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I know that several of you are juke experts and I need your input on this. I have been asking about a Seeburg Trashcan. I have an idea. I have always thought about doing this but with all of the cool 1950's jukes the mechs are visible so this idea won't work. I want to make a juke that plays MP3's instead of 45's or cd's. Building the insides is easy but how do you get the selector button to work. I guess you could just not use them and mount a small touchscreen on the front. This could be a really easy and cool idea. So you have a 1948 Seeburg 148 Trashcan that instead of playing outdated, expensive and hard to find 78's with only 20 selections it could have infinite number of selections playing crystal clear music with no mechanical problems which trashcans are notorious for. All you need is a desktop PC, amplifier, new speakers, and touchscreen monitor.

What do you all think? Is this a stupid or impossible idea? DO you think it is sellable? Even if not this would be a nice keeper. I am a huge music fan and I listen to all kinds of music (except rap and hip hop) so having a Juke that has infinite selections is fantastic. For example my Ipod and iphone has thousands of songs on it. Please give me all ideas positive and not are all welcome!

Josh,
I have no idea on how to build it, but was just a comment that the new one more time wurly 1015's have a MP3 Ipod dock built right in, so you can play records or plug in your mp3 player..

Josh

I think this market has been well explored by others... I have a gadget I can attach to a wall box that
will play files off my computer... That's great

As John says the latest generation Jukes have Ipods on them... Albeit they are very expensive.

One seller in the UK sells plans for re-creating a AMI conti out of more modern jukes...

I think if you were to convert one for yourself it would be a great idea and relatively inexpensive... To sell on maybe
not so good...

Just my thoughts... But then again what the bloody hell do I know..

Dave

Just like Dave and John said, if you want to do it for yourself, it would be a cool project. I don't think the resale would be worth it.

If you are going to use a pc, there are interface boards that you can use the original buttons and wire to the pc. Here is one controller that should do it..  http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

Buid your own Arcade has an excellent section on BYO jukes with everything from software to touchscreen stuff and I'm sure there are other interface options for the buttons as well. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/ I played around with some of the juke software awhile ago and its pretty cool. I never got around to building anything with it though.

Already done and been available for several years:

http://www.cdadapter.com/

Home use only. These kits are NOT licensed for commercial use.

That would be really cool to have in the house. What a need trick. Thanks guys.

I love this idea but I think you are all right about it not being easily sold. However if restored it may be sellable at Chicago. I am going to pass on this juke. I really don't have the money to throw around right now with moving and the fact that in a month or so I will be unemployed. Since trashcans are relatively common and not very expensive I will find another without so much missing on the outside and do this in a few years when I have more room in my house. Right now there will be three of us (Myself, Heather and her 8 year old son) in a one bedroom apartment. I will stick to normal jukes and Coke machines. I already found a shop With electricity. Its only the size of a one car garage but its a good start.