Another newbie Brit

Hey guys - thought I'd say hi after joining a week or two ago and just receiving something I badly wanted when I was younger but never actually had - a Hitachi 3D Super Woofer ghettoblaster.

Specifically, I wanted the one with the level lights on the front, and as of today, I have it (TRK-3D88E).
I'm very very pleased with it too, although I haven't checked out the tape decks to see how well they work. They're meant to be fine....

The only boombox I had prior to this was about 23 years ago (when I was 18) and had a Philips AZ8304, which I really loved. Now I've seen how cheap those come up on ebay I'm tempted to get one for nostalgia sake, but also am tempted with a panasonic cobra top model. I can tell that this can be contagious!

Anyway, first thing I want to do here is clean up this as good as I can (it's already pretty good), then fit a bluetooth receiver inside to the Aux terminals, and then consider if I can make a Lipo battery pack for it to replace expensive D Cells. I guess some of you guys have already done things like battery pack conversions?

It's probably considered sacrilege on here I guess, but I had considered the possibility of doing a project with a raspberry pi with touchscreen in place of one of the tape decks to play media from an SD card etc.
Only if I can do it without damaging the machine though (ie can put the deck back in when I want).

I'm expecting to get shunned after suggesting this last bit but as much as I love retro kit, I'll only ever want to be able to use one cassette at a time and I like to add functionality if I can do it without savagery!

Welcome from one of the long term resident Brits

Thanks mate - I was going to say UK but I'm on the Isle of Man so technically not, but still a Brit!

If you mod the Hitachi make sure you take pics of the process and share it here as we're always interested in such things. You'll not get heat for modding such boxes, if it were a mint classic box then you might but nowt wrong with pimping the 3D

Welcome indeed, I can only echo what Si said, mod away but document it here as we are all interested!

Welcome from the Sunny South

Thanks guys!

Wasn't sure if modding that changes the casings of your boombox would be considered a huge crime on here given that most of these things have survived/been looked after for decades and kept original.
I like the idea potentially of changing internal bits to improve it such as more efficient/more powerful amp & speakers etc but I doubt I would try that sort of thing since it'd be tricky to keep the functionality how it should be, without being a real electronics wizz.

I looked at the tape decks on this bad boy and the underside (inside) is part of the upper casing, which means nothing deeper than a tape can fit in the space even if the mechanism is removed to get the winders out of the way.

Prefer not to hack into it if possible.

I've got one of these ordered from China, which excites me more than it should since it appears to have a spectrum analyser function on it, and ever since I was a kid they have remained a super cool thing to have!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331617734176?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The idea was to have this in place of one of the decks if I remove the original door and make a smoked acrylic face plate for it so it sits neatly in place. Just don't know if it'll fit in there or not.

It really does depend on the box...there are loads of these about and it's later so it's all fine. Will be interested to see how that unit you're getting turns out as it looks pretty cool

Hi, Crester and welcome to the most fantabulous form on the internet thingy!

You've already impressed me with your tech talk (whatever it all means) as I'm somewhat challenged in that department!

I went to I.O.M. (Douglas) in 1972 for a long weekend, it's such a nice place where you live. Did you ever rub shoulders with Norman Wisdom?

Thanks MyOhMy, yes it's a wonderful place here, and has been a mad couple of weeks with the TT on just now, but back to normal tomorrow and back to work.

I see that makes sense about the tradeoff between rarity and sacrilege of modding a boombox - makes quite a bit of sense.
I love this thing how it is (used it last night when camping just with the radio on it), but it'll be a lot more practical to me and get more use if I modernise it.

The immediate thing I'll be doing is adding a bluetooth received inside it, but I've seen people using rechargeable ones on here and I'll be using one that draws power from the stereo itself. I need to find a suitable power location that gets power when you switch to Aux ideally, which is either 5v or else add a voltage reducing module inside and just take it direct from a 12v source or something.

That way, when I switch to Aux it will power up the BT module. I guess I could have it powered all the time, but not sure if that would interfere with the other sources. We'll see. Probably should be starting another topic in a more relevant area for this though I think!

I might also add a voltage display to it so I can see how much life is in the batteries and keep an eye on when they might run out.

Hey,can a guy from N.California say welcome. Well here I go WELCOME to the best forum(sight)on the interweb! Glad to hear you've got the sickness too. Misery loves company!Ha,ha. The cobra top Panasonic's are pretty sweet.Great sound,lott's of features. My advice to you is start putting up shelves to display your b.box collection,your gonna need'em.Cheers!😄😄😄