Old Tuner - good case for Pi + HiFiBerry DAC?

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bugbear

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Joined 2016
#1
I have a hankering for a Raspberry Pi based sound system.

Pretty routine stuff;

https://www.hifiberry.com/dacplus/

RuneAudio - Embedded Hi-Fi music player

https://volumio.org/discover/

But I need a PSU (possibly a regulated one 🙂) and a case.

I note that old tuners are very much unloved, at yard sales, car boots, flea markets, eBay.

Is an old digital tuner (slimline, simple facia, a few buttons) a practical source of a cheap
case (and possibly other parts) ?

e.g.
Technics ST-X902L

Or are there difficulties I haven't thought of?


BugBear
 
#2
On many small projects, the most frustrating / expensive part can be finding /fabricating a suitable chassis, so there's a lot of appeal to this type of recycling - and there certainly appears to be lots of available real estate in this case.

The only difficulty I can foresee is the number of control functions / display incorporated in the front fascia, which on this class of unit are usually an integral part of the chassis. They are often not designed for disassembly / repair, so take care in releasing any plastic retaining clips, etc.
Once those are stripped away, you'll have a lot of openings to fill / block off, and lettering to cover.

It would appear that the main AC switch is on a separate daughter board, which could make for easy retention of that function, and the power supply might well be adequate for at least some of the intended new components.
 
#3
chrisb said:
On many small projects, the most frustrating / expensive part can be finding /fabricating a suitable chassis, so there's a lot of appeal to this type of recycling - and there certainly appears to be lots of available real estate in this case.

The only difficulty I can foresee is the number of control functions / display incorporated in the front fascia, which on this class of unit are usually an integral part of the chassis. They are often not designed for disassembly / repair, so take care in releasing any plastic retaining clips, etc.
Once those are stripped away, you'll have a lot of openings to fill / block off, and lettering to cover.

It would appear that the main AC switch is on a separate daughter board, which could make for easy retention of that function, and the power supply might well be adequate for at least some of the intended new components.
Click to expand...

I'll take that as a "yes", with caveats.

Thank you.

BugBear
 
#5
This is why I used an sx-3700 and sx780 to house new amp and preamp circuitry.
sx-3700 has an excellent tuner
sx 780 has power amp VAS stage regulators from separate transformer winding.
with Mosfet outputs instead of STK paks the 780 clips around 75w RMS 8 ohms !
Amps are very similar to Honey Badger Amp detailed in another thread.
both units easily accept a tube preamp with capacitor voltage doubler.
You could place your Raspberry Pi unit inside the case and dedicate the AUX or 1 Tape monitor input to it.
 
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#6
Old Electronics contraptions cases are certainly recylclabe/ useable.
But a Pi with dac attached is about the size of a Cigarette package.
Talk about a little boy in a Cathederal 🙂
Lotsa bespoke plastic Pi cases available from *many* sources from V cheap to; are you serious? pricings.
Also 1 $ stores carry an assortment of almost free 1/8" ply boxes in various sizes configurations which at least could be size appropriate with contained hardware.
Likely less coin than some clapped out Gear for it's case buy.
Imo a Regulated PS is Audio Weenie overkill.
But we all have our own belief systems.
A simple Battery is a Very clean reliable power source, worthy of trying out. Before futzing about on a 'suitable' PS quest 😉
Going to buy/use a tablet screen for the above ?
 
#7
Bare said:
Old Electronics contraptions cases are certainly recylclabe/ useable.
But a Pi with dac attached is about the size of a Cigarette package.
Talk about a little boy in a Cathederal 🙂
Lotsa bespoke plastic Pi cases available from *many* sources from V cheap to; are you serious? pricings.
Also 1 $ stores carry an assortment of almost free 1/8" ply boxes in various sizes configurations which at least could be size appropriate with contained hardware.
Likely less coin than some clapped out Gear for it's case buy.
Imo a Regulated PS is Audio Weenie overkill.
But we all have our own belief systems.
A simple Battery is a Very clean reliable power source, worthy of trying out. Before futzing about on a 'suitable' PS quest 😉
Going to buy/use a tablet screen for the above ?
Click to expand...

Part of the plan is that the resulting tuner-with-pi-and-power-supply will be a standard width "normal" hifi box I can simply add to my hifi rack.

As you say, a Pi is tiny; but that's not an undliuted Good -for example, it would likely just move around under the weight of the phono lead!

BugBear
 
#9
bugbear said:
Damn.

I wanted to use the Pi 3's built in WiFi as part of Volumio's GUI, using either my laptop or tablet as the control.

But if I put the Pi in a metal case AKA Faraday shield that won't work...

Bugbear
Click to expand...

If you get a USB wifi adapter with an antenna, you could drill a hole in the back of the tuner and have the antenna stick out.

Something like this would be perfect:

Rosewill WiFi Adapter
 
#12
bugbear said:
I have a hankering for a Raspberry Pi based sound system.

Pretty routine stuff;

https://www.hifiberry.com/dacplus/

RuneAudio - Embedded Hi-Fi music player

https://volumio.org/discover/

But I need a PSU (possibly a regulated one 🙂) and a case.

I note that old tuners are very much unloved, at yard sales, car boots, flea markets, eBay.

Is an old digital tuner (slimline, simple facia, a few buttons) a practical source of a cheap
case (and possibly other parts) ?

e.g.
Technics ST-X902L

Or are there difficulties I haven't thought of?


BugBear
Click to expand...
A Raspberry Pi is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, a little thicker maybe. I have purchased what I consider to be a nice looking plastic and aluminum case sold by Flirc:
https://flirc.tv/raspberry-pi-case
Says for R-Pi 3, but 2 is same size. One nice thing about the Flirc case, apart from it looking good, is that it is designed with a heat transfer tab (not sure what to call it) that contacts the Soc (the "CPU" of the Pi) and transfers heat to the aluminum of the case.

These little ARM boards are powered by 5V switching power supplies. It would be silly to design one when a good one costs $7. These are outboard slim wall wart kinds of things with a cord that terminates in a mini USB plug. The Pi has a mini USB port specifically for power input. I suggest that you buy the PS and the Pi through MCM, a channel for Raspberry Pi stuff that I trust.

The only reason I would perhaps NOT use the Flirc case is if you want to maximize the WiFi signal to your Pi 3, which has an onboard WiFi chip. With a Pi 2 you would be using a USB WiFi dongle that would not experience any effects from potential shielding from the metal in the case. I have several Pi 2's set up with an Edimax EW-7811UTC WiFi dongle and it has EXCELLENT signal strength compared to some other WiFi dongles that are typically used with the Pi. You may need to download a driver for it, but by now that may be built into Raspbian. Not sure. If you are stuck you can send me a PM and I will give you instructions on how to get up and running (there is also a post about it I wrote on this forum some while back).

Anyway, my 2 cents is forget about some junky old tuner case that will be more trouble that it is worth when you can buy a case that is meant for the Pi and will look good, it just won't be 17" wide...
 
#13
I did something similar with a Rasp Pi 2 and usb wifi dongle. I went the plywood route mainly because I wanted a portable battery operated solution. I have no problems with 15 - 20 ft range with the setup encased in 1/2" and 3/4" plywood. Just another thought if you want to stick with your size requirements. A coat of matt black spray paint hides a multitude of sins.
 
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