Hey guys,

Hoping for a little feedback on a new project. I gave my first build of this kind as a gift to a friend and now I'm finally ready to make another for myself.

Thanks to a post by LL member Savo, I found a relatively inexpensive little touchscreen with great resolution (I think the seller has a few left. Check 'em out here) and then managed to find another Philco with the perfect sized speaker grill cutout. The cabinet needs a little work, but is in pretty great condition for a 1941 antique.



What I'd love some help with is brainstorming ideas for what the 4 knobs will control.

Right now, I plan to have one power on the cpu. Another may or may not control volume, incorporating the DIY method with hacked scroll mouse outlined here, but I haven't decided whether to incorporate an amp into this project or simply have the jukebox feed an external receiver. I've always heard Windows method of lowing volume actually decreases the quality of the output, and I want as high fidelity as possible, so I may just control volume externally.

Anyway, what else could the knobs do? I'm looking for ideas that are both useful and feasible, given limited space and somewhat limited knowledge of DIY wiring.

Thanks in advance for any feedback offered.

You should definitely have one knob control volume, and probably have an internal amp, just because then they could take it as a more portable all in one unit. Maybe even have that same knob be the "clicker" style so you can have it click on the power AND adjust volume all in one knob. I would say the mouse idea for another knob slot is a great idea, because then you can actually have a mouse on screen just in case you don't want to use the touchscreen capabilities. An idea for the third knob could be to vary the light intensity of the back lighting via a simple dimmer switch. As for the fourth, would you have this unit be able to tune? If you could steal a tuner from another radio or find out how to build one, you could make it a tuning knob for actual radio. Route the signal into a selector switch so you can go back and forth from cpu/mp3's to fm/am radio! That would be awesome! I know you could do it via the pc, but I like the older band tuners that you have to crank to find stations. They're just more fun and interactive. Hope this gave you some ideas, and good luck, it looks awesome!

Whoa, this would be a great thing for me to start over the summer as my summer project. It'll be wonderful to have at college

I'm not sure how it works, though. The computer just powers up directly to media center, or do you have to use a mouse and click everywhere just like a normal PC?

How much do you plan on spending (minus Murphy's Law fees)?