Completed Jukebox from Junk

[fredster]

I took an old Poker Machine and painted it, added a computer and a cheap surround sound system to it.  I did the keyboard hack for the few buttons that software required.

It's got 1119 songs on it.  It could hold another 300.

It's based on a IBM PC about 700 mhz.  It has a 17" monitor.  The software
is Arcade Jukebox 8. I had an old poker machine that I painted black and
added these stripes. 

The machine had an existing rudimentary electrical system for
plugging stuff in with a linear powersupply to feed the juice to the button
lights.

The sound is provided by a cheap surround system from Walmart for $40. It was the only thing I had to buy.  The rest was stuff laying around. I drilled holes in it for the sound to get out of the cab. 

It has a remote control for it too.

Most of the jukes I have ever seen didn't have much in the way of graphics. Just stripes or some pattern on it.  The silver and red paint made it pop without spending a whole bunch of time with tedious graphics.

[fredster]

Here's what it looked like before I painted it. The cab was pretty cool. It had a bottom door and a flip down front.  the top flipped up.  I cut a piece of Plexi and used poster frames to hold in the red construction paper.

I cut a hole out of the paper to make the Bezel.

The inside had plenty of room for the 5 speakers + woofer. I have one set beside the monitor, 3 in the large inside compartment, and the woofer (with intergrated amp) is in the bottom. 

I made a speaker grill for the bottom by taking an 8 x 10 picture frame and stapling a black cloth over it.

The side holes have some metal grill pieces I took off a junk video game (I have a few of those).  The front doesn't have a grill. I just drilled a pattern in front of the speakers.

[fredster]

Here's a few shots of the cab finished.

You can see the cheap grill I made with the holes.  The cab resonates and adds to the bass. 

[somunny]

Nice project but I'm *really* digging the wall treatment!

[leapinlew]

Wow! Thats really cool. I like how it turned out and it took some guts to see the finished project from where it was when you started.

[fredster]

Here's the keyboard hack in the first picture.  It's mounted with a cigar box under the monitor.

The speakers are attached with velcro.

Also is a shot of the paint job before and right after I finished.

[leapinlew]

Quick question for you fredster...

I used a touchscreen and freebox. I enjoy the jukebox and so does my wife. So much so, that she's commendeered it for the family room. I'd like to build another one for the gameroom, but I don't want to spend a ton of money on another touchscreen.

What buttons did you use for your jukebox? Is it enough buttons? Do you have any good pics of the CP?

[fredster]

Well, I did the keyboard hack. I had to throw away the first one.  I had some short appear in the function and it had a skicky key. The second keyboard I used had the mylar paper type buttons.  The chip itself had the black contact "stuff" on it. I needed to scratch that off to the copper.

I soldered some thin lead wire off of that.  I used little pieces I had left over from a cap kit.  Then I soldered a wire on the end of that to the distribution board I made.

I used a probe to short what wires I had.  I used Keyhook to figure out what scan code it was.

There was just enough to get me what I needed to program into Arcade Jukebox 8. I did make a point of finding the "enter" key for those occasional times you must hit "enter" with Windows.

Here's a pic of the CP:

[leapinlew]

Ahh... thanks!

Looks great - good work.

[fredster]

Nice project but I'm *really* digging the wall treatment!

Thaks somunny.

I made the room look like the old Pizza hut I went to as a teen.  It reminds me of the long ago far away days of Asteroids.  In that first pic is my mame machine.  It's almost 4 now. *sigh.  They grow up so fast.

Stripes are easy.  Just tape it up.  Learned that from HGTV. (although I am not gay, I do from time to time watch HGTV)

[Stingray]

Excellent use of what you had on hand. Turned out great IMO.

-S

[DrewKaree]

Now you just need a bigger screen when something happens to fall into your lap!   I REALLY dig the paint job and you're right, it gives enough character to the juke.  It's also not obscenely garish, like dem friggen orange walls

Somuny, you should search around for fredster's pics of his entire gameroom.  It's like the 80's threw up and fredster was lucky enough to have it land in his house

Fredster, we're gonna need some dimensions or whatnot.  That seems to be the perfect height, and when you were telling me it was a poker machine, I thought you meant one of those table(bar)top machines where you throw quarters in the side or something.  I totally didn't put two and two together.  That's damn near perfect height!

[fredster]

The box is 60" tall  x 23" wide X 23" front to back.

The thin part is about 18".  The CP is 6" X 21.5"

It's made out of plywood.

[danny_galaga]

that paint job is great and touches a nerve in a lot of us i think (",) . those poker machines look like they would make a handy cheap n cheerful mame as well...

[Dartful Dodger]

It looks great, it's obvious you put a lot of time into it.


More picts of the rest of the room please.

[ChadTower]

Nice job... great use of spare parts.  I like it.

[fredster]

Yeah, and I threw away one of those cabinets after I stripped it too.

[slider2732]

Great job...would certainly fit in with arcade cabs in a game room.

It's one thing that always surprised me, jukeboxes tended to be 1950's Wurlitzer's or black boxes hanging on walls...never one that complemented the look and feel of the gaming environ.

So, your's is cool if just for that reason !

[fredster]

I come up with a couple of designs I thought would be good.

I think that if I do this again, I'll take a piece of plywood and cut the profile of the curved top Werlitzer style. Then I'll put rope lights and trim on it to simulate a 2-D view of the old bubbler style.

I'll get a flat screen monitor for it and buy a motherboard. Build a square box about 4" out of the  back and mount the stuff in it like that.  Then hang that on the wall.  Just put a few buttons or use that cool controller shown in "the metal station" examples for jukeboxes.

This one was just easy because I had the stuff laying around.

I also thought I could just cut it out of a coffee table and mount it up like that, but I didn't want to buy the flat screen monitor for it.  You could just cut the monitor out and route it out for glass.  Then it would be cool because you could set drinks on it!