Introduction: Piet Mondrian Inspired Speaker

For this project, I am making a portable Bluetooth speaker with the dimensions 10cm by 10cm. I am making this speaker out of different colours of 3mm acrylic. The cube will have two speakers, it will have easy to use Bluetooth operating system so is wireless. It is battery powered (5 volts) so will be portable.

Step 1: Step 1: Make CAD Files for the Cube

Using tech soft 2D make a 10 cm cube, these 6 sides can be made into a cube using finger joints. These can be done by hand or by using a website such as: http://www.makercase.com/. You want to make a 10cm cube and the acrylic has a depth of 3mm so you need to adjust the settings accordingly. This should give you 6 10 cm cubes that will slot together to form a cube. You also want to have two circular holes in two of the six panels to put your speaker through, these should be the same diameter as the speakers you plan on using.

Step 2: Step 2: Piet Mondiran

Now you want to take inspiration from the artist making panels that will be in black. These will be the outline and will be raised in comparison to the colored panels. They should be the same thickness as the material so 3mm. To make these panels you will need to arrange a 3mm border from the internal part of the finger joints, the easiest way to do this is to make a square which you can delete later, then you want to start making your design, ensuring there is 3mm between each one, this can be made easier by adjusting the grid on techsoft 2D as then the shape will snap to the right place. Once you have your design you need to then decide which colours you want to go where then expand each of the squares in your design by 1.5mm so you have space to glue them to the backing. You also want to add a 1.5mm thick circle to put around your speaker hole, so you will not be able to see the different colored panels. Then you will prink the design in 5 colours: white, black, yellow, red, blue. The frame will be black and then each of the of the slightly larger squared can be another one of the colours of your choice. Print these on 3mm acrylic using a laser cutter.

Step 3: Assembling the Box

You then want to use an acrylic fusing glue to attach the colored squares to their corresponding slots. Then you can add all of the pieces together in the cube formation and you can glue 5 of them into position, but leave one off so you can add all of the electrics.

Step 4: Making the Curcuit

We will be making a portable Bluetooth speaker, for this, we will use a circuit and attach our speakers and battery pack to it by soldering. You will need to solder the battery pack to the circuit, ensuring you get the positive and negative in the right spot, you should also attach a switch in one of these wires. You can use a plug to attach the two, or you can solder the wires directly to the back of the circuit. also, do this for the left and right speaker, you will also need to attach wires to the positive and negative sides of your speakers. Test this to check that it works, and make sure that you use a battery with the right voltage, I had a 5-volt circuit so I used 4 double A batteries.

Step 5: Final Assembly

Hot glue the speakers into each of the holes in your cutouts and insert the wires into the cube making sure its all secure, have your switch poke through one of the cutouts in your smaller cutouts. Finally you need to design a clasp system so you can open it up and change the batteries but also is securely clasped for the rest of the time.

Step 6: Clasp

lastly, you will want to add a clasp system so the speaker is secure while in use, yet you also have the option to open the speaker to change the batteries. This can be made by 3d printing 3 parts. First, you want to design a hook which can be attached to the larger speaker, then a similar hook which can be attached to the lid, these will go inside the speaker and should lock together. Then you need to have a clasp that is in the inside of the speaker, on the opposite side of the hook, so then when the lid is lowered the hook will peak through one of the holes in the design and lock the lid into position