Vintage Upcycling with Raspberry Pi and Arduino: Part 1: Pi Rotary

In the comments below let us know what piece of vintage tech you want to upgrade with a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino!

We will send 10 winners a copy of Enrico's book along with a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino depending on Your Project Proposal!

Upcycling is the act of taking something no longer in use and giving it a second life and new function. In doing so, the finished product often becomes more practical, valuable and beautiful than what it previously was.  This 3 part workshop will introduce you to upcycling, explore a series of projects that involve upcycling, and encourage you to build your own upcycling project. 

Join us for a hands-on workshop with Enrico Miglino, in support of his upcoming book, Vintage Upcycling with Raspberry Pi and Arduino.  We encourage you to follow along as Enrico will walk you through a series of upcycling projects and take you from Zero to Hero upcycling using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino.  Over the course of three sessions, you'll be introduced to the concept of upcycling, and we'll walk you through everything you need to know to get started on your own upcycling project.  No experience required.  After each workshop Enrico will be available to answer any questions you have as you work on your own upcycling project using something vintage. 

We will be giving away up to 10 copies of Enrico's new book along with either a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino depending on your project proposal. 

To win comment below to:

• let us know what vintage tech you want to upgrade using a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino.
• how you will use a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino in an upcycling project.
• register and attend the workshop live or On-Demand

The goal of the workshop is to inspire you to do projects on the community.  You can watch this workshop On Demand and show us YOUR vintage upcycling project during the Project14 theme, Recycle & Retrofit ! Old Radios and old game consoles come to mind but you are invited to take any unused appliance and upcycling it using electronics of your choice!  Attend this workshop to get ideas for your own upcycling project using a Raspberry or Arduino.  When you are ready to submit your completed project submit your project in the Recycle & Retrofit  in Project14 or a blog on the community and use the tag RecycleRetrofitCH. 

Session 1:

Enrico revisits the  The Pi Rotary which was the grand prize for the  Acoustics competition from Project14.  Pi Rotary is based on the upcycling of a rotary phone from the end of 60s' using a Raspberry Pi to create a Pi-rotary smartphone.

A part of the device that is excluded is the phone ring bell: controlling an old phone ring bell with digital low voltage signals may be more complex than expected as the bell rings working at a relatively high voltage. Together with the electrical issue, he had to find a way to create the space for the new components and using another class of audio messages – as we will see later – the ring bell results useless.

To provide audio features to the device balearicdynamics disassembled a cheap USB and Bluetooth portable amplifier with speakers. the device includes a 3.5 mm Jack audio input for wired connection, used to amplify the Raspberry Pi audio output. The amplifier is powered by a temporary switch button. After powering on, the default setting is Bluetooth mode; to switch to wired mode another temporary switch button should be pressed once. The power sequence need the button pressed for about five seconds (until the amplified emits a sound); the same when switching from Bluetooth mode for about half a second.

The Pi Rotary

Parts to Follow Along with Enrico:

A good way to learn is by following along with Enrico during each of his workshop sessions.  If you do not have the following parts you can purchase any of the following items from our stores:

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, 4 GBRaspberry Pi 4 Model B, 4 GB
• Ethernet CableEthernet Cable

• RPi 4 Power SupplyRPi 4 Power Supply
• 16 GB MicroUSB Card16 GB MicroUSB Card

• 64 GB USB Memory Stick64 GB USB Memory Stick

• Tantalum CapacitorTantalum Capacitor

• Blue LEDBlue LED
• Red LEDRed LED
• Yellow LEDYellow LED
• 330 Ohm Through Hole Resistor330 Ohm Through Hole Resistor x 5
• 220 Ohm Through Hole Resistor220 Ohm Through Hole Resistor x 10
• 10 kohm Through Hole Resistor10 kohm Through Hole Resistor x 10

You can use equivalent parts or purchase the following parts direct from manufacturer:

• Amplifier with speakers Pi Hat (Pimoroni)
• The Power Over Ethernet Hat - POE - (Pimoroni)

Agenda:

• Presentation
  • Presentation of the project
  • Tools Used
  • Critical Aspects
• Preparing the Raspberry Pi
  • Checking Python Version and Raspberry Pi
  • Setup the audio
  • Installing the remote screen (VNC)
• Preparing the Telephone
  • Parts we will use
  • Parts we will exclude to create space
  • The logic of the mechanical rotary dial
  • Installation of the speakers in the telephone receiver
  • Preparing the wiring
• The Circuit and the Hardware Approach
  • How to control the rotary pi dial
  • Hanging the Raspberry GPIO with Python
  • The problem of the rotary dial decoding
• The Software
  • Presentation of the software (Python), critical points, issues and adopted solutions
  • Installation of the other features (text to speech and other characteristics)
  • The Json configuration files
  • Preparing the music playlist
  • The weather report feature
• Final Assembly
  • The finished project
  • Testing
  • Further upgrades, changes, alternatives

Dates and Register for Free:

The Presenter:

Enrico Miglino, element14 Community Member

Born in Turin, Italy. I have always had a special interest in electronics and communication. I had the chance to start working in the era of the first Personal Computers, just few years before their massive introduction, and very soon I started acquiring knowledge about hardware and software. I developed researches, patented hardware and software-integrated technologies, wrote technical articles on several technical papers in Italy and more. During the last decade I developed software and firmware for embedded devices, new products for Android, Mac and Linux. Before the Android massive diffusion, I had been developing software as Nokia developer focusing my experience on the Qt development platforms on desktops and Symbian devices. My approach to Electronics and circuit projects involving hardware and circuit creation is strongly oriented to microcontrollers, from small devices to the computer-like micro as the well-known ARM processors family. I definitely avoid two things: redundance (i.e. making projects more complex than can be done) and excess of complexity (i.e. a great solution should be simple and cheap, otherwise it is not a great solution). For this reasons I frequently rethink projects or create new ones in order to make products and prototypes market-affordable and as cheap as possible without compromising quality. Five years ago I moved to Ibiza (Balearic Islands, Spain) where I currently live and work.