While packing merch for a recent gig, I realised I had the opportunity to do something a little fun. I’d released an album on tape, and spent a little extra to ensure the cassette itself was a thing of beauty. It deserved to be seen, rather than hidden away in a case on a shelf. I wanted to turn this piece of musical media into a necklace.
Of course, cassette tapes aren’t meant to be used in this way. Simply throwing a chain through the cassette would lead to tape reeling out everywhere. Thus, I fired up some CAD software and engineered a solution to do the job! Here’s how I built an adapter to turn any cassette tape into a cool necklace.
Find the design on Thingiverse, and more details below!
Wear it Proud
My plan was simple. I would create a plastic device that would insert into the two reels of the cassette tape, holding them in place. A pair of caps would then be screwed on from the other side to hold the plastic device in the cassette tape. This device would then have a hole in the top, to which I could attach a necklace chain via an intermediate metal jump ring. Straightforward enough, and a perfect application for 3D printing.
My first stop was to find an engineering drawing of the Compact Cassette format, designed by Phillips back in 1963. I could always measure the tapes in front of me, but for something like this, it’s generally easier and simpler to rely on the standard. Keying “compact cassette dimensions” into Google Image Search was enough to get me started.
I quickly whipped up a design that would hold both cassette reels in place. It relied on a pair of locating bosses mounted on a simple backing plate. The bosses would insert into the cassette’s reels, locking them in place. This would prevent the tape unwinding itself while being worn as a necklace. The backing plate had a hole on top for attaching a chain. A jump ring would be used, as is typical in pendant-type necklaces, to allow the cassette to lay flat upon the chest without twisting the chain. To create the necklace, one would simply need to insert the locating bosses through the tape. Then, the two 3D-printed caps could be attached from the other side with a pair of screws.
I ran a few test prints to figure out the dimensions. My initial attempts didn’t get the boss size right. This let the cassette reels turn freely. After a few redesigns and reprints, I got things nicely fettled. Much to my surprise, my third or fourth attempt actually ended up working as a snap fit. Thus, there would be no need to use screws and caps to hold the device to the cassette. Instead, the bosses could be snapped into the tape reels with a little pressure. With this method, the necklace adapter managed to hang on to the cassette quite well!
I assembled a series of necklaces and gave them a little product testing. By and large, the concept worked. The only issue was that boisterous activity would cause the jump rings to fail. This was largely due to the fact that the jump rings were intended for fastening small, lightweight pendants to a chain. A cassette tape, by comparison, was far too heavy.
I eventually realised a simple redesign would solve this problem. I eliminated the fussy jump ring entirely. Instead, I simply included a perpendicular hole for the chain as part of the necklace adapter itself. This does complicate the 3D printing process slighly, in that it may require some support material. However, removing that material is only a minor complication. The new design is much tougher, as a bonus. The integrated chain hole means that the cassette is far less likely to fall off the chain when the wearer is running and jumping around.
I have uploaded the designs to Thingiverse for anyone that wishes to print their own. It bears noting that snap fits are a finicky, precise thing. You may need to finesse the design slightly to get it to properly fit when printed on your own hardware. The print itself is fairly basic, and shouldn’t pose any issues on even the simplest equipment. I used ABS, but any rigid plastic should perform ably in this role.
As Compact Cassettes are a standard design, the adapter can be used with most any cassette you appreciate. I myself have a penchant for the brightest and most colorful designs. Of course, if your cassette is very precious or rare, perhaps don’t go fitting it with this adapter. Damage is unlikely, but not impossible. Overall though, it’s a fun way to show off your music collection. Plus, there’s something inherently cool about being able to pop a tape off your necklace and pump some tunes!
Fashion once again proving that pointless behavior is trendy.
Well if it was otherwise it wouldn’t be fashion, it’d be function.
What you need beside function?
Fashion?
In that case, fashion’s an 8-track. THEN it’s pointless.
Not my thing.
But it is indeed clever. I can envision the promotional novelty of it and I appreciate the gadget’s design.
Actually it’s a highly functional way to carry one cassette with you!
Not looking like a dork is a perfectly decent function but idk if this is gonna save you
Next version for bling bling CD:s and after that large LP:s and then for singles
Be sure to have the edges of the CD coated by a green marker.
B^)
Lol I can see flavo flav rocking the vinyl around his neck
Could I suggest a dust/touch cover on the exposed tape? Don’t want to kill your music.
I seem to recall albums on tape coming with those on in the 1970s, but they seemed to phase out.
I guess some of it might have been that when they loaded tape side facing you it was easy to see and remember to take off, and hard to damage, but when tape side down loading mechanisms and auto mechanisms came in, there was more damage potential and more leverage to break things.
That’s a great idea.
I spilled a beer on one of these necklaces and it ruined the tape. A dust cover wouldn’t have prevented that, but some extra protection couldn’t hurt.
A quick workaround would be to rewind the tape first, so that only the leader is exposed.
Back in my day we used cassette tapes, CDs, tacos and fries as currency to upgrade our skateboards and bribe teenage employees of fast food chains to give us more food than we paid for. Mr. T pities this thing, and Flava Flav is offended.
Am I the only one that wants to slice off the spindle, and drill and bolt it, so you can change it to the other side and use it as a crank for rewinding.
Yes you are.
no. we oldies just grab a pencil or ballpoint…
Japanese pencils work for that where American and most European ones are too small. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaSN4J3a_60
Hold the ✏ pencil at an angle, rather than perpendicular to the cassette.
Ha! You could easily edit the print to do that.
I think I’ll start wearing CDs around my neck.
If I were rich, I’d start wearing Video Laser Disks around my neck.
That wouod impress the kids.
I saw a laserdisc player at a rummage sale fifteen years ago. Cheap and tempting. But no disks. So no way to try it until I found one.
I am semi regretting not getting a player and ~20 movies for $20 at a sale a decade plus back…. I probably would have got it if the movie selection offered in that deal was more appealing. Would probably have only needed one sci-fi or bond film in there to tip me.
Star Wars would have paid for the investment. Just be glad the players weren’t SelectaVision.
Yah, that would have been nice… the foggy impressions in my head of the movies is a bunch of period dramas and musicals. I knew then though that single specific movies on that format could be $$$ and I was likely too much of a cheapskate to expand the selection to stuff I’d enjoy.
I have seen exactly one movie on laserdisc. I was a junior in high school (11th grade) when I went to visit my sister during her first semester of college. She had never seen Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and we were amused that that the library had movies on laserdisc.
Unrelatedly, we also saw the Nicole Kidman/Alec Baldwin movie “Malice,” because it was shot in our hometown, esp during the opening credits.
It’s a terrible movie. Oh, memories. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m a massive LaserDisc collector. Please don’t abuse them in that manner. :)
It must possible make a LaserDisc burner. Then we’d need blank LaserDisc media… but we managed to re-release all kinds of defunct film chemistries. It’s not like we have forgotten how to make the dyes in recordable CDs.
Then we could all have physical archives of every LD ever made, if we chose to.
Hasn’t been done. At least not somerthing I’ve seen before. True hacker spirit — No need for it to be practical or useful :)
(it’s okay to smile on a hackers silliness and still enjoy the spirit!)
And I really enjoy their chiptune music, for everybody interested, here is the missing link: https://soundcloud.com/anti-lag-okay
Thanks, I think…
<3!
Hm. I used to often use cassettes/datasettes, video tapes and corded phones with pulse-dial in the 90s.. I used to have a pager, too. Surfed the early internet, visited CompuServe..
It feels kind of strange that the cassette got such an iconic status. It still was an everyday item in the 90s, like a calculator or an incandescent lamp.
No idea why people have such strong feelings for it. I mean, sure, I had a walkman and a cassette recorder, too. I listened to music, to bed-time stories, to audio books (such as Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five)..
But if you told someone in the 90s that the cassette is causing you feelings of nostalgia, you’d get irritated looks by him/her.
The last remaining producer of Compact Cassettes in the USA has seen their business grow over the past 30 years. Much of that came from buying up the equipment and contracts from all the other companies that went out of business or decided to stop making tapes. They haven’t stopped innovating. They claim to have developed a ferric oxide tape that equals the performance of chromium dioxide.
Interesting!
Yeah, there’s a handful of factories that never closed and they’re doing big business now.
You can get rid of the keeborkin post easily with an entry in your “uBlock Origin” ad blocker “My Filter” list:
hackaday.com##.series_of_posts-keebin-with-kristina
I love that feature of uBlock – got a website with annoying elements like cookie banner when uMatrix blocks them anyway or a space wasting sidebar or something – just get rid of it with uBlock.
Temporarily with the “Zapper” or permanently and configurable with the “Picker”.
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On topic:
Why is this article “Featured”? And what exactly does that mean?
Like sponsored content or something?
The week between the holidays is often slow in the newsroom.
Y’know…. While a regular cassette would obviously be bulky (and admittedly a little ugly), it would be amusing to mock up a mini cassette to look like your favorite tape of yesteryear…
I don’t use it, sorry!
Sad to see all those posts discussing the “incredibly awesomeness” of this fantastic hack getting deleted… :-(
Is there adapter for VHS tapes as well?
Waiting for the Betamax version…
What’s next?
CD’s as ear rings?
You really want to have fun with this? Bust open an old tape head and attack the “play” head to a speaker. Then you can manually play your cassette on the go. Bonus: also produces annoyng/clever noises when you swipe credit cards too. Classic Nic Collins hack.