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Steam-Powered turntable

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Wow!

I uploaded the pic because I don't want it to get lost if the link dies. Here's the text that went with it on the Make: Online website:

"Übermaker Simon Jansen of Auckland, New Zealand, wrote in to share his Arduino-controlled, steampunk (literally!) turntable.

This is my steam powered record player built to play a Sex Pistols LP. Yes, it is true steampunk. The engine was made mainly from bits and pieces I had lying about in my junk box. The boiler was made from some copper water pipe and a bespoke platter and base was made using wood. I am using an Arduino to control everything buy using a coil to detect the passing of magnets in the edge of the platter. The Arduino works out the revs then feeds this information into a PID controller the output of which drives a servo controlling a throttle on the engine. The speed is regulated to 33 1/3 (well, more or less) and displayed on an analogue meter. The tone arm uses an old phono cartridge that connects to my phono pre-amp and into my stereo. The hardware is complete and works well but the software could use a little tweaking. It does however run!"
 

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Redboy said:
Weird tonearm setup, though. :scratch2:
Click to expand...

The usual location would have put it right against the boiler. I've seen arms in that location on tables that have two arms, so it's not that weird.

There's something familiar about the arm itself, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
 
I wonder if the builder was familiar with the Lirpa Turbo Steamtable? Audio reviewed this brainchild of the eminent Prof. I. Lirpa in an April issue many years ago. Its measured performance was every bit as unusual as its appearance.
 
As Frank Zappa said in "Little Green Rosetta",
' The kerosine powered turntable is not a very efficient device '.

The earliest one I've seen was made in the late 1800's or early 1900's.
 
I love that steampunk look - it would go well with Moth Audio gear. The steam-powered Lirpa TT was, as some of us know, an April fool's joke, as in what is "Lirpa" spelled backward??
 
Cool table! :thmbsp:

I just wish he had picked something other than the Sex Pistols to demo that with: it's so raucous to begin with, that it's a bit hard to fairly judge the performance of the TT. (Although you can obviously hear it slowing down towards the end.)

Also, while the music is definitely punk, it doesn't really fit with steampunk, which has a very different feel/ethos to it.

I've toyed with ideas for quite a while for building a "steampunk" TT, but not one actually powered by steam, just one that LOOKS good, yet has great performance. I saw an early Western Electric cutting lathe that looked rather Victorian-cum-steampunk; something like that would be very nice as a design inspiration.
 
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