doesn't have quite enough kick on initial start to fire up the rings. So with that in mind I scavenged the shop and wired in line (again, between the step up and the rings, not on the 12V side) some resistors and a cap. My thinking was the resistors would delay charging the cap, and when the cap kicked on hopefully the step up had a full load....so to speak.

The capacitor is 220uf, 35V.

A single 68ohm 1/2 watt resistor didn't do the trick. Nor did two. But when I also added a 100k Ohm 1/4 watt, I seem to have hit the magic combo. So far in my short term tests, I can get the rings to light all the time now. I'm leaving it all unplugged tonight and will check again tomorrow morning.

Since I am no E.E., my questions are:

1) Is that cap going to pop at some point? I have no idea what the stepped up voltage is for the rings, but is a 35V cap too low on the V rating? I let it run for about an hour and didn't notice anything unusual, but I know from reading these boards that the wrong cap can go for months or years before popping.

2) The three resistors in line seems kinda lame to me. Any suggestions on what would be better?

3) Am I way off base with this approach?

Thanks!

[gryhnd]

I fired it up this morning, and other than a bit of warm up needed for full glow b/c it's so damn cold in the shop, the neon rings lit right up! Very cool.

However now that I've stepped away for a bit, I think I came at this wrong. The resistor->cap delay would be used to control the energizing of a relay, right? Not in line like I have it, or is it ultimately the same thing.  

All input welcome. Especially regarding whether the cap rating is appropriate or not.

[gryhnd]

Well I'm an idiot. It just dawned on me that using resistors in line of course means that my rings should now being glowing dimmer.  Sure enough, when I bypassed the C&Rs above, light output went up. A ton? No. Enough that it bugged me? Yes.

In my excitement of getting them to light consistently I didn't notice the output reduction.

 

So, I guess I'll be looking to some sort of a delayed relay setup.

[gryhnd]

I'm hoping the crickets are just because it's school vacation week and everyone is away  

I can't seemed to find a time delayed relay that isn't as much or more than the rings themselves, and all circuit diagrams seem either overkill or too much for my meager skills.

Maybe just a big ass capacitor by itself? It will take a while to charge, and then remain at the proper voltage?

In the meantime, I finished wiring up the speakers and the amp, and the red CCFLs, then connected a MP3 player up for an audio and lights test.

Check it out, with a styling rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Paul Anka  :

[gryhnd]

Clearly Logitech wasn't planning ahead for jukebox use when they made their red CCFL tubes: the distal end of the CCFL itself is not actually attached to anything within the protective lexan tube. So guess what happens when you slap it up next to a 10" sub thumping away? It rattles worse than a snake on crack. Multiply that by two and I thought I was standing next to the world's largest vibrator.

Thankfully my wife was at work 

So...what to do? Progressing up slowly through three different sized drill bits so as not to fark the CCFL, I bored a hole in the lexan end cap (fairly thick, btw) until reaching the inner sanctum.  Next I mixed up some epoxy glue and packed it in through the hole with a toothpick until enough of the stuff was in the end to grab the CCFL. Bonus: it reseals the end cap.

Initial (uncured) tests are

Next I completed the wiring from the amp to to the VU driver board. The meters work perfectly, except that for "bling" purposes I hope I can figure out how to adjust the driver board so the Vu meters react more.  IOW, I don't care about the fact that they read true, I want those needles to bounce, baby.

With no input from the community, I went ahead and ordered off of eBay a timed delayed relay that I hope will work as I need it too for the neon rings. Fingers crossed.

The rest of what I picked at today was mounting the amp, routing wires, etc, so on. Mundane stuff.

I fired up the engine today (PC) and was astounded by how much louder it was than my MP3 player. I nearly fell over when the XP start tune played...and that was at about 10-15% volume.

[alarsuel]

Looking great!  Keep with the updates.

[yotsuya]

I wish I could find a pair of working VU meters. My dad had a Pioneer stereo when I was growing up that had a sweet pair of softly lit ones that, like you stated, seemed to bounce to the music. Wish I could recreate that!

[Dermbrian]

Nice software VU meters that work in Vista and Windows 7 to show playback levels...I gather the XP ones do not, but only function on the recording levels.

http://www.vuplayer.com/other.php


Brian

[gryhnd]

I was able to tweak the pots on the driver board, and that in combination with turning up the master PC volume (oops), my meters are now nicely bouncing.

Turned out the gain adjustments on the amp were up so high that I was actually playing the PC at a really low level...which of course meant that the signal to the driver board was likewise super low.

Details details...

The sub is thumping mightily, even though the back of the cab is still wide open. Can't wait to see what it is like once I seal up the enclosure!

[gryhnd]

Latest additions: I installed the red and chrome pilot light in the toe kick area. Scored a sweet 1950s Chrome V Chrysler Emblem of eBay, then added some more modern chrome and carbon fiber "side vents" to compliment the "V".

Coming soon, also via eBay, is a 1957 Buick "target" hood ornament, like this one.

Check her out:




Still struggling with those neon rings. Not sure what I am going to do about that yet. I suppose ultimately I'll have to reorder them.

[gryhnd]

I believe I finally licked the problem with the neon rings...at least for now.  The time delay relay I ordered worked as it should, however it didn't solve the problem of inconsistent starting of the rings.

What I ended up doing today was to take the second (unused) inverter from the red tubes (one inverter can run two tubes so I didn't need the 2nd), and wired it inline with the existing inverter for the neon rings.  This seems to give them just what they need, and a bonus is they glow a bit brighter than before. We'll see how it holds up in the long run, but for now  

I'm really digging the way the Chrysler V looks with the chrome side vents, and all the lighting:




I am still waiting on the hood ornament to arrive. I hope it works out the way I envisioned. Other than that, most of what's left is just tucking things into place, routing wires, and cutting the back panels.  All the small stuff that, while it takes longer than planned, at least shows me the end is in sight!

[gryhnd]

(see post above too)

My beloved Canon S3 IS has crapped out, so I have to resort to using my son's point and shoot Kodak for photos and vids for now.  Sorry about the poor quality.

Anyway, here's three clips cobbled together showing the Rat Rod starting up by pushing the Engine Start button, playing music, and then shutting down via the same Engine Start button.  I've been all about the hardware side of things, so obviously I haven't gotten to any of the finer tweaking of boot screens, etc. So ya, for now you see the ugly XP underpinnings.

At about the 1:00 mark you'll see me reach in and turn up the volume. I guess the camera's mic was already overwhelmed or it attenuates loud sounds, but you can't tell the difference in the vid between before and after. In person though it went from moderate volume to gut churning.

[gryhnd]

Spent a little time first thing this morning just bundling wires, shortening power cords (ended up taking about 4ft off the Ecostrip), locking everything down with zip ties and mounts, etc.

I did discover that you cannot bundle the excess cord from the USB sensor of the Ecostrip. Doing so prevents it from detecting that the PC is on.Simply running it up one side of the cab, across the top, and back down the other side solved that problem.

Clockwise from top: drive cage, pc power supply, computer, ecostrip and audio amp:


Clockwise from top left: 12V PSU, 5farad capacitor, 24V AC transformer, VU meter driver board, dual marine bus bar:


Looking up in the speaker area are the two inverters driving the neon rings. The black one is the original, the clear one is the second inverter wired in parallel (see earlier post):


And finally looking at the subwoofer and the inverter (which I painted black for when I thought it would be possibly visible) for the two red CCFLs:

[gryhnd]

Well, I'm pretty much done. Still waiting on the hood ornament, and am pondering what to do on the sides...if anything. Then a good dusting, polishing and overall cleaning. I could conceivably bring her into the house this weekend!

Last night I created the vented and removable portion of the back panel that hides & protects the computer, audio amp, etc. out of hardboard:



Then I cut the back plate to seal up the speaker area, recessed the audio sensitivity control for the red CCFLs (the MDF is much thicker than a PCI bracket!).




The handle isn't actually structural...it was a "handy" way to position and pull that back plate into place.

Too bad the MDF and the hardboard are different colors, but it's unseen so I'm not going to stress over it right now. Maybe I'll paint them in the future.

Bwahahaha! Right.

[roypattonphoto]

looking good man , nice and clean , wish i could be that clean and organized lol.. hell half the crap i do looks like a big destroyed ball of yarn if u catch the drift...

[gryhnd]

looking good man , nice and clean , wish i could be that clean and organized lol.. hell half the crap i do looks like a big destroyed ball of yarn if u catch the drift...

Thanks! I thought my build thread had disappeared into a black hole...I've been talking to myself for the last two weeks 

I know what you mean about a ball of yarn.  With some of my earlier builds I was more focused on completing the task than putting things together in a neat and orderly fashion.  Everything works, but maintenance, mods, etc become a hassle later on.  For the Rat Rod I was concerned about the vibrations from the subwoofer making things rattle if they weren't locked down tight, so I had a double incentive.

[gryhnd]

I am growing impatient. My hood ornament is still not here.  It shouldn't take 9 days for USPS to get a package from MD to MA, but since the eBay seller has an excellent rating I can only surmise that the post office is at fault. Of course this shipment doesn't have a tracking number listed, so I've shot a message off to the seller for help.

[roypattonphoto]

yah ive had some thing coming across country to CA and have been taking extra amount of time, ive been, so far, counting it to the weather issues the East Coast is going through...

[gryhnd]

I am growing impatient. My hood ornament is still not here.  It shouldn't take 9 days for USPS to get a package from MD to MA, but since the eBay seller has an excellent rating I can only surmise that the post office is at fault. Of course this shipment doesn't have a tracking number listed, so I've shot a message off to the seller for help.

Well whaddya know...it finally appeared today. It shows it was shipped on March 1st. That's 13 frickin' day to go up the coast. I've gotten stuff from China in that amount of time.  

It's a bit more pitted than I had hoped, but still in pretty good shape considering it is 53 years old. And since others on ebay are going for $40 - $175, my $26 shipped is nothing to sneeze at

I'll probably leave it as is (after a polish), but worse comes to worse there is a re-chroming outfit in Fall River. No idea what they would charge though...

From tip-to-tip is 14.25"

[gryhnd]

I'll probably leave it as is (after a polish), but worse comes to worse there is a re-chroming outfit in Fall River. No idea what they would charge though...

Sent an email to the company in Fall River. They've done these before, and to rechrome it is $175...way more than I can afford for a single piece right now. So I guess I'll leave it as is. I knew rechroming was pricey. Lots of labor.

[alarsuel]

$175... Yikes.  Guess I'm gonna leave the old Mustang logo as is on my build.  Looking great, you must be pleased with the "result".

[gryhnd]

$175... Yikes.  Guess I'm gonna leave the old Mustang logo as is on my build.  Looking great, you must be pleased with the "result".

In my case at least, it has to be broken down into two parts. I presume the target separates. So there's more labor there just to do that, and then weld them back together.

Last thing I am waiting on is more carbon fiber vinyl to put on the top surface, and then mount the hood ornament through it. 

I had a board fall on the left overs from the bezel and tear it up in all the wrong places of course. Would have been just the right amount otherwise.