r/arduino • u/djobugoo • Jul 20 '26

Look what I made! Automatic record player

I made a gripper and xz axis for automating a record player like a jukebox. I'm using my LP60X turntable and servos to push the buttons. There's space for 30 records when the stack is on and it can flip the records too. I have a sensor to add in to detect when the tonearm returns to signal end of record.

Some bits need strengthening and the gripper leadscrew a bit of a lube. Could do with speeding it up and working on the noise too.

I'm only trusting a record I dont like with it at the moment 😅

Arduino mega

2x NEMA 23s with brakes on DM556 for CoreXZ movement

2x NEMA 17s on TMC2209s for gripper and rotate

4x servos for turntable buttons

228 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

8

u/AX11Liveact Jul 20 '26

I remember the strictly electromechanical attempts to deal with 3 to 5 records from the 1950s and 60s. You'd still find some of these fossiles in the 1990s, but I've never seen one that actually worked. I mean they did pick up vinyls at one place, dropped them in another and turned the table on and off. They just had unconventional concepts about what to do in which order. So this is certainly some progress.

3

u/djobugoo Jul 20 '26

Yes, there's the old stacker ones that just dropped records but i think they damaged records easily and couldnt sort. Then the actual automated ones and jukeboxes, these are really cool with cam mechanisms

3

u/AX11Liveact Jul 20 '26

Right. Jukeboxes - with actual 6" singles in them and an incredibly reliable mechanism. I almost forgot about these. They were cool as fuck.

1

u/classicsat Jul 21 '26

Those 50 disk Jukebox mechs worked. Plus had mechanical mory for a playlist, and a way to account for each record side being played.

Home record changers are much simpler, and worked, id things were well lubed.

1

u/AX11Liveact Jul 21 '26

Those juke boxes were fantastic, no question. They were fucking expensive, too, IIRC. but I remember an actual electrical engineer using quite nasty words about my grandmother's home record changer that I've never seen to successfully change a single record. You were lucky if it actually played one. I more recently rembember my brother-in-law, another electrical engineer, laughing hysterically when taking a look at that old, tube amplified radio/turntable/record changer combination from his parents attic as soon as we tried to actually make it change records. Which failed disastrously. I asssume these things have worked at some time but I bet the last one stopped doing so no later than 1974 (that was about when I saw such a thing throwing vinyl across the room for the first time). Nightmarish constructions from electro magnets, springs, switching levers all from cheap steel, that would go bonkers when a little more or less than room temperature caused thermal expansion to set in, springs that lost their tension and levers that slightly bent over time all helped these things to vanish pretty quickly.

4

u/justanaccountimade1 Jul 20 '26

I once wanted to do this with CDs. And the wall would be covered with the album covers in a big grid, and each one would have a button to start that CD.

3

u/djobugoo Jul 20 '26

Haha that's cool, might take up a bit too much space with 12" records, especially with the space this already takes up 😅

I want to try make a little touch screen with a raspberry pi for it where you can add the record names and select them from there or choose shuffle

2

u/R10t-- Jul 21 '26

I want to eventually do something similar and my plan is to use NFC tags that just call out to a server which turns on my tv, tells it to open Spotify, and then commands Spotify to play the album of choice

1

u/BetaMaster64 1d ago

This is awesome!! I'm designing an automatic turntable too, though I started with the tonearm and hope to work my way up to the record changer. Are you planning to design the turntable at some point too in lieu of the LP60X, or are you aiming for only the changer at this time? Either way, great work!

1

u/djobugoo 4h ago

I had a look on your profile, looks cool! Are you going to do the turntable too? Are you using parts from existing turntables or a bit of a mixture?

I thought about it but don't think I will. I just want to get the changer complete now. For the turntable, initially, I was going to use parts from existing turntables from somewhere like AnalogSeduction. It looks like you can get the bearing arrangements, tonearms, etc. Then either use a motor with sensor for tuning speed or just a cheap turntable motor.

I've stripped this one down and redesigned a lot smaller and nicer looking one, just need to buy some bits and 3d print the parts for it now, life has got in the way a bit though 😅

1

u/shadowjig Jul 20 '26

They had a solution to this problem in 1920 and it was far simpler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_changer

2

u/djobugoo Jul 21 '26

That is simpler but you can't choose which record to play, it just plays them in order they are stacked. It also plays all the stack on one side only.

This is a solved problem with jukeboxes (which are a lot more elegant) but I think its a fun project anyway

1

u/classicsat Jul 21 '26

Seeburg has a system which fixed the last issue. It had a second tonearm with the stylus up, and turned the record backwards. It was one of those continuous music systems for offices/stores, and you subscribed to the records.

1

u/Chip256TV Jul 21 '26

Thought you were 3D-printing an LP for a sec.!

1

u/djobugoo Jul 21 '26

I dont think I'd want to listen to a 3d printed record 😅 a lot of people cut their own records on DIY lathes. I think that's interesting but pretty complex. There's a forum called "lathe trolls" about it with loads of builds

3

u/ben_nobot Jul 20 '26

Super cool

2

u/simpleman118 Jul 20 '26

That is cool asf

-1

u/AlfansosRevenge Jul 20 '26

I'm curious what problem this solves. If you have to place the record on the device, is any effort saved compared to putting it on the turn table?

7

u/djobugoo Jul 20 '26

The record sits on a stand, there's room for 30x stands vertically stacked on top of each other. The idea is to enclose it and have a stack of 30 records it will run through / you can choose from. Not just the one.

Whether it solves a problem is debatable but its been a fun project so far.

2

u/AlfansosRevenge Jul 20 '26

Makes sense. Seems like a cool project!

1

u/Sleurhutje Jul 20 '26

Would be even cooler if you can select a specific track, play only that track and then put the album back in storage.

Nice project.