Christian contacted me to convert his 1963 Imperial radio with an AUX input and FM only, and since the basic look of the Imperial radios from 57 to early 60 is basically the same, at a glance it appears to be an easy straight forward conversion.

Like any other conversion, Christian requested something special, and it was a complete stock look with no visible screen and no pushbutton control and the 200V electroluminescent lightning unmodified..

Modern electronics are designed to use push buttons, on the device itself or via IR remote control. All my radios always have a manual control just in case the remote is not at hand, and also because finding buttons on a radio it is easier task while keeping your eyes on the road. So, his simple conversion suddenly became a new challenge. How can I control the radio without a screen or buttons?

Originally Christian want only IR remote control, but during my standard 48hs test run I realize that some minimum manual control should be always available to the operator for safety reasons. After a long weekend designing and testing a completely new control system, I realized that it could be feasible to control the radio using the outer knob and two original buttons.

My final design used the right inner knob to control the FM memory skip and auxiliary volume and the original “LOC” and “DIST” buttons controlling the radio “Mode” (FM-AUX Input) and the “Auto-Search” functions, all using the original copper contacts and switches of the radio, the buttons were never digitalized as the owner requested.
All the extra manual controls were done on my own time just to provide an exceptional user experience and to meet my professional standards.

here it is a video and some pictures..

(fl63.jpg)

(20160503_192759.jpg)

(20160503_1927592.jpg)

fl63.jpg (183KB - 136 downloads)

20160503_192759.jpg (50KB - 147 downloads)

20160503_1927592.jpg (35KB - 136 downloads)