Friday, June 1, 2018

The antique radio that never was

The latest project was a radio built from scratch to look like an antique of 1930s or 1940s vintage. It features an FM tuner, web radio, stored MP3s, AirPlay and Bluetooth audio.


The front bezel was 3D printed in solid bronze and the dial pointers from plastic (and then painted). The knobs were turned from wood by a friend of mine who is handy with a lathe. Inside, it has a Raspberry Pi Zero W doing most of the heavy lifting and couple of small MCUs for button scanning, LED drive and stepper motor control. The steppers move the needles on the dial.

The dial background is just my own design printed onto photo paper and then pasted onto an aluminum plate. The green light is a pilot light and there's a small blue LED to indicate Bluetooth pairing mode.


A lot of the wood is solid walnut with the curved shell being walnut veneer on top of plywood and the front panel being stained oak veneer over ply. The walnut is finished with plain clear Danish oil.


Special thanks to Glenn Campbell for lathe work and Rick Lazzara for photography.