One man's trash is another man's DIY Raspberry Pi project. Instead of throwing away a broken 1968 Sony transistor radio, one maker decided to put some life back into the device by creating a Raspberry Pi-powered radio you can control through the internet.
Aidan, known on Reddit as Arkiser13, shared the project this week. The maker buiilt the internet radio on top of a Raspberry Pi Zero W. Aidan wired the original speakers to the Pi using a Hifiberry amplifier.
An open-source music player called Volumio controls the music. The application includes a web interface, making it possible to control the radio using any device that has a web browser. This includes phones, tablets and PCs.
Setting up the project looks straightforward and doesn't require much hardware outside of the Raspberry Pi, radio and Hifiberry card. First, you have to wire the speakers to the amp. You can flash Volumio onto a microSD card, like you can with most Pi operating systems. A large capacity card is ideal for this project; Aidan used a 32GB card for storing MP3s.
Since this is a portable radio, it needed a new power system. Aidan used a 1500mah lithium-ion battery taken from a broken MP3 player. The crafter connected the battery to a TP4056 charging module, making the radio rechargeable via USB.
If you'd like to learn more about this project, check out the full post on Reddit. You can follow Aidan for more updates and future projects.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.