Progress, and R-ing TFM

I've basically finished the case - it's sanded back to bare wood & I've put several coats of furniture wax on. The result is smooth wood and a beautiful lustre, especially under natural light. I'll post some photos as soon as there's a nice sunny day to take them.

On the electronics front, less success. After soldering all the resistors in the amplifier kit to the board, I learned why one should always read instructions in full before starting work on a kit. Two of the resistors - 1 and 3W metal oxide - had to be mounted off the board as they generate a lot of heat in operation. Annoyingly, by the time I discovered this, I'd already trimmed the leads.

So, construction is stalled until I get my hands on some replacements. Dick Smith didn't have any; they have in fact all but given up on hobbyists, preferring to focus on retail appliances. That's a shame, as my introduction to electronics was courtesy their Funway series. Anyway, I found an online retailer called RS Components, who stock a much wider range of components.

However, they only stock 330ohm resistors of the type I need, rather than the 300ohm specified in the kit. I've emailed S5 to ask whether 330ohm would be acceptably close, given the broad tolerances of the 3W resistors being used, and will be ordering what I need as soon as I hear from them.

Amplifier arrived

The valve amplifier kit arrived yesterday; it looks to be in perfect condition. Today I'm off to the hardware store to buy some varnish and sandpaper, then to the electronics store to buy a speaker. Then the cleanup and assembly can begin.

At this point I'm looking to modularise it somewhat, & actually have a standalone mini-PC or laptop within the case, hooked up to the amp through a plug & socket panel internally. That'll make it easier to develop, dramatically reduce the amount of woodworking needed, and make ongoing upgrades or repairs painless as well.

One complication is that as it's mains powered, I'll need to get it certified by an electrical engineer before I can leave it running - else if it catches fire & burns the house down, our insurance won't pay out. Still, it's a wise precaution as it's my first ever mains-powered circuit.

Amplifier on the way...

Today, I ordered an 8LM valve amplifier kit from S5 Electronics. It should be arriving soon, so I'll be cleaning up the case and readying it for the amplifier over the course of the next few weeks.

Arrival in Melbourne

The WestiAmp has arrived inMelbourne intact (well, in pieces - but importantly, in no more pieces than it left). It's currently hiding behind a pile of boxes in our spare room (soon to be study / library).

I have emailed the good people at S-5 Electronics, and they've responded to say they do ship to Australia, and that shipping of the valve amplifier kit I need for the WestiAmp will cost an extra $55. So, next pay, it's mine :-)

On the move ...

Finally, I've had some time to work on Westiamp. I've taken an old Celeron 500 PC with a few hard drives, installed Puppy Linux on it, and set it up to work as a simple media center.

Then, I've disassembled said PC, and packaged it up with the Westiamp to send to Melbourne. Once it arrives I'll be cleaning up the case, buying the valve amplifier kit, and commencing construction.

It's taken a while, but the Westiamp project is back on track again ...

Major, positive development

Well well well. Mike Green Challenge (a Kuro5hin user) has brought the following to my attention: a brand new valve amplifier kit that costs only US$139.

This looks like a much easier route than fixing the existing amplifier, and I'm all in favour of easy :-) Conveniently, my employer is paying all staff a bonus this year ... :-)

The WestiAmp blog has moved

Due to the fact that I'm running out of space on my Ihug FTP server (I only get 10MB free space with my account), I have moved my personal blog to a new location:

http://westiamp.blogspot.com/

The new Atom feed for the blog is:

http://westiamp.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing the new location.

Speech synthesis & voice control

After spending some time thinking about the UI for WestiAmp, I've decided on a rough architecture:

1. A daemon (almost typed 'service' - my day-job as .NET developer is having an adverse effect on me) called westiplayerd, that checks for the presence of control files (empty regular files with particular filenames like 'nextplaylist' or 'stop') and plays MP3s / OGGs and playlists accordingly.

2. Another daemon, called westicontrold, that accepts input, either through voice (using a speech recognition program) or from the knobs on the panel (probably through a parallel port?) and touches control files which will be acted upon by westiplayerd.

3. A web application (probably written in PHP) which will allow a user to upload music files to the WestiAmp, and delete those files if needed. It will also provide a UI that displays what westiplayerd is up to (i.e. which track & playlist it's playing), and that will allow the user to issue commands to westiplayerd (again by touching control files).

I'm investigating KTTSD to add speech output to westiplayerd for the purpose of letting the user know about errors, full discs etc. As of yet I have no idea what speech recognition software I'll be using, but I do know there's quite a range available for Linux.

Another constructive evening

I've had another constructive evening working on the WestiAmp project. I've dismantled the base of the gramophone cabinet, and removed the speaker grille and speaker.

The speaker looked old and naff; the base of the cone was missing and it was covered in dust. Out of curiosity I hooked it up to one of my stereos (a cheap but cheerful NZ$150 Warehouse special) to test it, & it sounds every bit as bad as it looks. Quiet, crackly and horrid. Looks like I'd better start reading up about speakers ...

I've also started thinking about software; at this stage I'm considering using speech synthesis to provide feedback to the user, and the two right-most knobs on the front to skip between playlists and tracks.

The further I get into this project, the more fun it becomes (despite having bleeding cuts on both my hands from removing tacks from the grille with a pair of pliers).

First photo of the WestiAmp

This is a photo of the WestiAmp as it is now; in original condition, sans the gramophone cabinet door:

Gramophone cabinet door removed

I spent about 10 minutes on WestiAmp today, removing the cabinet door that covered the gramophone (which is there no longer; there is only a hole where it used to be) and bagging the screws, hinges, arm and locking mechanism.

It's looking like most of the hinges & other bracketry is going to have to be replaced, but the arm might be repairable.

The Arrival

I collected the radio today, & have formulated a rough plan for the restoration.

1. take it to pieces
2. get the valve driven AF amplifier stage (I'm presuming there's one) going
3. replace all the hinges etc. in the case
4. sand & oil the wood
5. shoe-horn my old Celeron 500 into the case, running Mandrake Linux, Apache and a PHP-based control system for uploading & managing MP3s and playlists
6. replace the aftermarket plastic knobs with something nice (brushed aluminium?)
7. put it all back together again

I'm expecting this to take up to a year, as I have never worked with valves before, and my woodworking skills are rudimentary.

This is going to be a fun project!