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cardboard boombox (made for an mp3 player or Ipod)

cardboard boombox (made for an mp3 player or Ipod)

Supplies:
THE RIGHT SIZED CARDBOARD BOX
EXACTO KNIFE
SCISSORS
RULER
SPEAKERS
OLD PAIR OF HEADPHONES
HOT GLUE GUN AND DUH THE GLUE STICKS
A LITTLE EXTRA CARDBOARD
SOLDER (SO U CAN CONNECT THE WIRES)

My First Post (BE KIND PLEASE!)

Alright so i had a monday off no school, yay! i had a lot of extra time and i had just taken apart a boombox u know to see how it all works.. anyway after i was finished trashing that i had two perfectly good speakers (the boom box was a sony like from the 80s)...so i thought to myself .... why not make a speaker box that i can plug my old mp3 player into... (gettin out ear buds gets quite annoying)....

I Know Finding A Box That is the right size is going to be harder than this actual project so if you are among the lucky few that do let us continue...

First i cut 2 holes in the top of that cardboard box.... after taht i applyed electrical tape to the edges for looks and so it dosn't apear to be cheap but who are we trying to fool here ............. its made out of cardboard

The next step i suggest is to get your old pair of head phones and take out the speakers (removing as much plastic as possible) you can then connect your music player to the head phones and leave the music playing..... apply the leads to the speakers u want to go on your box, to the two wires that lead to the one headphone speaker... to test it and see that your speakers actually work.... it may take a while to get it just right. you can connect both sterio speakers as i did to the one head phone speaker, look at the photos and u may understand. (hope so)... now that u've got the speakers working (assuming that you did) you can solder teh wires together (you might need to recrute a friend to hold the wires in possition as you solder them together, its very difficult to do by yourself) keep the music playing the whole time because if teh speakers arn't connected properly it will only come out of the one head phone speaker...

AFTER you have accomplished that you should glued the speakers on to your box were u see fit..... i put the speakers facing out so it would project the sound out of the box hehe what a novel idea........

OK THE HOME STRETCH ......the last thing i did was i hide the wires under a piece of cardboard so i didn't have to fight them and get everything tangled up ..........

IF YOU MADE IT HERE CONGRATS!!! hey and send me a message i want to know how helpful my instructions were and how many people did it.

i'm sure the pictures will help more than anything .. i hope i got enough detailed ones.......... sorry i didnt take any during the building process;(

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56 comments

1-40 of 56

Apr 4, 2012. 6:39 AMgtejano says:

Hi, I just wanna ask if whats the function of that two circle things glued between the two speakers,,

Jul 9, 2010. 6:44 PMkylejjjjj says:

ok what your doing makes no sense the way u have it the speakers would not be very loud and y do u need the headphone y dont u just chop the wire on the headphone jack and connect that to the big speakers

Apr 16, 2010. 6:18 PMizatrini4eva says:

can anyone pls draw me up a quick schematic of the speakers, with a battery and the jack?

Apr 3, 2010. 5:51 PMmichael J. caboose says:

this is a great first post, but the all capps got a little old.

Mar 24, 2010. 7:23 PMbittu 1 says:

is it portable?

Mar 20, 2010. 12:09 PMz-man6233 says:

nice i have a crybaby too expensive but an amazing pedal

Mar 12, 2010. 7:38 PMhungryhungry21 says:

where can i get 2, 3 or 4 inch speakers like this?
any links to amazon plz?

Mar 12, 2010. 10:07 PMwes_711 (author) says:

disassemble old stuff from salvation army and goodwill.. there are always clock radio's and what not that you can get for meer cents

Mar 15, 2010. 12:18 PMhungryhungry21 says:

and do they have them at RadioShack?

Mar 15, 2010. 12:18 PMhungryhungry21 says:

do you think i could get them from a cheap clock radio thing at the dollar store?

Feb 11, 2010. 2:51 PMfoxtrot4697 says:

"for mp3 player OR ipod". Really, really. ipods are overrated. but nice ible anyways

Jul 30, 2007. 3:59 PMPCvsMac says:

I am seriously stressed out due to the fact that I can not build a REALLY REALLY simple Guitar amplifier amp... I did have the idea that if you do the following connections, SWITCH>JACK>JACK>SPEAKER>SPEAKER>+9V>-9V-SWITCH Current gets amplified and powered by the 9V battery. Hmmm...

May 12, 2009. 5:30 AMcornflaker says:

Will not work, if you want an amp you will need to use some circuitry. There will be some instructables on here that tell you how to make a simple amp, but what your saying is too simple (I understand where your coming from but trust me it wont work (and yes i did try that when i was much younger and just getting into electronics))

Nov 12, 2007. 5:56 PMdiyman says:

hi i still don't get how u connected the headphone wire to the two speakers. can u check this image and let me know if it is right or not. if it is not can u draw somekind of a diagram so that i can see it or post it with the instructables that you have Thanks

May 12, 2009. 5:28 AMcornflaker says:

Wiring it like that will mean it will be mono and both speakers will be driven off the same channel so it will be quieter. There should be two sets of wires (one for left one for right) so just connect one speaker to each one and it will be louder and stereo

Dec 6, 2007. 6:08 AMBigCommieNat says:

that way is wrong... well, to be more specific, what you have there is two speakers wired in series (and if i'm right... phase inverted) the headphone cable should have 3 wires... red, white, and unshielded. Red is the right channel positive, white is left channel positive, and the unshielded is negative for both channels... or ground. So, connect red to the '+' on the right... left to the '+" on the left (if the speakers aren't marked i think it's usually the bigger of the two terminals on the speaker itself) and then jumper the two '-' terminals.. and connect the unshielded wire to the jumper. unless you want mono sound (which is close to what you have described)

Nov 17, 2007. 12:54 PMiKill says:

you may be over complicating it not sure

Oct 13, 2009. 5:25 AMcornflaker says:

nah its actually simpler to do it just sounds more complicated i would make a diagram but im going to be now - maybe tomorrow if i remember

Oct 13, 2009. 5:26 AMcornflaker says:

*be/bed lol
why can't you edit comments on here?

Jan 4, 2009. 10:02 PMcornflaker says:

Whats a cry baby? lol It reminds me of firefly, it was such a good series its a pity they had to cancel it :(

May 9, 2009. 1:46 PMdeathzone says:

a cry baby is pretty much the best brand of wah-wah pedal for the gutar. I got the same one hes got lol.

Jan 17, 2007. 3:52 PMiman says:

Hey one thing I wouldnt keep my mp3 player that close to the speakers the magnets can erase the hard drive. :P

Apr 2, 2009. 12:46 PMsonicspirit1978 says:

Maybe they are shielded magnets?

Mar 6, 2007. 4:34 PMmikedoth says:

My thoughts exactly.

Jun 22, 2007. 5:36 AMbinnie says:

Most mp3 players nowadays ( ipods and generic types ) are flash based, so unless you using a hd player u should be fine with the speaker magnets

Mar 6, 2007. 10:59 PMwes_711 (author) says:

i could care less if it erased my hard drive on my mp3 player ..... its old ... but thanks for the post, i'm sure others who attempt this might want to know that. ;)

Mar 10, 2007. 3:23 PMARVash says:

If you used the Make Mp3 player, it uses SD cards, so no worries about magnets :P

May 12, 2009. 5:23 AMcornflaker says:

An iPod touch also works :P

Dec 29, 2008. 4:24 AMfreerunnin1 says:

i tried this before but you need an extra battery pack to get enough power to make the speakers work. :) sweet idea tho

Jan 18, 2007. 1:44 AMblamm says:

Go buy one of these.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html

You wont regret it..

Dec 6, 2007. 6:10 AMBigCommieNat says:

actually, I bought one of those a year ago... and it's AMAZING!!! they are no longer being made... and pretty much go for over $50 on ebay now :(

Sep 5, 2008. 6:27 PMevanwehrer says:

Thinkgeek.com has the T-Amp 2 and its better and you can use batteries!!!!!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/audio/9c60/

Aug 1, 2008. 4:14 PMcdubnbird says:

i can't get my speakers to hook up to my headphones. i've tried with three different headphones and two different speakers. 1. i-pod headphones with one green wire and i red wire both in the same strand. 2. cheap headphones with one blue wire and one copper wire, and on the other strand one red wire and one copper wire. 3. cheap headphones #2 with one red wire on each strand and 6 smaller grayish shiny (steel?) wires on each strand as well. I have tried every configuration of wires on both portable 2" radio speakers and 1 3/4" singing card speakers. Each time I give it input coming from my i-pod mini. Each speaker plays fine when tested against a battery. And each headphone set plays fine when reconnected with the headphones. I'm frustrated as to why it won't work. Help?

Jul 5, 2007. 3:24 AMPR22 says:

When you write a guide, don't use leetspeak Every time you wrote "now that u've got the" it made me cringe It's "you have" or "you've". Don't bother writing a guide if you won't use proper spelling and grammar.

Jul 13, 2008. 1:29 AMSonicKidGJ says:

Yeah. It's just terrible grammar. Also some people consider shortening words like so as texting language or whatever. Leetspeak is using numbers.

May 27, 2008. 9:08 AMTetranitrate says:

That is not leetspeak ...

May 25, 2008. 10:47 PMpoweriseverything says:

hey man how loud is that???

Nov 8, 2007. 6:01 PMzach_hxc says:

i am currently working on a set of old stereo speakers i had modified to fit an eighth inch jack for my ipod however, the only problem is i have no idea how to rout a power source. as of right now it draws current directly from the ipod itself and becuase of this it has much less volume and consumes the battery of my ipod. if anyone has some schematics that apply to this could they send them to me.