Pi Radio Internals

Just a quick update on the Pi Radio. I have been working on the internals and am close to having some nice acrylic mounting panels for the interior of the radio. Additionally, I have chosen a speaker to use, which will replace the old damaged speaker that was in the unit when it was purchased. The new speaker is a 4″ Dayton Audio DMA105 8 ohm, which is also being used by another student for a speaker project they are working on. Will post more on that project once it is further along. My radio needs a few more adjustments to the CAD model, and a couple of more test fits before we can wire it up and test my co-teacher’s coding with the Raspberry Pi. A few photos below showing the updated components inside the radio housing.

Internet Radio

A while ago my wife surprised me with an old fashioned radio. It’s an Emerson 805 Series B model which was available in the 1950s. The radio does not work anymore, although all its guts were still intact, tubes and all. I decided to turn the radio into a working internet radio, and hoping to keep functionality of the tuning dial and power switch. 

So far, all I’ve managed to do is take the radio apart. A lot of interesting components inside, but for my purposes I will only keep the plastic enclosure and tuning and power knobs. The back needs to be recreated, which I will do with the laser cutter, as well as inner speaker lining. Not sure what I will use for that, but it can be attached to a lasercut support structure. 

For the electronics, I will initially be following a guide from Instructables – this one I found from _Marcel_ which looks very close to what I’d like to accomplish. In addition to new electronics, I’m also going to clean and repaint the enclosure and knobs, unsure of the color scheme right now, but I will want to keep a retro look to the radio. All for now, a few photos of the radio below.