Bluetooth Boombox

3 minute(s) of a 6 minute read

So I decided to try and make some progress today. Going to go one step at a time.

1. Get raspberry pi receiving Bluetooth and outputting audio.

2. Open up stereo and check it out.

3 Get pi to play thru stereo

4. Work out power situation

5. Wire/mount stuff up

5.5. Fix any issues with stereo

6. Pump up the Jammzz 

First step is get the pi working. Found a site called Balena.io that makes it really easy to set things up. Good because I’m not a good programmer.

there were a few hiccups and settings to mess with but got it working!

Had to turn off the pi audio out for it to see the dac but seems to work great. Only beef is it is a little slow to respond. If I stop or change songs seems to be a couple seconds behind but not a big deal.

Had a helper.

He needed to inspect the project drawer.

Opened up the stereo, wasn’t too dirty inside.

Found out the tape isn’t working because the motor that runs it doesn’t appear to be connected, maybe the gear broke, but the motor spins with no tape spinning.

Was going to go thru the tape audio input but the tape mechanism is really integrated into the case/circuitry and would be a pita to get into. Plus I don’t know how powerful the signal is coming from the tape deck. Seemed like going in from the aux input on the side is simpler.

Tape head on the right is the reading head. The wires go under the mechanism which would take a lot more work to pull.

Thankfully I had a 3.5mm to RCA cable so I just plugged it in, switched to tape and hit record/play and it worked!

It sounds pretty good and gets loud! I could probably improve it with better speakers but that’s an upgrade for later.

Noticed a hum that got quieter when I touched the running tape motor. I unplugged it and it helped but was still there. Probably related to the wall power and since I’ll be using a battery it may go away on its own.

So I got thru step 3. Now I need to order a short 3.5mm cable to permanently connect to the audio inputs, buy a 12v battery supply/pack and get this thing running on its own power.