Creating a Radio Part 1 – General Hardware

The project I have been working on for the last two months was a radio for my parents anniversary; but not a normal radio, I got a replica of a 1934 Thomas Radio (Collector’s Edition), gutted it, then built my own system to put music on. I figured for fun I will write a few posts about it, and anyone who wanted to try to reproduce it again would have ample data.

Radio Picture

This is the front of the final radio

To start let us look at the model radio I started with, most will work, just with varying degrees of work put into them. The closet website I can find to the version I have is here, http://tweakeddesigns.blogspot.com/2011/07/reproduction-of-1934-thomas-radio.html. I think this is the exact radio, but with a slightly different wood stain on it. First I got that radio, then ripped all the parts out of it, except for the two outer front knobs (potentiometers). It turned out that the middle knob was just a stick with a string around it that went to a sensor and the channel dial. So the whole dial moved then this string was twisted, but that was only held up by the old internal electronics. Since that was a very… janky, I removed that, and replaced it with a separate potentiometer and a servo to change the dial hands. I made a awesomely horrible 3D render of how this looked, with all the original parts removed, and a servo added. I will do another post all about the Arduino and how that was hooked up.

3D back of radio

Here is a bad 3d model of the empty radio in the back

Now for the best of prototyping, I used cardboard to support all this, cardboard is your friend for prototyping, except when it catches on fire, then it’s bad. Afterwards, I got these wooden splints from Home Depot, and put them in to reinforce everything, they came in about 14 inches long by 1.5 inches wide by 1/8 inch thick. I secured them with super glue, then screwed the Arduino microcontroller into these supports. Of course with plenty of electrical tape over the wood to shield it all.

One key part of the system is how the music is played. The music is played through a Mini-ITX board that is attached on the back. I needed a power supply for this, so I got a Mini-ITX  case(Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK100) and just removed the power parts. The original plan was to put the pc outside this device, in a normal pc case, but I figured I’d just go for this design. Then I drilled a hole in the side so that I could use the Antec cases external power brick, and just plug it in the side. That had plenty of electrical tape on its supporting splint, along with a plastic shield that the power supply part had under it in the Antec case. I don’t like fire, so I was sure to be careful when handling these power systems; also, this was the only splint that was secured with screws and super glue, I dont want a charged power supply falling. The picture below shows this.

Back of radio

Real radio back

In a simple wiring diagram, we have the Arduino all wired up, post to follow, that goes into the mini-itx board through a USB hub. The USB hub also has a SD card reader, the software and Ardunio goes into the USB hub to make everything easier. The SD card reader is aligned to the side port, where the tape drive used to be, then songs can be updated by taking SD card out and updating the files. Then we have the original speaker in the radio wired into a 3.5mm headphone jack, available at Radio Shack, I’m sorry THE SHACK, and that goes into the audio on jack of the mini-itx board. The power supply cable goes into the Mini-ITX board, along with the SATA SSD. I know that doesn’t explain it well, but I will be writing more articles, one about the wiring and the Arduino wiring; then another about the software running the Ardunio and on the Mini-ITX board.

I’m not great with technical documents, if anyone has any questions feel free to email or even better post a comment.

Coming Up Soon…

I have been working on a secret project for my parents anniversary for the past few months. Now that it is complete I will be posting about it and the steps I took to make it ( I think some people may be interested in it), as well as start uploading the the code of some of my discontinued products for people to look at. Yet before all this can happen, I must move across the country; so it may take a little while for the material to go up. Stay tuned.

6to4 Adapter Cleaner, v1.60

This version brings a few fixes and new features, hence the version jump. Features Include:

  • Minimize to Tray when removal is working
  • Checks if already running on startup
  • Faster IPv6 detection for method 2
  • Slightly smaller

 

Download:

https://github.com/daberkow/daberkow.github.io/tree/master/6to4CardCleaner

CUFU v1.00

Here is my latest little creation, CUFU, which stands for COM USB Finder Utility. The purpose is if you have to plug in and out a USB to COM port cable a lot and it changes which COM it is in windows, making you go to device manager, now you can run this, and hit the icon, and bam it will tell you. Right now it will tell you by default if “Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port” is plugged in, and which is the most recent. That can be changed, there is a updater. Its a standard one week project. Also I wanted art for the about page, “art” is stretching it for what I made.

 

Download (Requires .Net v2)

https://github.com/daberkow/daberkow.github.io/tree/master/CUFU

Update

Quick update, I am working on a program that finds what COM port a USB <-> COM cable gets when it is plugged in, I am taking a class that makes me use these cables a lot. My programing tends to be a sort of stack, whatever I think of most recently gets on the top and worked on. I am also working on Print Manager 1.0 which will be a Silverlight app, hopefully.

My thoughts system

Dan Brain Stack

Update

I am currently working on my A+ certification. As for the way of software, I am working on a new printer manager, mostly because my schools way of printing is horrible. I also have an idea to make a tool to fix a iTunes library, as in find missing files without going to each file. Finding duplicates, fixing artists names where there is a ‘ making all the songs split between “two artists”. Maybe converting a zune library to itunes and vice versa. I will look at taking files off a iPod touch/iPhone, but no promises.

6to4 Card Cleaner v1.50, IPv6Activator v1.00

This new version of 6to4 Card Cleaner adds the full Microsoft process of fixing the problem; the program will disable IPv6, remove the cards, and then run KB980486. There still is a option to just remove the cards.  Added features also include an updater, a window that allows you to set IPv6 to any of the 6 settings, and a new backend.

These cards WILL NOT show up in device manager, unless you turn on hidden devices, and WILL NOT show up in ipconfig unless you do ipconfig /all.

I also took out the window that lets you change the IPv6 setting, and made it its own app, so if you need a user to just change IPv6 they can get this 70kb app.

As always any bugs please report them, I will patch and the automatic updater will alert users a new version is available. Source available on request.

Download

Main Program

https://github.com/daberkow/daberkow.github.io/tree/master/6to4CardCleaner

IPv6Activator

https://github.com/daberkow/daberkow.github.io/tree/master/IPv6Activator

WebViewer

So I’ve started on a new program at the behest of my friend David. It allows you to enter any website that has a bunch of items in a numerical storage system, or through RSS. Thats the idea anyway, some uses are reading webcomics, or looking at EVERY MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLE IN ORDER! That’s the idea, right now it just goes to “Order of The Stick Comics”. But I installed my update class, so I will put updates out when they are ready and it will warn you, then allow you to download them. Links below, my second miror is limited, so please use the first if available.

Download:

https://github.com/daberkow/daberkow.github.io/tree/master/WebViewer