I built this a few months ago and have been meaning to write it up, but haven't gotten around to it until now. I'll try to put as much information as I can remember. Let me know what you think! Ok, here we go.
Touchscreen Jukebox Project
This project originally stemmed from my desire to build a MAME cabinet when I stumbled upon people building their own jukeboxes. I really wanted to make one, but it was years later until I finally got around to it. Overall, I'm very happy with the end result. I used a lot of parts I had lying around, but everything would be easily accessible (if you're willing to pay the $$)
Here's a list of items I used in my project and their approximate prices:
Hardware:
1 - 15" ELO kiosk touchscreen from eBay - $80 shipped.
1 - Used Pentium 4 PC from my mom
- Free1 - 120GB Harddrive for music seperate from my system drive; laying around - Free
1 - Keyboard and wireless mouse; laying around - Free
1 - WiFi Adapter; laying around - Free
2 - Sony XPLOD XS-R1341 160W 5.25" Car Speakers - $20 shipped.
1 - Oak Cabinet of my liking bought locally - $50
2 - 5.25" Sony Home theater speakers w/ tweeters; laying around - Free
1 - 10" Sony Home theater speaker; laying around - Free
1 - Sony 4/3/2-Channel Xplod XM-GTX6040 240-Watt Car Amplifier - $100
1 - Extra PC power supply to power the amplifier; laying around - Free
1 - Surge protector; laying around - Free
1 - Yard of speaker cloth from eBay - $10 shipped
Miscellaneous wood for building the top box to house the touchscreen - $30 or so
Stain, Glue, Sandpaper, Screws, and other miscellaneous items - $15 or so
Software:
Jukebox Arcade - Special thanks to the guy that made this! - Free
Program Selector Pro - $35
Kylo Web Browser - Great touchscreen browser - Free
TightVNC -Easily remote control from my phone - Free
Mp3Tag - Free
Windows XP - Preinstalled, but I did a clean install from recovery disc.
I started out by finding my main components. The first item I received was my touchscreen. The screen is very similar to one that would be used in a nice ATM. It has VGA in and USB to control the touch input. Once I got it hooked to the computer and the drivers setup everything worked great. I then began my search for a cabinet. This took me about a week of looking everywhere to find something I was happy with. The cabinet is about 3.5' feet tall or so without the box on top; about 4 with the box/touchscreen. It is stained oak with a nice grain that I was unable to match with the top box; which is why I stained it black.
Once I had these three things I started to play around with the software side of things. I went through about 5 different jukebox softwares before I found Jukebox Arcade. It's a free piece of software that this guy originally wrote for his MAME cabinet. I searched through the program files and found that it used XML for a lot of the button placement. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to make the album art larger, remove buttons I didn't want, and remap the settings button to an invisible button under the top X button, etc. I also used GIMP to remove the logos from the top of the program. No offense to the dev, I just think it looks smoother without a title.
Below is a before and after look of the software:
Once everything was tested and I knew it was all working, I went out and bought the amplifier. By this time, 2 of my speakers had come in the mail and I found the others neatly packed away in my garage (no really! lol). I had to get an extra PC power supply to power the amp. DO NOT TRY TO DRAW POWER FROM YOUR MAIN SYSTEM'S POWER SUPPLY. I found a pinout of the power supply to figure out which 2 wires needed to be put together to eliminate the need for a seperate switch. I wired up everything again for a dry run and again, it all worked great!
A few days later, I picked up the wood I needed and recruited my dad for help with the woodwork (THANKS DAD!). By this time I had all my supplies and was ready to go. 2 holes were drilled on each side of the cabinet for the Xplod speakers and 4 holes were cut into the cabinet doors for the other speakers. We figured out the touchscreen's box and put it all together with dad's finish nailer and drill. Once everything on top was mounted, 2 holes were drilled in the back; 1 in the box and 1 in the cabinet.
The monitor was removed, and the box was then sanded and stained. After everything dried, the VGA and USB cables were run through the back holes and connected. The motherboard, dvd drive, harddrives, and amplifier were also mounted to the inside of the cabinet. I decided to leave the 10" speaker in the enclosure to keep the good sound quality and just put the entire thing inside the cabinet. After all speakers were mounted and wired up in series, I began to make wooden frames that would fit into the inset in the front doors and made sure they fit fairly tight. Afterwards, I wrapped the wooden frames in speaker cloth, stapled the fabric to the frame and popped the covered frame back into the inset. Looks great.
The keyboard and mouse were put into the top drawer of the cabinet and everything was closed up. I booted it up and adjusted the sound with the equalizer. The volume is a bit finicky because there is also volume control in Jukebox Arcade, so it just took some adjusting to figure out the ideal place. I then began to tweak a few settings and install a few applications. I installed the Kylo browser that is originally intended for HTPCs. I found the scroll bars in all my apps to be a bit too small for my finger. I went into the control panel and made the scroll bars as wide as my index finger. After that, everything is GREAT! I then began to put all my music onto the 120gb harddrive. Luckily most of my music was tagged correctly, but I still used Mp3Tag to save the album art into the tags and do some slight editing here and there. Most of it was really just trial and error to get everything the way I wanted it. The same will probably apply to you. Overall, this was an awesome project. It's nice to have a central place for my music collection that I can use during parties or when getting ready in the morning or just whenever I want to hear some music. I know there are a lot of audiophiles out there that are super picky about the sound of their music, but for me this is more than enough to keep me happy.
Make your own! It'd be awesome to see other people's take on this project. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making it!
Oh, and if you want to see bigger versions of the pictures here's a link to the album: http://bit.ly/hYiCxG
