The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench FM & MP3 player...new idea...

Thanks for the update. PTEG is the higher temperature material, yes?

Good for 180°, which I know is marginal for Texas. Once I get a good plate out of PETG, I’ll experiment with ABS or ASA. I’ll need to build an enclosure to protect it from cooling too fast.

Thanks...I'll be watching.

Got my first prototype printed in PETG. It took me a few tries and there is room for improvement, but it fits the dash pretty good. It’s in raw form, meaning it needs to be sanded down, primed then painted. I’m going to send it to you in a day or two, for a final fitting and crtique. I’ll PM you details.

Hi Phil,
Please check your PM...
Best regards,

Time for an update on this project. It is still ongoing although there have been some bobbles...both procedural and personal. At any rate, after a year of work I have settled in on a fiberglass prototype and am casting a mold for it today. I'm also working with a friend on a CNC program to modify some other experimental fiberglass pieces so they can be used. Rather than just have the radio piece sit atop the blank-out plate I've elected to recess it so that the radio piece sits more or less flush with the piece (there are limitations, but if this works, I think it will be more professional-looking this way). You can see what I've done in the images below...in steps. Also, this radio doesn't have an on/off switch (the gentlemen in China designed it to be turned on/off by the remote control device which came with it), so I'm adding one into the round headed bolt which holds the radio intact. I'm still making a prototype and a fiberglass mold for that. Microsurgery is more like what the switch is, but you can see what I'm working with and what I've decided to do to incorporate it into the hollow threaded rod that will become the bolt. I see where there is still interest in a 6 volt radio. Please keep in mind this one will pick up FM stations, play MP3 files on either a tiny TF chip or a USB thumb drive, will accept and play bluetooth music, podcasts, etc and will mate with a cell phone allowing you to answer incoming telephone calls hands-free. There may (according to the schematic/engineering data I received) also be a voice recorder so you could use the TF (Micro SD) chip or the USB stick to record spoken things or maybe you might record yourself singing. At any rate, it will work on 6v, 8v, 12v or anything up to 37v. I figured that was enough room for variance...5v at the lowest to 37v at the max. The antenna connection will be at the lower rear of the back side as you see below. At this point I'm still encouraged and more will follow in time.

Does your documentation have a max memory size for the MicroSD card?

The connections to the speakers is Blue Tooth only, correct?

Mounting it in plastic/fiberglass like that should help when the inevitable GMC owner comes calling with his 6v positive ground electrical system.

Yes, I do, Bill. 32 GB is the max micro SD or USB thumb drive memory size...which is a lot of songs and/or audio books, a typical spoken paperback audio book taking up 600~800 mb or less and a whole album (like Roy Orbison's Greatest Hits for example) taking up around 100 kb. If you've followed the entire "bluetooth speaker" parade, you already know there have been some liberties taken (an understatement on my part). I don't know why but in this case I think they play in our favor. In a literal world, a bluetooth speaker is an amplifier and loudspeaker that's paired with a smartphone (one or many) that has wireless connectivity. It can also be connected to tablet devices, iPods or computers. But this one has a bluetooth antenna built in to the circuitry (doesn't actually take much given the distance limitation of that ability), an FM antenna connection, an FM receiver/tuner, amplifier, right and left speaker outputs, a microphone, an MP3/WMA/WAV decoder and player, infrared ability (with an accompanying remote control device), sound equalizer, double decoding, power off memory (so you will return to the same song or chapter when you re-power it), digital display, support for pause/single loop play/replay all, support for polarity protection (won't burn out if wired backwards) and possibly some other abilities. Mandarin being a language I really didn't grow up with. Interestingly some of these I've bought from China have been made using German, US and Japanese discrete parts.

So the speakers in this case are wired as they would be normally (a right output + and a left output + and negative connections for each channel). If this device has the ability to send output to a typical bluetooth speaker (as one might use on a patio) I don't know...I don't own one and so I haven't tried it.

I think anyone will be able to connect it...red is positive and black is negative.

Let me take you on a tour of one side of the circuit board, Bill...

The red pointer is the power connection and the two white plugs to the right are the speaker connections. The blue pointer is the micro sd card socket and the USB socket (and microphone) sits on the top side. The two lime green pointers are the amplifier chips (right/left) and there's another over to the left (no pointer) which is a precise step-down DC-DC converter capable of handling between 5v dc and up to 32v dc. The white one points to a bluetooth 5.0 audio receiver chip. The yellow pointer shows one side of the FM antenna (the other connection naturally being ground). And the squash colored pointer shows the bluetooth antenna imprinted on the board. There's a 24 mhz crystal oscillator there also and an aux socket for headphones. On the other side are a couple of electrolytic capacitors, the I/R receiver, the display "tube" and that's about it. Hope this helps...if questions, please ask.

You said above that this device will drive hard wired speakers. Given the lack of heat sinks on the board it couldn't provide much power, so Bluetooth speakers would be a good alternative.

You don’t need heat sinks to drive massive power with modern electronics
Don’t let “no heat sink” fool you
I can build a board that looks like that capable of delivering 1000 watts to the load
Those surface mount packages are enormous compared to the space and size of circuits I had to cram into small places for a living.
-s

... but 1000 watts is going to take 85 amps at 12 volts. That would fry the little wires on this device. What is the actual power rating of the speaker outputs on this thing?

Crest factor for typical audio is about 7-1 for normal applications
So your 85 amps is more like 12 amps on average between bass hits on the woofer
Your amp is capable of 1000w but that’s it’s peak rating until it gets too hot
And in this case it would be strictly heating from the tiny wire entires which isn’t as bad as you might think if it’s all soldered and crimped well
85 amps is very doable in an undersized wire if the heat isn’t building up. Which for audio it wouldn’t because it’s not a DC load it’s a very dynamic load.
-s

Several people have asked me about this project and what is happening. It is still ongoing...despite some recent personal challenges. So here is a bit of an update:

1. The "AUX" function has been removed and in that place I've adapted a small latching switch and on/off button. The red arrow in the first image below points to this. I didn't figure there would be much interest in the AUX function and this was the best place to locate a switch I could find. Note, please: The switch doesn't control volume. Just on/off. You can see the switch in the second image. I think it will be more convenient than any other option I had.

2. Some of these were sent to me with only small (3 watt) amplifiers. I bought small amp boards that will add twin 40 watt channels and will also operate on 6, 8 or 12 volt and those were added to the sets needing them.

3. A CNC program to cut a speaker mount has been written and hopefully I can test it soon.

Please stay posted.

Another update: this project is close to completion. Only the speaker mount system remains and the CNC program has worked well. The speakers will be Visatons from Germany. A little more wiring to do to help make installation easier. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

The unit itself looks like it may also fit the 54/55 truck dash also .

I'm not certain about that...a couple of years ago a member was going to check that for me and send a blank-out plate but he didn't and I haven't seen him around for a good while now.

When I get back to we’re the truck is I will take a few measurements

Jon, THANKS for all your work. Looking forward to the final product.

RonR

My pleasure. There are only a couple more things to do and now that we're seeing a bit cooler weather maybe I can get them finished. My CNC device has to be run outside because of noise and dust.

I am back from camp and remembered to measure the 54 stereo space in the dash .looks like it is 5 inches by 1 and a 1/16.

Thanks, kevinski...another gentleman sent me a blank-out plate and I'm working on trying to make something out of that. More to follow.

And I have some news. After over 4 years of work on this, the radio project for the AD trucks is finished and I'm ready to start selling some. I'm going to offer them in two parts...radio/MP3/etc and then separately the speaker setup (since some have told me they have speakers already). You can see in the for sale section of the Swap Meet...plus a reminder about how these projects get priced...

I have a 49 Chevy 12 V
I am interested in the FM & MP3 player
Is there a certain format the music has to be recorded on the MP3 thumb drive?
Please send me info, price and your address to
[email protected]
Is a bank check ok for payment

Doug Sukanek
242 Carver Road
Plymouth MA 02360

Also can you send me a photo of the radio faceplate
Will it look original?
Doug
[email protected]

Doug Sukanek
242 Carver Road
Plymouth MA 02360

Hi Doug,
Thanks for your interest. Nothing can be offered for sale in this part of the forum, but if you'll go down to The Swap Meet section and look in Truck Parts for Sale heading, you'll see it there. It uses double decoding and the format can be MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC or APE lossless format.

Edit...to answer your question, it looks as original as possible. For certain reasons (economic) the original radio style could not easily be blended with today's style, however I think it looks in keeping with the "no square corners" look of the AD truck. You can see below.

Very nice. Maybe the two original radio openings can be used for potentiometers for right and left speakers or electric antenna.

Mine arrived yesterday. It will be a while before I get it installed.

The radio blank plate for the 54/55 trucks do not fit in like the older trucks they overlap the opening .

Jon,
What did you use for painting your dash and the faceplate of that radio in your truck?

It was a F*rd color used on one of the Taurus models...either that or another of the sedans. Do you want the number of it? I used MAE Omni paint with a deglossing agent added. Let me know if you want the number.

Thanks! There are two documents I've written...one about installing and one about getting to know your radio. They're attached. I hope they converted to pdf files okay. If questions please send a PM or email to [email protected]

Jon G - The PDF files seem to have converted just fine, but maybe too big for them to display by clicking the "Show PDF" buttons (at least they don't display in my web browser). But they download and display as PDF files otherwise just fine! Excellent info and details! Thank You

Thanks Dan,
I figured they'd need to be downloaded and viewed separately.

Hi Folks...I've received some comments that it hasn't been easy to find the radio (in "for sale" fashion), so here's a link to it. Please let me know if you have any trouble or questions:

https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...h-etc-for-the-ad-type-trucks#Post1566853

Jon, your pictures show for '53 and earlier. Were you able to do something for the '54-'55.1?

S2

I haven't been able to do anything for the 54-55.1 yet. I was trying to work with a couple of people and ran into a wall there. What I needed was a blank-out plate or something I could use to make a mold from and I wasn't successful. Also...I should tell you I ran into the situation where some of these dashboards had been altered to accept other radios, tape players, etc and some folks wanted me to create something that would work for the alterations that had been made (which is not possible).

I did get a blank-out plate for 1955 through 1959 and will be trying to do something there...not the 55.1, however. If you have suggestions, I'm happy to hear them.

May I suggest that one of our fellow ‘Bolters, send you a blank to mold it from assuming it will be unharmed and you’ll be able to send it back.

The blank out plate for the 54 covers the opening ,it is not like the 47/53 we’re it fits in the hole .If you need measurements I could take my plate off and measure ,I think I posted some measurements on here earlier .Let me know if I can help out .

As far as measurements go, I don't have anything covering mine nor any modifications..... Actually I've got something that may be a LITTLE better. Last year, I ordered a radio from Retro Sound and they sent the wrong component that fits to the radio head. I got to keep the old radio head; that fit real nice in the slot for the orig. radio all be it not as long ( approx. 3/8 inch on each side. The face plate corrects this). However, if the radio head is pushed flush against the back of the dash, it sticks out in front approx. 7/8 inch. The face plate is, as I said before, is good in every way except the height. It will not fit under the speaker grill. Therefore the radio head sits approx. 3/4 - 7/8 inch from the dash. Hopefully these items and my explanation will help KEVINSKI from having to trudge out into that darn white stuff and be warm instead of cold for thirty minutes.


S2

PS
Jon, would these pieces help you in any way? It may take some time to send them to you; I'd like to get the face plate back as I want to try to grind the top edge down to fit under the speaker grill. The radio head is not needed.

A blank-out plate would be very helpful. It is in my experience impossible to make a mold without one. I'm currently working on a solution for the 55.2 through 59 trucks. Have to wait for some plaster of Paris to dry, though.

Jon, sent my "PS" at the same time. Sorry. Also, can't help with the blank-out plate.

S2