Steam-powered record player

Ãœbermaker 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!

Also check out Simon’s fire-powered beer cooler and home-made weather satellite receiver previously featured on Make: Online.