I bought this vinyl record today. This is the first vinyl record that I've bought in, well, let's just say that it has been Many Years. I've been buying a lot of old (really old) 78rpm shellac records, but this 33 1/3 rpm vinyl is the first in awhile. It was a new pressing, too, and still wrapped in cellophone.
Of course, I need to play it on something. I have this old - really old - vacuum tube turntable/radio unit which looks fantastic, but has this nasty habit of smoking when plugged in and turned on.
If ever there was a time for a retrofit, this was it! Five Below has inexpensive $20 turntables that were just the right size. I figured it was worth the $20 to do what I wanted to do.
Ripping the guts out of the case wasn't terribly difficult, particularly since I wasn't planning on saving anything other than the case itself. And as we can see, the turntable fits in there quite nicely.
Now, just dropping the turntable in there and calling it a day would be rather boring, and wouldn't really be doing anything with the original unit other than using it as a box. For $20 I felt I could rip the new turntable apart and, if it broke, I wouldn't really care, so rip it apart I did.
I quickly understood why it was only $20. It's powered by a micro-usb port, so it's total voltage won't pump up the bass, by any stretch. Honestly, the inside was little more than an arduino with power and two small speakers. True to form, as I took the pieces out the wires ripped off the speakers.
Oops.
No matter. I'm a doer and a learner. Surprisingly, as much as I like to tinker, I've never taken the opportunity to learn to solder. I have soldering irons and a kit, but I've never done it before, so off I went to youtube.
What did I learn today? Today I learned to solder wires together. As much as I enjoy tinkering, this is undoubtedly going to be a good skill. There are already, in fact, two other projects waiting for this new skill to be applied to them.
The new-old unit turned out really well, too! The wiring is nice and clean, and the inside with the turntable looks pretty spiffy.
I'm not done with this yet. The turntable is complete, but there is room for a raspberry pi for the radio. I have recently - last Halloween - configured a raspberry pi to stream internet radio; I'll do the same here and configure the three possible dials to do various things. I'll likely even run the audio out through the same speakers!
(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe
About Me
Sometimes photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd.
General all around problem-solver and creative type.
Blind Skeleton
Online Radio: https://victorwiebe.com/radio_wiebe
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