Philco 40-185 touchscreen jukebox conversion

[Fordman]

Hello All,

It's been a long while since Ive posted anything here on BYOAC and been a while since Ive been able to do a project.

I bought this Philco 40-185 about 3 years ago and its been sitting in my garage since. My intentions where to convert it to a touchscreen jukebox then and still today, my intentions havent changed.













The radio in it works perfectly but only picks up AM stations. Im not sure if the other bands it picks up are in use anymore. When switched over to another band, nothing but static. That brown craft paper wrapped thing is an antenna tuner. Turn it left or right and it will pick up stations better.







After I gutted the cabinet, blew it out, then ran the shop vac, it turned out ok. The process was about 30min to tear it all out.

The cabinet isnt in too bad of shape so im not going to do a refinish on it. I cleaned it with Murphy's oil soap and going to get one of those touch-up pens for furniture to cover the places that need it.

Now, how to mount the touchscreen? I thought about many ideas how to mount it. I settled with this idea. Its the original monitor stand for the ELO touchscreen without the cover. With the way the angled shelf for the radio was mounted inside, the monitor mount with the full lip and cover wouldnt fit through the hole. I didnt want to cut on the cabinet either so I stripped the monitor stand down to the metal and mounted it to the angled wood the radio sat on. Plus I didnt want the monitor to touch the outer wood to help with no-scratching when tilted, so I mounted the monitor stand about 5/8" away from the outer wood of the opening.







And here is the monitor mounted to the Philco cabinet.








Doesnt look to bad but it is top heavy so I added a sandbag in the back for weight for right now. When I add the PC, speakers with bass woofer and  amplifier, that should counter weight the top heavy monitor.

TO DO LIST:

1 PC-WinXP SP3 and E-Touch Jukebox
1 2.1 25 watt sound system. I dont want overkill as this is going to be used in a small family room.
1 Griffin Powermate for a volume knob - I have about 6 of these in storage.
1 USB port for adding music fro the from side (might use a knob hole for the USB port, just not sure how big the knobs holes are yet.
Take pics along the way.

Probably WILL DO LIST:

Cut holes in the speaker wood for the new speakers and re stretch the speaker cloth.
Add amplifier and speaker to handle 40-50watts.
Fill in knob holes with dummy knobs

That's it for now. I'll update when I get more done!

Suggestions welcome!

Fordman

[yotsuya]

Kudos to you for doing it that way, my friend! I saw how nice that looked and I inwardly cringed, thinking, "Oh crap, he's going to cut that spot out!" Good for you for maintaining it's integrity. 

[Fordman]

Kudos to you for doing it that way, my friend! I saw how nice that looked and I inwardly cringed, thinking, "Oh crap, he's going to cut that spot out!" Good for you for maintaining it's integrity. 

No cutting. Im a less is more guy. No way would I cut on this thing as one day, I might want to put the radio back in it. I did mark the wires so I know where they go prior to disassembly just in case I want to put it back in.

Fordman