RetroRiver - RetroPod (FKARP)

[Haku]

*looks around suspiciously* who renamed my thread? I was going to call it the "The Rock Lobster Project" because the walkmans I have are WM-B52's (would have been silly to call it "The Love Shack Project" or "Meet the Flintstones Project" ) but I don't have my replacement player so couldn't set-to on properly naming and doing the project.
Can we officially call it that? give it some fun quirkyness to the thing rather than RetroRiver being a generic copy of RetroPod.

Useless fact of the day: If you open up an old Amiga 500 you'll see "Rock Lobster" imprinted on the motherboard because the creaters were B-52 fans.


ikdfa, I bought two so I can try out an idea and if I majorly stuff anything up I still have a 2nd to fall back on and won't make the same mistake twice, but if I manage to make the first really good I can duplicate it and sell the 2nd

HotStuff2, when I first saw the project I wanted one like they have as it looks very big bulky and retro, but this particular model has grown on me, the addition of a working alarm clock on the front is nice

[FlameGrilled]

The idea of adding some internal protection, i.e. a protective padded or isolatistic layer between DAP and it's external former-walkman shell, is not as crazy as it may sound.

Think about it (as i'm sure Haku has in the period of being deckless) :-

Walkman's were pretty resilient beasts, and the sport-models more so. They are also plastic and the sport models (if opened carefully and reassembled after the transplant) were also splash-proof/water-proof depending on the model.

That's gotta be worth having when you make a casing for an expensive deck.

Anyway, there is probably a small bit of space in there, once you've decided where to put the iHP inside. So, as a part case of finishing off the job, why not fill in the space..??

Find something for material that's not gonna trap too much heat, will act as a bit of isolastic protection or buffering vs the transmission of impact energy from the casing of the ex-walkman, and you stop both unwanted rattling of an iHP moving inside it's new 'retro' case, and give it a few percent more protection still.

Hell, do the measurements, and cut a few pieces of rubber (bundles of cut bike inner tubes will do) and make some corner shock absorber isolatic bungs to fit the gap between iHP case corners and the counterparts on the inside of the ex-walkman.

Are isolastic bungs any good..??

Well, apart from having experienced a well-designed use of them (Norton Commando used adjustable isolastics to reduce the transmission of vibration from a big twin motor), i do also recall someone manufactured a stem for Aheadset type steering assemblies on mountain bikes that was nothing more than two pieces of tensioned metal with a layered composite of rubber inserts in between - and that was damned effective (this was pre to telescopic forks becoming cheap and effective FS for bicycles).

So an isolatic approach can work....

The only question really is - is it worth doing..??

To that, all i can say is - you gotta try it as you aint gonna know til you have.

[HotStuff2]

Haku: I've found a WM-AF54, which is the "other" model the RetroPod guy was testing on (it's the one he used for the injected foam.) I was also looking at a WM-SXF30 and WM-SXF33, but I forgot to bid before the auction ended. D'oh!

[idkfa]

Wow, the big one. I was looking for one of those but ebay is too troublesome for me. and shipping takes so long. Was hoping that the big one can accomodate a portable amp and can squeeze everything inside!
Go get it! oh yes, bid too.

cheers

[HotStuff2]

Holy shiznit, Batman! The WM-F45 on eBay sold for $61! (LINK)

That's the one with the big oval window in the front on the RetroPod website. WAY too much, if you ask me! LOL

[FlameGrilled]

*sobs in his kit-e-kat and beer*

The depressing bit, for this aging virtual tomcat, is :-

A year ago, i had literally 9 crates full of dead walkmans (all different models of Sony) with little faults like ferked amps and dead motors.

Guess who, in deperate need to clear out the garage to make room for a bike project, slung all those dead 'redundant' scrap walkmans away..??

Yep... this old fool

On a scale of idiocy, i reckon i deserve a few weeks in the darkest corner of the hellcat torture chamber, to obsolve myself of the sins of ditching potential retroprod cases.

If one of my ever dwindling number of friends here in the r/world (dropping like flies they are - they seem to be marked for death lately) still has his stack of 'fishguts' (a stack of gutted walkmans he uses to keep old units gone faulty in working order for his customers), i may still be able to earn a few tins of kit-e-kat out of this :P

[HotStuff2]

LOL...ah, hindsight is 20/20, eh FG?

I plan to get a few different models, and figure uut which one I like best. I figure I'll put the others up for sale on eBay. Let Sony come after me! LOL :P

[HotStuff2]

Got two of them on eBay so far, total cost with shipping is about $17 or so. Can't wait to start the project! LOL

[idkfa]

Originally Posted by HotStuff2

Got two of them on eBay so far, total cost with shipping is about $17 or so. Can't wait to start the project! LOL

2?!? Man, makes me wanna get more. God knows for what. Was really fun doing it rather then using it.

There was this time when I went into a hi-fi shop to test out an headphone amp for my DAP. Sales guy saw me with the Sony Walkman and thought I was trying to be funny; till i opened it up. Was so funny.

And did I mentioned I went to Sony Qualia to test out their qualia earphone. Saleguy asked if I brought my own player or something to try the earphone out. So I took out my Sony Walkman and damn, he must be thinking I am mad. Cassette tape player with qualia phones! haha...Furthermore it is a Sony!

It's really funny wearing it out. Next time I have to mod a dictionary and fit my iRiver inside. Perhaps listening to a dictionary makes more sense in a hi-fi shop? Hahaha...

[HotStuff2]

LOL man the crazy things we could come up with. I doubt anyone would buy them, but imagine a DAP inside a bible (use it at church!), an old hard drive (dude, it's REALLY digital!), or something else crazy.

But I want the Walkman since it's water resistant and all. Really. :P

[Haku]

Continuing with non-electronic mods because I lost my solder :-\


As snug as a bug in a rug



It's literally a perfect fit, cut out the block of foam for the edge protection but couldn't use the foam for the front/back of the player as it was too thick and difficult to cut, so I cut up a 3mm thick mousemat with a hole for the joystick.
Next is cutting a hole in the top for the plug of the remote control to fit through, and somehow try to make it splashproof so you could still spray it with a hose and the player stays completely dry.

[FlameGrilled]

Haku :-

I dunno if it will affect the foam or not, but worth trying on some scrap...

There are water-repellant sprays and suchlike that might be ok to use on the foam and the casing of the ex-walkman.

Dunno if it's gonna be worthwhile, but if you are already getting a damn-near dry result so far, it might be worth the extra effort to try to make the case water repellent.

If all else fails, try a small cheap tin of car polish for the casing - some of those are PTFE based and definately have some water repellent quality.

[Haku]

A couple of weeks ago I plugged up the volume/headphone socket holes with blu-tack and dunked the empty shell of a Walkman completely under water for a couple of minutes and shook/knocked it a little, only a couple of drops got in - with the holes plugged you can run the thing under a tap and it's perfectly fine.
Water-repellant spray is a good idea except for the cost of a full can when you only need a little bit, I was thinking of using some sort of rubber seal around where the remote control wire will come out.

[Haku]

Look what I did today

WM-B52.avi (2.4mb XviD format)

[zezayer]

RU going 2 the toilet??

- or washing up?

[1121]

zezayer, is that sarcasm I detect? I'm confused... please leave some kind of hint that you are'n't being serious... maybe a smiley to help?

[Haku]

Maybe he doesn't have the XviD codec installed so can only hear what's going on

[SoulEata]

so will an h340 fit in one of these ?

[andrewmel]

if you use some sort of o-ring setup on the headphone jack it should be waterproof.

<edit> o-ring, shmo-ring, just watched the video and it looks great!!! </edit>

a

[cracker1018]

I've been wondering for awhile now, but putting the 140 (which i have) into any enclosure....would that cause the hd in the unit to overheat?? When i got my 140 i first wondered if the enclosed case would cause the unit to overheat....then wondered about the iskin...and now this really cool retro case. I've not seen any mention here of overheating the unit and causing damage. Should this be of any concern??

[Haku]

The only time my player ever gets warm from using the harddrive is when it's plugged into a PC and doing a full restore (all 40gb) or defragment (not really needed when the file have all been restored from the PC in one go because there's virtually no fragmentation).

It probably gets warmer sitting in your jeans pocket than it would in a case of any type because the harddrive is hardly accessed when playing files normally.

[Azjazzer8]

man.. Haku.. some of that stuff your doing is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind one of those walkman cases. I use Iskin too.. but.. modding a case like that for an iskin also would be cool. hmm... Oh. And cool dock you made btw. Im not very good with electronics or anything of that sort, so the step by step stuff everyone posts doesn't make much sense to me. Call me a newb I guess.. hehe. Nice case tho, I might go and try to make myself one!

[adama]

(Man, this is an old thread....)

Thought I'd have a go at making one of these old walkman cases. I'm planning to do do some travelling in a couple of months, so figured a case would be handy. These old walkman cases are pretty tough, reckon it could handle bouncing around in the bottom of a rucksack for a few weeks! Anyway, here are a few pics of the result....