Introduction: Gift Card Tin USB Speaker $3 Build

By Follow Us on Facebook
About: I am 37, I have a job that allows me to build and make daily. I love my job. I have 6 children, my oldest is also a maker and has written her own instructables. I own a computer repair shop, and I build a lot …

I needed a inexpensive speaker to test sound cards on computers, and to test audio output on my raspberry pi projects. So I set out to make a set of easy to make, inexpensive, small speaker that was USB powered. It turned out much easier than i thought. It took me about 45 minutes to make these speakers and my total cost was less than three dollars.

I usually make a lot fancier instructibles, projects that are a lot more time consuming. But i thought this turned out neat and I think others could benefit from this "ible". Thanks for taking a look at this and if you feel it is worthy :}, vote for me. Thank you

Step 1: Materials

  1. Gift Card Tin --- free whenever you buy a gift card, mine was from amazon
  2. Mini PAM8403 5v 3w amp--- Amazon Only $.60
  3. 2x 2W 8 Ohm Rectangle Metal Case Internal Magnet Speaker --- amazon $2.20
  4. USB male-- just chop the end off of a bad cable
  5. Headphone cable -- Amazon -$3.12 or just salvage some old broken headphones and borrowed the end off of it
  6. a couple short cables to wire it all up
  7. Hot Glue Gun --- a must for all makers

Step 2: Wire It Up

This is very easy to wire up, the amplifier has two solder points for voltage, + and -. On the USB cable cut off the green and the white, all we need is the red wire and the black wire. Solder the red wire to 5v+ and black USB wire to 5v-.

Cut the Headphone jack cable to the desired length and solder the wires to the board. If you are not sure what wires are what you can use an ohmmeter to find which one is left and right and ground.

As for the Speakers if they are not wired the the connection on the right is usually positive and the connection on the left is negitive.

Be sure to test your connections before glueing it into the case. Once it has been tested and everything works then cut your holes in the case for the speakers and hot glue them into place. Very simple.

Step 3: Clean It Up and Make It Pretty

To make it fit better i Shortened the speaker wires and hot glued the amp board into place so that none of the wires were contacting the metal sides of the case. Everything fits inside the case nicely for storage.

Thanks for looking and happy making.