Roberts 747 - DIY Raspberry Pi internet radio/streamer

2 Jan 2015

Great radio from 1990. Fully working in very good condition. Found it on antique sale after a long hunt for something like this.

I have a spare Raspberry Pi model B V1 home as a spare and it was just catching dust for some years as I couldn't decide what to do with it.

Than I came across this piece of software called "Pi MusicBox": http://www.woutervanwijk.nl/pimusicbox/

And I finally found a use for my RPi

This Pi MusicBox offers:

- Standalone Spotify, Google Music, SoundCloud music player

- Remote control it with a nice browser-interface, or with an MPD-client - Web Radio, Internet radio - AirTunes/AirPlay streaming

- Play music files from the SD, USB, Network.

- and much more...

So I wanted to combine the great Roberts radio, RPi and this pice of soft. Mine main goal was to keep the radio fully functional and intact. So no extra bits, no drilling, no outside wires, etc. There is not much room inside of the radio so it wasn't an easy task and I had a few challenges. But that was the best on this little project. So after I opened and took it apart for a first time, first I thought I would not be able to squeeze all in. But after a while I managed to find a spot for RPi and power supply. The RPi is fitted on double sided tape and without any casing as there was simply no room for it or for any fittings. I have managed to took apart and ordinary wall charger and used just the electronic board which is hard wired on both sides. It is soldered to the mains of the radio and than on the other sides its soldered to the RPi directly as, once again, there was no room for USB connector. Than I had to find a way to switch between radio and AUX (RPi). The solution was pretty simple. There is a connector for external aerial. So I have split the cable from 3.5mm Jack and soldered that to this aerial (which is disconnected inside) and PCB. So this way I do not need an extra switch for switching between radio and AUX(RPi). Every time I want to switch to AUX(RPi) all I need to do is to shorten this aerial connector. The easy way to do so is just by plug in the blank coax connector which is shortened inside.

So all challenges solved. All wired, placed, fitted inside. No visible changes from outside

Twitter - @richard79d https://twitter.com/richard79d

G+ - Richard Danis

http://www.xbian.org - rikardo1979

More details and more pictures please follow the link

Roberts 747 - DIY Raspberry Pi internet radio/streamer - Imgur

Top Comments

Former Member over 10 years ago in reply to jw0752

Thank you, appreciate
As mentioned, it was the main goal, to keep it as original and functional as original radio. And it works perfectly, now I have the last bit which is the blank coaxial tap connector which is shortened inside and by plugging it in I can switched between radio/AUX.
Works perfectly, and I may add the pictures into original album
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shabaz over 10 years ago in reply to Former Member

It's great when technology can be made to become invisible like this, even if it means extra effort. Love it.

Yes, it's a shame the author of PiMusicBox has not offered it as a set of instructions and scripts to allow users to just download the open source components they need individually and compile themselves, rather than a 260/900MB bundle of who-knows-what. Still, it has encouraged me to look at MPD which is a piece of software that he mentions it uses.
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jw0752 over 10 years ago

Hi Richard,
This is a nice looking project. I was glad you were able to fit all the extra parts in the radio. It adds a lot of "cool" not to have extra things changing the outside appearance.
John
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Former Member over 10 years ago in reply to shabaz

Thank you for your comment
Its based on Rasbian, so you can add remove things, but yes, thats the size
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shabaz over 10 years ago

Very cool!! Great that you didn't need to affect the appearance, and it still looks like a nice radio. The project is great.

I took a look at the PiMusicBox website, but it seems that it is a 260MB download of a compressed file that expands to 900MB! - bizarre : (
I suspect the code could have worked on any board (not just Raspberry Pi) but I'm not tempted to check with a 260MB download.
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