This was an interesting conversion, I had bought a beaten up old Roberts 200 radio case, missing speaker, chassis and electronics. I thought maybe it could be turned into something nice, after my experience with the RT1 I had red leather paint leftover and wanted to use it.

The leather was very worn and that gaping hole in the top!

So, I had a few ideas, and thought with the availability of modular amplifiers and Bluetooth circuits, I could built something that would integrate into that cabinet.

A 4″ two-way car speaker was used to replace the missing Rola unit. The top panel was re-instated using some 3mm white acrylic, only two controls required, power on-off and volume.

Fitting the controls needed some creativity with pieces of acrylic sheet and use of glue. so that when fully assembled, the reproduction Roberts knobs are snugly butted up to the top face.

volume and power switch

The unit has been made portable by the inclusion of a 3.7V Lithium Polymer cell (savaged from a laptop) The voltage from it isn’t high enough to power the 16 watt amplifier so a small DC-DC converter was added, stepping the voltage up to about 18 volts.

Module layout showing DC-DC top-left, LiPo charger, amplifier centre and Bluetooth module right.

The case received many coats of leather paint and the recreation of a handle.

The finished item, note the change of the Roberts logo to the new owner

A USB charging socket was added to the rear, where the aerial socket used to be, allowing the unit to be kept charged up while in use.