NSM Prestige ES160 Jukebox Conversion

[MrD]

Well I bit the bullet and started my jukebox conversion project.  I've actually had the pc/amp/touch screen for a while and my plan was to build the cabinet for it.   Well I came across this jukebox and it was a good price (free).  So I've completely changed my design.

So here goes.   I picked this up a couple of weeks ago.  It was mostly gutted.   The speakers were still installed but the amp and record mechs were already removed.

Where the upper glass is, I plan to put in a lcd screen (widescreen) and either side I'll put in something fancy to fill the space.   Down below I'll put in some lighting / color organ.  I'll be running DOSCab.  Wireless remote control and pushbuttons on the cabinet.    It will take quarters / tokens.

The first thing I did was wire up my existing speakers to where I thought they were supposed to go.  I had 2 car amps and one was originally setup as a bridging amp and it was supposed to go to a sub woofer (which I had) and the other ran the main speakers.    I simplified this to just one amp and hooked it up to the jukebox and it played!   One tweeter is blown, but that will be easy enough to fix.

Here are a few pictures of the box as it came to me, and gutted after a few nights worth of tinkering.

[MrD]

The gutting went pretty well.   I took out a lot of parts, transformers, wiring, etc that wasn't necessary anymore.   I started tearing down my existing PC setup to figure out where it would all fit.  I got the AMP mounted in the back, as well as the PC. So far so good.   

I hooked up the AMP again and it sounded awful.  I checked my wiring and looked over everything I removed.  None of which should have had anything to do with sound.    It was all very "tinny".   I'm using a car amp, and the wiring specs that I found said this system was setup for 4 ohm so I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, or what I had broken.

I checked the wiring, and thought maybe I had them out of phase.  So I switched one channel (Swapped the wires) and BAM.  Great sound again.  I've since read on this site that jukebox are sometimes wired up with one channel inverted.  It's a trimode setup.   I'm glad I figured that one out because I can't actually get to where the lower speakers are mounted and there would be no easy way to see how they are wired up.

Here is the amp and PC mounted.  At least I can listen to it while working.

[MrD]

I really wanted to make the coin mech work.  I have a slot machine, pinball, and MAME machine and I wanted them all to be coin operated.   The guy I got this from had taken out the coin mech, and was selling it off with the rest of the parts.   I figured it would be easier to just get the original and put it back in.  So I contacted him, paid $25 and got it sent to me (so much for the free cabinet).   The mechanical parts were fine.   It was the switch that became the problem. 

The mechs must have been set up to take different coins.  It funnelled them into different slots.  So it could probably take nickels, dimes and quarters.   Then the mech sensed which coin, and the CPU counted the money.  I thought I could probably make that work.   Until I started looking at the coin switch.  6 wires.  Nothing labeled. 

I put some messages here, and elsewhere on jukebox forums to ask about the wiring.   Best thing I got back was pin 5 was the +, and 6 was the -.  The other 4 were the switches.    I did some testing, and it appears that 1-4 are hot until a coin  goes through, and it switches it off.   It all wasn't worth the hastle so I yanked it out and just put in a micro switch.  It will pretty much take any coin now and count it as a credit.   

[MrD]

The next step was to tackle the control panel.  From my first quick look at it, I figured it was some sort of matrix.   I thought it would just take some playing around and I could figure it out and hook it up to a keyboard hack. 
 
Turns out, it is a matrix, a 2 x 6, but there are 13 buttons.  Which would mean that it somehow and to have 3 buttons pressed to make the 13th. 

The pushbuttons had springs in them, and then they pressed against a long spring and somehow hit contacts behind it.   I scrapped the matrix idea and hacked it so I could use it with an IPAC encoder.   I added 13 mini momentary switches in place of this long spring thing.   Each of the original pushbuttons now press each switch.   Seems to work well so far.

I know an IPAC is overkill, since there shouldn't be ghosting problems with a jukebox, but I had a leftover one.  Plus, I've wired it up so that the "HIT" button is also a shift button.  That gives me the 13 original functions (1-0, clear, enter, hit) and 12 more functions.   For now I have them set so I can flip CDs, change the volume, mute, delete a song, and manually add credits.    I'll be adding 2 switched to control the left / right scrolling soon, but this at least let's it function.   Each of those will be shiftable also.  Shifted they will skip by letter of the alphabet, unshifted they will display the next or prev CD.

I wish I could get the LEDs to do something, but for now I'll leave them as is.   

Next step will be to finish up the wiring and get the color organ wired back in.  Then I can figure out the bottom area.   

[fredster]

I liike what you are doing MrD

What kind of buttons can you use for that?  How many do you need?

Any upward limit on your storage yet?  Are you going to incorporate any more features like radio or CD player to your machine?

[MrD]

The pushbuttons that you press are the originals.  My mod replaced the long rod looking thing (with the spring lengthwise) with the red and black switches.   I drilled holes in the carrier of that rod-thing to hold them.   They are mini switches from Radio Shack.  4pk, 2 red and 2 black.     So far they seem to work ok, and no one will ever see them. 

I'm not sure on the exact storage but I'm up close to 250 CDs at the moment.  I'm not sure on the HD size.   

The only other thing I thought I might add would be an external TV Tuner. ( I have an extra now).   It hooks between the PC and the monitor.   So using the remote, I could flip it on and it would be an extra 19" Widescreen LCD TV (with very good sound).