Making a Piso Jukebox

Do you own an eatery? A beer house? Or a Cafe? Do you play background music inside the premises? Why not build a Piso Jukebox? I know, it sounds old school but you can build a modern version one. A jukebox is a machine that plays a selected music when a coin is inserted. It is a compilation of music recordings that are stored in vinyl discs. The machine has a  complex mechanical means of selecting and playing vinyl discs.
In this design, the audio amplifier and exhaust fan turns on if a coin is inserted. You can select music or video music in an android or apple tablet media player. A tablet's audio signal can be amplified by an audio amplifier through stereo RCA connection. A tablet has 3.5mm stereo phone jack where we usually insert a stereo 3.5mm plug of a headset. You can purchase a 3.5mm stereo plug to stereo RCA plug adapter or cable. Most audio amplifiers use RCA jacks as audio signal inputs.

The image above is the design of jukebox I have sketched up. I have always seen jukeboxes shaped like this inside beer houses when I was a child in the early 90's. I thought they were electric organs or pianos. I never saw any of them in operation. They were just left ignored and some are  dust covered. At that time sound box with cassette players and VHS were popular, and video karaoke was on development.

The machine I designed requires a coin box circuit, audio amplifer, loudspeakers or sound boxes with loudspeakers and tweeters, an exhaust fan, audio cable,speaker wires, smart tablet with updated music playlist, and the jukebox chassis itself. You can create your own chassis design. You can choose any audio amplifier but I recommend a high wattage one at maximum of 500 watts. Make sure the power output and impedance are matched to both the amplifier and the loudspeakers. Loudspeakers with power range from 300 watts and above, need a minimum of 12 inches in diameter size. Smaller diameter will result to premature overdrive and distortion. I prefer to use a two-way passive speaker system, an instrumental and tweeter tandem. Woofers will enhance the desired bass response. If you plan to place woofers, it is better to have it on a separate amplifier and soundbox. Woofers can ruin other loudspeakers. They cause distortions. I prefer to use Sakura brand amplifier. It is cheap but powerful and durable. The best preset for tone control is 60% bass, 50% midrange, and 75% treble. The main volume should be set at 50% to 60% to avoid overdrive if the audio signal coming out from the media player is too high.

The tablet can be mounted on the front wall of the jukebox either by using  corner clamps screwed or make insertion hole that fits the tablet dimension and the depth of  hole should allow the tablet touch pad surface in line with the wall's surface. You may offer online media streaming app like Youtube app. The best media player software is VLC. It is free to download and install. It supports various media file types.

VLC media player link: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

The coin box is made up of a coin slot circuit, digital timer circuit, and a dc power supply. 

The circuits usually require 12vdc to operate. They are widely found in electronics stores and widely used in Piso machines like pisonet, tubig machine, and ready-made coin boxes.

The higher the power, the hotter the surrounding is. Make sure to install an exhaust fan at the back portion of the jukebox to expel out heat inside the box and maintain lower temperature. Electronics archenemy is the temperature. I prefer to use an induction motor type that runs in AC. It is easy to connect. It can be plugged in parallel with the audio amplifier.

To learn on how to make a coin box, there are lots of free tutorials online to watch.

I suggest to set the timer from 5 to 6 minutes per coin trigger. So just insert a 1 piso coin and the amplifier switches "ON" up to 5 or 6 minutes depending on your configuration of the timer circuit.