As more people get hip to streaming their music from various Cloud-based music services, the market for connected (and wireless) speakers has seen a huge surge in the past few years.
While you could go out and get any number of connected speakers ranging from portable bluetooth options to more high-end kits made for serious audiophiles, consider this awesome radio hack that could teach you a thing or two about how vintage radios were designed in the process.
Created by Reddit user ‘mxmln23’, this ‘DIY Spotify Device / Vintage Raspberry Pi Internet-Radio‘ project is the perfect way to not only build a pretty dang-sweet radio, but also hone your Raspberry Pi chops as well. The project is a variation of the Pi MusicBox Raspberry Pi project springboard…so you’ll need to download the program over there and follow their instructions in the process.
A basic understanding of the Raspberry Pi platform would be beneficial before starting this project.
Building the Radio
Two of the same radios were found on eBay for part sourcing
Open up and clean house!
Empty housing (would be a good idea to clean it at this stage)
The Speaker – I had to measure the electrical resistance to estimate its impedance (multiply with 1,25)
I got a small amplifier that can be powered by USB (5V) and was even able to use the volume control of the old radio! Just soldered together provisionally …
Start the reassembly process
Attaching the amplifier
A mount for the Raspberry Pi using two pieces of wood, two thread-inserts and two mainboard spacers
Double-check the mount alignment to the Raspberry Pi before glueing the mounts into housing
Glueing the mounts
View of updated and mounted components
Power-supply in the back and connected power-buttons. The power-on/reset-switch just has to be connected to the Raspberry Pi’s P6-port, but for the power-off-switch you have to use a pull-up-resistor and write a small bash-script (inotify) to respond to that switch.
Power connector detail
Status LED to show if the device is switched on or to indicate triggered buttons. It is controlled by a bash-script via the GPIO ports.
GPIO connections to LED and power-off switch
Final assembly is snapped back together. The volume-control is on the left, the power-off switch is the button on the far left and the power-on the one on the far right. The three buttons in the middle are non-operational.
Connecting the Device
MPDroid Android app – There are various apps on the Play Store, iTunes or the Windows Phone store that speak the MPD protocol. Some are party-enabled for friends to access the radio over Wi-Fi to add to the playlist.
Have any ideas for an upcoming DIY Weekend Smack project? Let us know in the comments!
