Not an airplane - a 'radio'

[Michael]

Just for fun, since some have been posting building projects of models that are not airplanes, I thought that I'd post something very different that David has 3D-printed.

In February 1964, when the Beatles first visited the USA, they took a taxi from the airport to a hotel. Vintage photos and film show the Beatles listening to Beatles music on a novelty/promotional Pepsi transistor radio.

David decided to reproduce a that radio with his 3D printing skill/experience. This took about a month of planning and building. The result, shown in the images, is a near identical reproduction, but instead of an AM radio, it features a blue-tooth unit, lithium-polymer battery and stereo speakers, that plays music from a cellphone.

 

[GuyOReilly]

Beautiful!! 

[msatin]

Very crative - Love it!

[davidk]

Beatles '64 is a documentary about their first visit to the US and, of course, the Ed Sullivan Show.  Throughout the film this AM radio in the shape of a Pepsi Vending Machine kept popping up.  It's rumored to have been left in their hotel room by Pepsi.  Regardless, as soon as I saw it I knew I had to re-create it.  I used TinkerCad, found the dimensions on-line and created the main sections in 3 parts, matching the Pepsi colours.

There's a grill built into the back and the front panels.  The red panel is screwed into the white panel with machine screws, countersunk, screwing into 4 brass heat threaded inserts.  The front blue panel has a very snug fit into the white panel so it can be glued or not.

The "metallic" frame on the front sits in a recess on the blue panel and holds 3 separate panels inserts.  The top panel "Say Pepsi Please" on a bottle cap background, middle panel of drink choices, and the bottom panel with a "cooling louvre", drink dispenser, and coin return.

The 3 drink choices are Patio, the original diet pepsi, Teem, a lemon-lime drink we all remember, and, of course, Pepsi.

The bottom insert "cooling louvre" is a shutter I found, built using TinkerCad, which I adapted for this radio.  That worked out really well.

The 2 gear controls on the side actually do turn, but are not connected to anything... they simply resemble the original on/off volume switch, and the AM tuner.  I found a fidget spinner designer in tinkercad and re-designed it to match the radio controls.

Michael and I discussed the electronics and, at first, felt it must be an AM radio.  I bought a $10 AM/FM compact radio from Amazon but the controls were not placed anywhere I could use them.  Then we decided that AM just wouldn't cut it.  It's a Beatles radio after all, so it must play Beatles.  I found a Bluetooth kit here in Ontario, matched it with 2 small speakers from Amazon and built standoffs and cutouts into the blue panel and it fit perfectly.

It's powered by a 1S Lipo battery, chargeable via a USB-C connection to a 1A 5V charger - any iPhone charger.  When things go that easily, you know they're meant to be.  The radio must be powered on to charge which, in this case, means the battery is not being drained when off.  A blue light shines through the case when it's powered on and a red light displays when it's charging.

The two speakers are a friction fit into a soft cutout printed in a foaming rubber material - the same filament I use for plane tires.

All in all, this is one of those few projects that simply goes along until it's done.  No issues, just fun.