Panapet 2024

My grandfather gave me this vintage radio a few years ago as a present:

The original radio was made by Panasonic in 1979. It was called the R-70, or also a "Panapet." Mine still works.

The goal of this project was to recreate it as a modern, bluetooth speaker and give it back to my grandfather for Christmas. I definitely didn't want to touch or modify the original - only make a replica of the design and form factor but with 50 years newer electronics. This is what I used:

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
Super Mini PAM8403 Module 2 3W Class D Digital Amplifier
Dayton Audio DMA58-4 2" Dual Magnet Aluminum Cone Full-Range Driver 4 Ohm
Type-C Female Chassis
Threaded Inserts
JST Connectors
PLA Filament
Wire
Solder

Renders

One of the more difficult aspects of getting this system to work was coming up with a way to access the power and back buttons on the galaxy watch without ruining the general design and UI of the device. I decided to make a slight modification to the device UI, moving from the rotating knobs to these little sprung pegs. It took a few iterations to get the haptics right, but the final version has a very satisfying "click" to it.

While I initially planned to use an ESP32 and design my own GUI for it, using the galaxy watch turned out to be a great decision. It has far more features than I could've hoped to incorporate - you can literally browse spotify directly on the speaker.

Final product: