Title Cards for a Rock-Ola 507 Wall Box to iPod Conversion

DoghouseRiley · by **DoghouseRiley** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:18 pm

For anyone new to this, there is a particular order for title cards.

The iTunes play list numbers the tracks 1-160.

1 will be no 100 on the first title page. (top left-hand corner)

55 will be number 172 on the second title page. (top left-hand corner)

109 will be no 145 on the third title page. (top left-hand corner)

Daft innit?

All the following iTunes numbers go from left to right, then top to bottom.

Psychman · by **Psychman** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:09 am

That sounds insane! I'm sure this will be helpful to some people in the future.

Where do you buy these wall boxes? Quite fancy one myself!

DoghouseRiley · by **DoghouseRiley** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:09 am

Psychman wrote:That sounds insane! I'm sure this will be helpful to some people in the future.

Where do you buy these wall boxes? Quite fancy one myself!

I bought both mine on eBay.

They made over 8,000 of that particular model. So they do come up quite regularly, but many are in poor condition. I would never entertain one with badly pitted chrome. I take the view that if the outside looks rough, what state is the inside likely to be?

With the two I bought, a year apart, the vendors had included photos of the interiors, which looked as if they hadn't been messed with and with both, I was assured "they were were working when they were disconnected from a jukebox and put into storage," (for what that's worth, but it's better than "untested" which usually means "it doesn't work").
The first one worked "straight out of the box,"and looked almost new. There wasn't as much as a mark inside the coin box. The second one (first one in the video) needed a bit of encouragement as it hadn't been used for twenty years.

I was lucky, I bought mine for about seventy quid each, before they suddenly became "fashionable" with the introduction of the adapter that made it possible to connect it to an iPod/amplifier/speakers arrangement. I don't think either vendor knew about the possibilities. Until a few years ago, "no one wanted wall boxes."
The adapter, plus carriage from the USA and import duty comes to about £100. A second-hand third generation iPod can be any price on eBay. I bought quite a nice one for £9 on eBay. You also need a 25v adapter to power the box, the adapter comes with it's own 9 volt adapter.

You can buy a ready-made conversion, which has the adapter/iPod/amplifier all inside the wall box. I guess they take out the coin box to make room for them and put them on freeplay. But these will run out around £500 or more. But you're only going to hear the music through the little three inch speakers.

If you've not seen one working these are mine. "The rest of you, look away now."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFX8TK3tjU

I don't use the internal speakers as I have them connected to my vintage hifi system.
I like this model wall box, as the magazines just slot in. You open the case, fold down the front and pull out the magazine when you want to change the title cards.

I've since bought a non functioning third wall box, very cheaply, just for the magazine, so with the third iPod I mentioned, I can have 3 X 160 selections, so even my wife gets a few choices. To swop over between the boxes, means disconnecting the two pairs of wires to the power and signal line from one of them and then connecting them to the other and swopping the iPods.
With the third magazine, I just swop it over for the one in the box currently being used and change the iPod.

I've also got this non-functioning one on a shelf above this computer. I bought it before I found out about the adapters.
The chrome is great, I just use it as a telephone directory and with a small amplifier, the much bigger speakers I fitted in it and the lights rewired and connected by a switch to an adapter, I play the mp3s I have stored in the laptop. You won't get this sort of quality of sound from the original speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EFV25tY0fc

I've two vinyl jukeboxes in our summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. My wife "won't have them in the house." At the time, she said "Saxophones and an electric piano in the house are enough." But the wall boxes on the shelf I put up and the fact that all the wires are hidden in trunking, she doesn't mind.

You might have seen this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISeRK8vCa1M

Psychman · by **Psychman** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:26 pm

Thats very cool, did you say you have a wallbox controlling your iTunes play list on your PC? This interface intrigues me

I suppose anything is possible if you analyse the pulses the wallbox fires out for a given selection, shouldnt be too hard to rig something up to interface that to a PC

DoghouseRiley · by **DoghouseRiley** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:30 pm

Psychman wrote:Thats very cool, did you say you have a wallbox controlling your iTunes play list on your PC? This interface intrigues me

I suppose anything is possible if you analyse the pulses the wallbox fires out for a given selection, shouldnt be too hard to rig something up to interface that to a PC

No, it's the other way round on the 504. The amplifier is plugged into the headphone socket of the laptop.