New spin on an old favourite: Latest software lets you print your own records to play on classic 1970s Fisher Price toy

3D printer lets users create their own music for iconic toy

Software made available online for free

Back in the 1970s, one of the most popular toys was the Fisher Price record player, which span plastic discs playing nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty.

Now, in a show of old technology meeting new, an enterprising inventor has created a package which wiill produce your own record choices - as long as you have a 3D printer to hand.

Inventor fred27 has created a how to guide for producing your own records, allowing you to pump out anything from Happy Birthday to simple takes of popular pop songs to your heart's content.

Fisher Price for a new generation of file sharers: Fred27's image shows an original record on the right, and one of his digital mock-ups on the left

Once created, the disks can be played in any of the vintage Fisher Price record players still lurking in cupboards across the world

Fred27, writing on the website Instructables, said: 'I recently stumbled across an old toy record player made by Fisher Price in the 1970s.

'As with many 40-year old toys, it was in a bit of a sad state and a couple of the records had been lost.

'Technology has moved on since it was manufactured and making some new records for it seemed like a nice way to merge old technology and new.'

Fred originally look at using a laser cutting machine or even a 'milling' machine, which can sand and cut materials precisely down to size.

3D printing can allow you to build virtually any plastic object of any shape

Eventually, he created a template using 3D printing, which builds objects out of plastic layer-by-layer, the 3D version of pumping ink onto paper to create letters.

With 3D printing, you virtually design your object, and when you send the file to the printer, it will print out the object exactly as you wish.



Explaining his processes he said: '3D printing the record would seem to be a sensible choice and would definitely do the job.

'However, we will end up creating plastic pins around 1mm in size that trigger the music box hidden in the record player's arm.

'I was worried about whether the extruded plastic technique used by most printers would give it the required strength.'

Fred27 built a 3D template for the record, and this own program, freely downloadable, which allows you to import tracks, and the software will automatically create the ridges and grooves needed to create a 3D printed version.