Antique Radio Project Help Needed!

[drventure]

That kickstarter looks cool. Just enough buttons and mouse support to do a reasonable juke or 1 player cab definitely.

And I love you could make the buttons out of just about anything.

Interesting.....

[saturnkk]

It could allow for some REAL creativity...!  I think I am going to pick 1 or 2 up.  Never know what future projects could benefit from such an aparatus???

BTW:  They really crushed their goal amount!

[saturnkk]

Alright,  Here are a few pics.  Like I mentioned, I wanted to create a seperate opening for the tweeter so I got out the handy dandy 1 1/8 hole cutter and went to town.  I am still working on how to mount the mid and tweeter inside but I thinnk I am close...  I will also find some kind of wire/mesh for the hole as cover and then the whole unit gets painted brass to match all the other metal.

[saturnkk]

Also, I picked out some thin fabric to replace the old speaker cover (behind the lats in front).  I wanted someting brassyish but reflective as I plan to mount LEDS inside there as well (one on top and one on bottom facing each other).  If it looks bad I can always change it...  I plan to use the remaining 2 lights underneath the unit to light the floor.  I have the same units under my pinball machine and I like how the look.  They are sound activated or have multiple flat color or scan/transition settings. 

Finally, my ELO touchscreen and Compaq computer were not playing nice.  The computer would hang every time at the very first Compaq start-up window.  If I unplugged the USB, let it start, then plugged it back in, it seemed to work fine.  After countless troubleshooting hours and online searches, I called HP and they spent another hour with me without success.  Then I remembered that the touchscreen had a serial port option to plugin instead of USB.  Problem is my computer doesn't have a serial port!...  Viola, a serial to USB adapter and like that issue solved!  (for $19  :-(  ).

Sometimes you gotta just trick em!

[Drnick]

Stupid question, but its the one that HP should have asked first, "Are you on the latest version of the Bios for your motherboard?" I ask this as we had similar problems with a bunch of machines at work and usb/vga adapters.  An update of the bios and they all worked fine.

[saturnkk]

Stupid question, but its the one that HP should have asked first, "Are you on the latest version of the Bios for your motherboard?" I ask this as we had similar problems with a bunch of machines at work and usb/vga adapters.  An update of the bios and they all worked fine.

Yes, we checked that and they confirmed that I was...  It was my second thought after the ELO driver itself.  Thanks!

[saturnkk]

So, can anyone tell me how to properly wire a VU meter into my set-up that looks like this?

Thanks!!!!

[HaRuMaN]

I'm GUESSING...  the outer tabs are the power for the backlight, and the inner tabs is the actual meter part.

[saturnkk]

So which wires get run through it?

[drventure]

If it's like mine (and I bought mine from Jim's audio too), they sent me the attached hookup diagrams.

The VUMeter is driven by a board, you can't just hook them directly to audio out (not sure if that's where you were going or not).

[saturnkk]

If it's like mine (and I bought mine from Jim's audio too), they sent me the attached hookup diagrams.

The VUMeter is driven by a board, you can't just hook them directly to audio out (not sure if that's where you were going or not).

Thanks!  So I need the board too and if these are the same as yours, they are pretty much going to stayed pinned at the top then (when the music is loud) right?

Do you think that I could repurpose the drive-in speaker potentiometer for the radio and use it to control the volume via an external dial?  I would think that I need to wire both speakers through it then?...

Sorry for the basic type questions but this is fairly new to me!
 

Thanks

[drventure]

Thanks!  So I need the board too and if these are the same as yours, they are pretty much going to stayed pinned at the top then (when the music is loud) right?

Do you think that I could repurpose the drive-in speaker potentiometer for the radio and use it to control the volume via an external dial?  I would think that I need to wire both speakers through it then?...

Yeah, you'll have to have a driver board, and if it's like the one I got, it'll reflect the volume of the sound level, so if you tend to vary the volume, you'll find the meters will not dance quite as much as you might like. After all, the only reason for putting meters in this kind of unit is for the bling of some dancing meters

You might try looking around for dynamically adjusting VUMeter boards. Seems like there was a kit sold with those VUMeter tubes that indicated that it varied the level reading based on the level so you always got activity in the tubes. If there's a way to hook that kind of board up to a "normal" vumeter, I'm not sure.

The easiest way around this whole problem is to

1) set the volume in windows to max.
2) get an audio Y splitter cable
3) run one end to you VUMeter board to drive the meters
4) run the other end to an amp with an external volume control

The only snag with that, is that most JUkebox apps have an onscreen volume adjustment, but that will only adjust the Windows volume, which in turn adjusts the volume level coming out the audio out jacks, so your VUMeter sees a volume adjusted signal, which is what you don't want.

[saturnkk]

Thanks!  In the end that I run to the VU meter board (#4) where on the board is the connection for this line?

[drventure]

Those terminals marked Lin, v0, Rin

That's left, right and ground.

However, and this is REALLY IMPORTANT!!!!

Many amplifiers are what's called, I think, floating ground.

That means that the speaker wires coming out of the amp have 2 COMPLETELY SEPARATE grounds. They aren't common and if you tie them together (ie be connected both to the V0 terminal on the board), somethings gonna fry.

On the other hand, the typical RCA audio output from the back of a PC IS common ground, you can know this because the 3.5mm audio jack only has 3 terminal points on it, L, R, and ground.
So, you Tee off from there, and connect L to LIN, R to RIN, and the ground to V0.

Here's a typical jack pinout.

[saturnkk]

Is it easier to wire up an input jack to the board to plug into or to just cut off the 3.5 jack and splice to the board direct?

[Drnick]

Both will be exactly the same amount of work (Excluding plugging in connections).  So I guess it depends on your choice.  I would add the adapter for ease of removal/testing etc.

[saturnkk]

Okay, some progress...  I have been able to adapt the guts of the Klipsch speakers into the metal speaker housings.  I used the main opening for the mid and the lower (old volume control) I drilled out and used a mesh screen over it for the tweeter.  Painted it all bronze and viola.  They sound GREAT in there!  Tight fit, but it works.  Now I need to figure out what to do with the speaker wire coming out?!?  Also, I picked-up 2 angle brackets to try to use as mounts but I am not sure on this yet.  Basically they'd screw in close to the top front and the speakers would hang on them (like your window at the drive in) but they point down slightly in that position so I am still working on it...

Finally, I was able to repurpose the channel knob (using a dremel and other random parts) for use as the volume control.  Still need to clean up the black knob and paint the lightning bolt (gold  I think).

[drventure]

Nice. This is coming along!

[yotsuya]

Looks great so far!

[HaRuMaN]

You get your magic eyes yet?

[saturnkk]

You get your magic eyes yet?

Yes, I got 3 of them.  2 "side view" type and 1 top view. I think that I am going to mount the side view ones through the top and the top down one throught the small hole below the large circular cut out...

[saturnkk]

Ok!  Gettin' her close to done now.  Made a few on the fly design decisions for which the tubes were an unfortunate casulaty.  I just couldn't figure out a way to use them on this without it looking too goofy (since I am using the plasma globe)...  It's okay though, I'll just use them on the next project (oh, and my Makey Makey too).

One issue I have is that I replaced the 75ohm potentiometer with a 100ohm one from radio shack.  I think that the sound is not as crisp now?!?  Can anyone here verify that I would degrade sound quality with a Radio Shack 100ohm pot in this situation?!?

[Santoro]

Subscribe... looks cool!

[saturnkk]

Okay, here we go...  First, decided to use this to mount the touchscreen to the radio....  Painted it metallic brass to match the other stuff.

[saturnkk]

My GF helped me make these templates for the inside of the 1950's drive inn speakers to mount my Klipsch speakers into.  I used some metal screen material to cover the tweeter hole that I drilled out where the old volume control was...

[saturnkk]

Polished and clear coated the bezel (as recommended here).

[saturnkk]

Here is the nearly complete unit.  Inside I added a shelf for the computer, foam padding for the shelves to help with vibration, and a power strip to control everything.  I recovered the old speaker grill on the inside with new material and added LEDs in there (the Red ones not showing up well in this photo).  The old Short Wave station nob was taken apart and re-rigged to control the volume (my GF painted the Zenith Z on it to make pop a little more).  The plasma globe replaced the old Short Wave dial face and an on/off swith was used to cover the other opening.  The old station selector on the dial was repurposed to cover the knob hole and is pending the addition of a small led behind it to make the withe plastic part glow.  Also, I am looking for some ornate metal to trim in the on/off switch and volume control areas. 

All in all it works well and sounds good.  It plays all of my music (about 40 gb) and thus far I have loaded about 25 music videos (out of around 400 or so).  The music videos don't sound as good.  I am thinking of upgrading the pot to help the sound quality a bit.  Touchscreen works great and the old style frame around it was an easy solution for mounting.

I also set the computer up so I can display the videos on my large plasma screen as well.

I will try to get some bettter pics soon...

[yotsuya]

That is AWESOME, my friend.

[saturnkk]

That is AWESOME, my friend.

Thanks!  I am by NO means a carpenter or electrician at ALL.  This is my very first project of this type and I don't have a lot of patience to wait around for the "right" parts!  All in all I think it came out okay.  It does look MUCH cooler inperson.  I'll try to get some better pics once it is 100% there.

[drventure]

That is AWESOME, my friend.

Couldn't have said it better. The Bezel, knob, screen. All look fantastic.

 

[saturnkk]

Thanks!  I think it'll look better to me once I trim the brass metal into the bezel and get the led let behind the Zenith lightning bolt...  Need to work on closing in the back next too.

Now...  I still have those tubes that I ordered from Ebay/China...  Maybe a new table top radio project?!?  ...use it as a receiver / player for my 1,000 gigawatt system in the basement???...