An Automated Turntable Packed with Modern Tech

There is something about creating a mash-up of new and old technologies that makers just can't resist. Maybe it’s the opportunity to blend powerful, modern digital systems with the buttons, knobs, and switches of vintage hardware that you can get your hands on. Or it could just be nostalgia making classic equipment look more appealing in retrospect.

Whatever the reason, people make some really impressive things, such as this retro computer stuffed with modern hardware and this updated take on a vintage Atari personal computer. A software engineer named Patrick Nelson has also caught the bug for creating modern-retro mash-ups and is currently building a fully automatic turntable called the Statimatic STM-01. It may play vinyl records, but the hardware automating it hadn’t even been imagined when analog was king.

At the center of the project is a Teensy 4.1 microcontroller coordinating three separate stepper motors, multiplexers, shift registers, sensors, and a growing collection of custom-built mechanisms. Nelson is temporarily using a vintage AR-XA turntable while the STM-01’s own platter system is still under construction.

The most recent milestone involves horizontal tonearm movement. Earlier versions of the project already handled vertical lifting and lowering, using a stepper motor paired with a 10k slide potentiometer acting as an absolute position sensor. Now, Nelson has added a custom clutch mechanism that can engage and disengage the tonearm assembly for automatic horizontal travel across the record surface.

At the moment, the prototype can move the tonearm a predefined number of steps clockwise, but the long-term plan is to incorporate Hall effect sensors for precise position tracking and infrared sensors capable of automatically detecting record size and identifying the edge of the vinyl. The system is expected to support 7-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch records, along with automatic speed selection between 33-1/3, 45, and 78 RPM.

Nelson intends to support up to five external modules that can be connected simultaneously, opening the door for accessories such as a record changer, second tonearm, FM transmitter, web server, remote control system, or communication hardware for vintage computers from the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition to playback automation, the turntable will track detailed usage statistics including stylus runtime, record counts, and total playback hours. Many features remain under active development, including automatic homing routines, track skipping, motor speed monitoring, and a custom PCB to replace the sprawling breadboard prototype currently powering the machine.

The entire project is open source, and Nelson says his eventual goal is to publish detailed instructions so that anyone interested in building their own fully automatic turntable can do so.