You know those times when you’re browsing eBay and somehow you end up looking at things that had never been on your radar? Well, this is one of those projects.
Somehow, I ended up bidding and more surprisingly, winning a Ami Wq-200 Wall Box. A wall box was traditionally connected to a jukebox to allow selection of tracks from a table or booth, like you see in old diners. By itself, it didn’t play music.
What I did find was a clever little device that interprets the signal from the wall box and controls the playback of an iPod playlist. The device came from the lovely Ann Marie at cdadapter.com Ann Marie was able to ship it from the States and it arrived in just a few days. The wiring is really simple, just 2 wires connected to the signal terminals.
The wall box itself was in fairly good condition, a few pits in the chrome and some wiring that was a bit questionable but not too bad. I managed to get a 240V > 30V AC transformer from www.jukeboxparts.co.uk for a few quid.
The main issue with the operation of the wall box was the alignment of the selector arm, not returning to the default place. The adjustment for this was described in the service manual so quite a simple fix.
At some point, somebody had added a relay and some extra wiring to the credit / motor circuit, it looks as if there was occasional overshooting when credits were added. I was able to remove some of the wiring and rewire some of the power lines.
After a bit more tinkering, the wall box was working correctly, cleaned up the contacts, new bulbs and polished out some of the scratches from the plastic window.
Here’s a video of the finished wall box, all shiny.