Freebox Jukebox

Its not complete, but I'm in the process of mocking things up. As a matter of fact I just did this today. ;) I figure worst case you guys will get a chuckle, but its in the design procress.

My rig is a 1ghz Intel
512meg ram
Windows2000
250gig drive only using 20gig so far
15-inch ELO touch screen minus the case.
64bit Creative labs sound card
32x Cdrom

Well I have Autocad at work, but I'm to ignorant to understand how to use it so I used Cardboard Cad. Cardboard, scissors and some tape. ;)



I over sized it knowing I could always cut smaller later. I'm thinking I like the height its the width and depth I'm undecided about. I'm thinking of picking up one of these type of subs to place in side like I have for my home stereo.



Its going in this room. Yeah I have a kids playground toy inside the house. My boy turned one in October, but didn't get to play with it much because he didn't know how to walk very well and it got cold fast. So in December we decided to bring it in the house for him to play with.



I as well over sized it a little knowing I would need some room for the tabs on the monitor. They are approximately an inch off the monitor, but I also have to account for whatever method I'm going to use to secure them to the backside of the plywood or whatever I end up using. Plus it gives me room to cut and get creative with the base of the Jukebox.



Anyways I'll update this thread with progress and I'll do a complete how/what/why when I start assembling the real stuff.

Sweet dude, heep us updated..

Looks good! I built a juke very similar in form. I think you can make it a little more narrow and you may have to make it a bit more deep to mount the computer inside? I built mine a bit bigger so I could mount the speakers inside too.

If I did it all over again - I wouldn't have even bothered mounting the speakers inside - I have it hooked up to my home theater now.

Yeah so far my PC will fit inside. its 48"High x 24"Wide x 24"Deep. I figured lets mock it up and get the wifes approval. She likes it so far. I almost landed a Sony theater system with 4 tower speakers and a sub, but somebody else beat me to the seller by 10minutes. There goes my stereo sound.  >:(

I actually might make it a bit narrower. Just depends on if I can land a decent stereo for a decent price. I was at the lumber store today looking at MDF and Particle Board. Man what did I see laying on the floor next to it. Oak skin to wrap the MDF or Particle. The wife said heck if your looking at an Oak look by some Oak plywood. Wooohooo.  ;D So if I do it correctly its going to be an Oak cabinet opposed to an Oak looking cabinet.

Its been 17years since Ive been in Woodshop in school. Wish me luck.

Things i would recommend after building one...

1)You want to use a video send for the second screen output. You know the wireless video sending devices, they are pretty cheap. That way you can have the videos displayed on your TV or another TV without trailing cables everywhere. You can run the audio through this too....

2)Wireless Keyboard and Mouse. It's handy sometime to have access to a keyboard at least and a corded one means you have to keep opening up the cab. If you use a skin like the TOUCHTUNES one that doesn't have the options button availble to you or the player you can do these things off a wireless keyboard

3)Wireless sound... You can do this either via the video sender as they tend to be composite video and audio Left and Right. Or you can get one of thoose MP3 Player wirless adapters that transmit it on FM. Or you could go for wireless speakers...

4)Wireless Networking. Even if you have the drives etc all in the cab you can connect to your juke to perform updates for new music, videos etc all without opening it up which is nice. Use some thing like MSTSC or VNC so you can see the desktop remotely too.

Personally i think all thoose above options make the juke a lot tidier and WIFE friendly as you don't have leads running all around the house....

Goodluck on your project dude,

1.  I would defo agree with BB,  Nice cheap GFX Card with option for TV out for 2nd Montior is defo a must for me.  i use a geforce 4 mmx with TV out

2.  get yourself a nice wireless keyboard i use BTC one which has built in joystick for mouse movement, see link below

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BTC-9116URF-mini-wireless-HTPC-MCE-Keyboard-mouse_W0QQitemZ290080512511QQihZ019QQcategoryZ47779QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

3. Wireless Audio and Video senders are very good  bad news is my House has 6 wifi PCs so the intereference dont help, but if you only have say one connection. it will rule.

4. make sure you got easy acsess to usb ports and DVD drive etc

need any tips just ask and goodluck dude

Beeks out

Well I was planning on running everything though the box, but what you guys are suggesting is to use existing stereo with a wireless feed from the Juke to my existing system? Thats a rather slick idea. They would be in two seperate rooms all together, but I'll ask what the wife thinks.

Kinda like using one of them wireless transmitters that an Ipod would use. Tune your stereo to 88.1 or whatever and let it feed.

I wasn't planning on running video, but you know what I have a 250gig drive and Im only using 20gig for my albums. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to store video.

I wonder what the transmitting range would be for audio and video.

Yeah Im all over the wireless net connection. I bought some cheapo card off the net and when I rip with audio grabber it works great for picking up the tags. ;)

Video sender do you mean one of these?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Send-Audio-Video-Wireless-Transmitter-iPod-Archos-Lyra_W0QQitemZ290080708768QQihZ019QQcategoryZ86537QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I guess I would run speaker out via headphone to RCA splitter and then video out via Super Video via air into my Stereo/TV... Thats pretty slick.

Would that device transmitt though the walls of the cabinet into the next room which is aprox 30feet way and through one other wall? Im just asking to keep the clutter down and keep it looking nice. I suppose it would be a great temp fix until I pick up some good speakers or heck maybe even live with the sound of my home stereo.  ;D

Yeah dude, should run fine, i would look at spending aroud 50 quid (100 US Dollars) on a sender, some cheap ones are not as good, keep looking on ebay etc.

Wouldn't you believe it I explained the setup to the miss and she said. NO.... hahaha.. A jukebox is a jukebox not a remote sending device.

sounds like this could be a very sweet juke!   ive never let a woman keep me from getting what i want! ....but then again,.. i am still single!!!   :D   haha,  anyways good luck with it and i hope this build turns out as sweet as its sounds!!

Well if you saw the pictures up above thats her TV and Her Entertainment center. ;)

Shes not half bad.

Thanks guys. She is correct thou. I'd really like to get it into one box. The dual Tv idea has me thinking too.

Not much of an update really, but Ive been looking to buy an amp to power some speakers and well thinking I need a good Sub.

As luck would have it I was at the dump and some guy says hey I'm throwing this old AMP away and for some reason it doesn't work very well. Being the sucker I am I said I'd give it a whirl. Worst case I'd throw it away.

Come to find out its an old Yamaha Amp and the volume knob and the balance are on the same control. I'll have to open it up and figure out whats loose because it gives you static if you don't have it exactly where it wants to be. The guy had the Loudness knob turned all the way down and I'm guessing thats why his volume was lower than it should be.


Then I'm looking through some Junk in the garage and I remembered I had some Yahama floor speakers and a pair of Pioneer shelf speakers. Leave it to my son to see the center of the Biggest speaker and push in the center.
:puppy

Now I have to take all that and squeeze it into the Cardboard box looking thing.


More than likely I'll gut the PC and Gut the receiver and mount things on the sides of the walls of the Jukebox when I actually do construct it. As well I'll more than likely pull the speakers out of the cabinets and mount them in the Jukebox and cover with another ply of wood with slits to keep young prying fingers. My 16month boy.  :roll:

I ran this exact setup all weekend with some friends and man it worked out pretty well. Normally we have a guy that comes over and jacks his Ipod into my home stereo and thinks hes a DJ. The problem is he constantly starts a song and never lets it finish, which really annoys us all. He freaked when he saw the touch screen and I removed the player controls so he couldn't fast forward the song. In the end I had more albums than he did and it well worked out great.  ;D

Hi Kizer

It's great to see your project and that you keep us updated. I was wondering if you have made any progress.
I like the vacuum style floor standing speakers..........LOL . It looks weird and funny.      :D
Keep up the good work. I look forward on seing your project finished.

Coffee

Haha, yeah its been slow. Money and a 16month baby has been well keeping me really busy. I'm slowly building up my collection and figuring out what I want to do with space and whatnot in the box. Literally cardboard box that is...  ;D

Good going sir... Good Going. I will try and put a vid up of the one i helped build for my neighbour.

Well a buddy of mine came over last night and since its been raining like cats and dogs here I guess because I live in Washington state its the laws.  :dontknow

He has a HUGE van and said he would give up some time and gas money to take me down to the local lumber store and pick up some wood. We decided to go with some Particle board instead of MDF because its a few bucks cheaper. In the long run my final project will be built out of Oak, but for now we know we are going to screw things up and its a lot cheaper to screw up with Particle board over Oak.

Anyways I took my measurements from my Card board box mock up and we started cutting out the sides and the top. Man having a new blade on a table saw rocks. I didn't take any photos simply because well if you've seen somebody use a table saw once its well the same thing. I'll take some photos when we do the Oak one, but for my prototype I didn't. ;)

Heres what its going to look like from the front. Its 4 feet tall and two feet wide with a 45 degree angle on the face where the flat screen touch screen monitor is going to be sitting once I cut out a hole to sit it in.



Heres a side shot. Nothing really much to it. Its approximately 25 inches deep from the front to the back.



Heres a shot from the back looking to the front. We used a pice of what I would guess is 1.5 x 1.5 or maybe a little less that was screwed into from the outside of the box into it. When the final product is done all screws will be screwed from the inside out so there will be no visable screw heads.



Heres nearly the same photo, but looking near the bottom. Inside I'm going to install another sheet of either Particle board or maybe some MDF that will go flush up against that piece of 1.5 x 1.5 which my speakers will be mounted to from the backside. Then on the front Im going to cut holes or slits I haven't made up my mind as of yet with some kind of design and the holes/slits will have some fabric on the backside to let sound through, but hide the speakers. My son has a habit of wanting to touch the speaker when he sees it. So I figure lets sub-surface mount it so he cant touch it. ;) Also Im going to attach two more pieces of 1.5 x 1.5 on the sides and attach the bottom on top of the 1.5 x 1.5 so I can sub-surface mount some casters so I can move the Jukebox a little easier. The depth might be a little fun to deal with because of carpet opposed to a concrete floor.



Things I still need to figure out where and how to mount. Since its all mockup I'm expecting to cut holes and re-cut panels If I must because things have to be modified and converted. ;)
- Finalize touch screen mounting method. There is no external case on screen so its a little more fragile than a standard LCD style monitor.
- CD-rom access from outside of the Juke
- CD-rom eject with touch screen monitor
- USB access so I can import more music other than wireless, which is installed
- On/Off of Amp, Monitor and PC
- Keyboard and mouse access if needed. Keyboard for sure to tag and rename music files
- Single Power cord from Juke to wall. Im thinking either power strip or UPS with a long cord
- Volume control for AMP. luckily its a non digital volume so I could extend control knob to the surface along with power on/off.
- Placement and powering of Internal fans to bring in fresh air and exspell internal hot air out. I'll probably go with some 120MM Pc power supplied fans, which I'll need to upgrade my PC's power supply to run them. No biggie just another consideration.

I assume you are going to use a usb hub to give you usb access. I think for a mouse and keyboard you might as well go wireless. That way you can take them out and use them when required then just hide them away again after, you probably already figured that out anyway right... You really are tempting me to build one.

Believe it or not I spoke to the wife about the wireless mouse and keyboard. She said NO. I have to have a drawer or some other way of using the keyboard. She doesn't want a hook it up when you need it solution. Of course I can respect that and keeps me on my toes. She knows me and knows I'll start doing doing things half-way if I get lazy. ;)

Anybody know if you can hook up a power cable to CdRom and open/close it without the ribbon cable hooked up? I have a control idea I'm considering if it will work.

I did find out last night that with modern CdRoms you can actually load/unload a disc with the drive sideways, pointing down and up. I know it sounds like a stupid discovery, but I'm thinking of putting my cdrom on top so when it ejects it comes up from the top of the jukebox from inside opposed to on the side somewhere hidden. I want it to look like it was built to be there not hidden like its not part of the jukebox. I'll have to skin the top or in this case the face of the cdrom drawer to match the top of the jukebox out of Oak.

Sorry this build has been well dragging, but money has been super tight and its been tough trying to get some shop time in. A home made Jukebox has been 10years in the making so what's a few more months. At least I finally found a front end that works the way I need/want it to and has given me a reason to build one. When I'm completely done I'll make my plans completely available for anybody who wants them to modify or whatever they choose.

As for the USB access I'm thinking of using a USB extension cable and a USB surface mount plate/jack that will look really simular to theback of your PC. You would basicly just plug into it and your connected from the outside of the Juke. I suppose I could use a hub from there or a Hub inside with a few USB extension cables and surface mounted jack/plates for multiple devices. Hmmmmm, I'd probably go with the second option over the first if I did.

My next big task is figuring out how to secure my touch screen. It doesn't have a plastic frame around it like the LCD monitors do. You can see the wire traces along the edge of the LCD monitor glass and I want to make sure I don't crush them or disrupt the sensing ability of the monitor. A buddy suggested maybe some neoprene padding between the edge and the back of the cabinet to act as a pad. Ok, now hot to secure metal straps across the back?

On the subject of my monitor. Does anybody know where I can get a drawing or pin out for a ELO monitor not the VGA or serial plugs? My monitor has a power on/off button on the back of the monitor and some plugs on the bottom edge. I'd like to know if I can make a remote on/off button for it becasue I'd have to open up my cab to get inside to push a button on the back of the monitor when not in use.

Hi Kizer

Watch out if want to strap the touchscreen to the back of the board. A common problem with them is that if there is any pressure on the touchscreen it causes spots that doesn't register if you touch them or you have to press harder. Rather make a bracket for it to lay in but don't let it press on the back of the board. Remember glass is a liquid and it can change it's shape with time especailly if pressure is applied to it.
Give us some closeup pics of the touchscreen's plugs and layout, maybe I can help you with the pinouts.
Another tip, always mount your harddrives verticly and if you use speakers with a lot of bass don't mount them in the some cabinet. This will extend the life of your drives.

Always nice to see your project.
Coffee

As for wireless keyboard and mouse, they will be hooked up all the time via the reciever. Have you never used these? It just means you don't need to have them plugged in as the reciever is plugged in. Personally i think you are wrong not going with this solution... It's up to you but what you are going to do is a step backwards for no gain only hastle...

Barcrest
I understand what your saying about the wireless always being connected with the receiver and having a cordless connection. I currently at work have a keyboard with a touch pad mouse built into it. Its small as heck to. I'd guess its no bigger than a laptop keyboard. In the end I might go wireless if my creative juices stop flowing. I have a few ideas that I want to try first before I settle. I'm not saying that wireless is settling, but I want to try a few things first.

Coffee
On the drives you mean stand them on end opposed to the way they lay in a standard PC case?

Ah so what your saying is make a cradle and let it sit in it or I guess in this case hang from it just below the surface of the opening. I never thought of that. Good idea, I was worried about the surface and it having odd effects from the touch of the glass on the screen.

Heres some shots of my ELO Touch Screen 15-inch








I did discover that a CDrom will eject and close with the push button even though the ribbon cable is unplugged. ;)

Use the screw holes on the edge of that screen to mount it onto a piece of wood/board whatever. Mount it so the screws come from the back to the front so the screen sits behind the wood. Then if you use some sort of bezel on the other side it will cover any gaps.

Hi Kizer

You can leave the power of the screen on so if you switch off the juke the sceen should go on standby or you can solder 2 wires to the back off the PC on the start button and then use a normal arcade button on the back off your cabinet to switch the monitor on or off.
It looks like the touchscreen interfase is build into the screen. I don't use this type of touchscreens but I'll still try and find out how to connect it. I always use a separate touch panel from the screen.
Do you have the driver software for it? That can be a problem to find. It is normally trail and error to find the perfect driver.

Coffee

Another good tip is check in the bios and see if you have an option to power on after power outage. Most modern bios support this function. It just means as soon as you switch on the mains the computer will power on. This saves having to mount or even use a pc power switch... It how we sorted out the gamebox conversion for my neighbour.

Thanks Barcrest.

I've just learned something new and I will deffenately use that. I was struggling to sort out the power on side off the juke but now I'll sort it out. I'll tap the power switch of the UPS to switch it on and off.

Coffee

The touch screen works flawlessly. I downloaded the drivers from ELO when I got it a few months ago. Currently when you shut off the PC it does power down into standby, but I was hoping to have a power off so when its not used for extended periods of time I could just turn it off.

I suppose I could plug the monitor into the back of my AMP/Receiver's switched plug so when I turn on the AMP, which will have a remote button extended from the AMP towards the top along with the Volume control to trun on/off the monitor.

I have another odd one. When I shutdown 2000 it tells me its safe to shutoff my computer. I looked in my Bios and can't find a setting. Is there a specific name or lable for it and maybe I'm missing it? Its a 1ghz machine and its a p3 Intel.

Quote from: kizer on March 27, 2007, 03:14:46 PM
I have another odd one. When I shutdown 2000 it tells me its safe to shutoff my computer. I looked in my Bios and can't find a setting. Is there a specific name or lable for it and maybe I'm missing it? Its a 1ghz machine and its a p3 Intel.

That is under your power management settings.... Also check to what you have your power button set to do as that can affect it.

Thanks, I'll give it a check tonight.

Currently the button turns it on and I have to mash the button in for 10seconds to shutdown my machine. However a shut down windows via start button is prefered, but looking might solve my problem unless my mobo is just old or a wire isn't connected properly since I did put everything together.  ;D

no change what the power butto does and it will work... sorry i am pissed.

Welp no dice on the power button. I give up trying to figure it out. I have other things to figure out.

I'll update this thread after I figure out a few more things. Also I'll create a nice little step by step page linked at the top of this thread later just incase anybody wants to weed through all this mumbo jumbo ramblings.  ;D

Don't the shutdown pc options in freebox work...

Also you don't have to mash the button for 10 seconds just hold it in for few seconds and it will power off. It is 100% a setting in the bios but it is a different bios on each motherboard so i can't really help you much more.

I'm an idiot. Its amazing what a right mouse on the desktop > screen saver > power management > enable advanced power management will do.  ???

Thanks Barcrest for putting up with my well. DUH.

Excellent....  ;)

Ok, I finally decided to move my Particle Board Jukebox prototype into the house. It fits exactly like I thought it would in the house. I cut out a window and placed my touch screen monitor behind it.



As you can tell the monitor isn't exactly square in the box, but hey its a prototype and wanted to see how things fit and how things would work. Man it was a bitch trying to hold the monitor and screw it in with nobody on the otherside to see if it was square or if I needed to adjust up/down/left or right. ;)



Like I figured there would be a 3/4 inch gap from the top of the face of the Jukebox to the face of the monitor. I could cut back some extra material and install a pice of curved molding to soften the drop. Yeah that might be the idea.



I had to keep at least a 1/16 to 1/8 gap from the Juke to the screen to keep any ghost impressions on the glass so it wouldn't do odd things or close windows on its own.



This is the orginal layout of speakers. Larger one on the floor and smaller one up top.



I brought in another speaker and faced it towards the wall to see how much it would echo. HOLLY CRAP. The bass jumped up on so many levels like Im running a 15-inch or something like that. I also turned and placed two small speakers up top and faced them sideways. Man the sound went from 4 to 8 on the Bad Ass scale.



Yeah I know its nothing much, but so far its all prototype work before I layout the cash for expensive wood. I didn't shoot any details on the wood I used to surround the monitor to hold it in place, but I will. However I think I might of come up with a better method that I might try before I do it again. Trail and error my friends, trial and error.

Ok, whats up with the speakers? What or why a HUGE gain in bass by turning them backards and hitting the wall?

Dood !! I love your Box !  ;D I think it has charactor. :D

Im wondering how the heck your going to mount your touch screen, and I have to agree the vacume cleaner style tower speakers ROCK !

Please do keep us posted with pics of the project.I understand how tight money can be when you have children to support.

Let me know if I can do anything to help

Fish

Being on the cheap is tough, but in the end its built by me, designed by me and if it dies well somebody else must of did it. ;)

So you like my stealth Vacuum tweeters huh?  ;D

Bro those tweeters would bring much money on Ebay !!

A guaranteed way to get a female to clean house !!! LOL
;D

The project is looking good man, keep up the good work

No update on construction since I twisted my ankle and nearly broke it. Wheew Im glad that didn't happen, but put me on the couch for the entire easter weekend.

Anyways we had a gathering and I checked the que in the morning wife and her sister had over 140 songs qued up. By the end of the evening with 15 people over it was 257 songs.

Everybody loved the setup even thou its a prototype it worked out great without a single hitch. Barcrest everybody loves the interface and I dont know how many people I had to tell check out freeboxjukebox.com. Next gathering I sware Im going to tape a piece of paper to the side with your website. ;)

Is there a way to block all Country music. hahahahaha, wife loves that nonsense...  ;D

Ok, my ankle was feeling better today so I decided to stuff all of my equipment into the Particle Board ProtoType. Everything seems to fit with the exception I need to make it a bit deeper so both large speakers fit inside. As well I totally forgot you have to have holes on the outside because sound travels a bit easier through an opening. ;) Bored and with a drill in hand. ;) No its not the final design. I was like UH, what should I do. Ah heck lets have fun.



Heres a top shot of my ghetto switch for now and my top loading CDrom so I can rip and write discs. Look to the left and you will see a ghetto switch I placed for now to have a method of turning the PC on and off.


Its fun and will progress soon.

coming along good bro !!!, Ill give you a hint on that little space where your monitor mounts against the front, I use weather stripping around the hole and then put the glass of the screen against the weather stip.Its cheap and you can even find it it different colors.Stay at it bro, its looking good.

Fish

You should put some lighting in the bottom so it shines through thoose holes man it would look pimp.

Yeah what Barry said, and maybe like a neon lighted cooling fan would be cool.

Haha, yeah. My wife hates the way the front looks. I told her not to super sweat it because its not the final design nor the final wood.

I do like the weather striping idea. I also like that black felt looking stuff that is used in cars around the e-brake.

I'd actually like something that looks more like this however with a little bit of an updated look.
http://www.thinkawesome.com/prodimages/tap0005112g.jpg

Dood... No way !! let it look just like that with a little touch screen in the front, you will be all good  ;D

Fish

Quote from: kizer on April 24, 2007, 11:28:06 PM
I'd actually like something that looks more like this however with a little bit of an updated look.
http://www.thinkawesome.com/prodimages/tap0005112g.jpg

That looks a bit like a cigarette machine to me... LOL

LOL Dawg gone Barry, your showing your age Bro.

I have not seen a cigerette machine since the 80's.. LOL  :P

Quote from: jonfinpausa on April 25, 2007, 12:03:10 PM
LOL Dawg gone Barry, your showing your age Bro.

I have not seen a cigerette machine since the 80's.. LOL  :P

It was reference to something that went on over at BYOAC..... My crazy english humour.

More people here need some of that Humor Bro, maybe they would stop killing each other and blowing stuff up.  ;D Good fix on the config dood, I surely do appreciate both your hard work and sense of humor.

Fish

Leave my cig machine alone. I did find a slot loading DVD CDR/RW drive last night thats USB so my top loading idea is going to be a reality soon. Woohooo

cool beans man, where did you find the slot loading CD-rom? I need one of those.

Fish

http://store.mo-co-so.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13&products_id=32

Hey, what's happening Kizer. No progress?

Ive been a little delayed working on my Jeep project. ;) Two projects at once as well my little boy has discovered its 70+ degrees outside and well doesn't want dad in the house.

I have discovered with my box setup thou that the holes I cut in it are to small and I have some ideas on how to inlarge them and keep them skinned so my boys fingers cant poke a hole in the speakers. Ive built my box so its modular and comes apart as a prototype so I can tinker with it until I figure out exactly what I want and build it for real.  ;D

Kizer, you can sunk your speakers into the cabinet and use a grid or mesh to cover your speakers. That would look very nice and you won't have sound problems. You can go to your local scrap dealer and look for a piece of grid you can use. You can just cut and paint it and fit it to your cabinet.

Yeah. Im thinking some old fashion looking fabric behind the holes to make it look a bit cleaner with maybe some screen type of material behind that to re-enforce the strength. I don't mind speaker grills, but I don't want that look at the moment. I'll post up a picture or two when I can of what I'm thinking.