hi fi recycling project

captain a

i spend literally days looking at threads like this on forums and blogs, something between recycling and life hacking and having no friends. anyways, here goes;

a mate was throwing out his pc, he offered me any salvage i wanted, so i nabbed the speakers.



pretty average little things, but looked like ****, i opened them up via 8 deep set screws on the back, and found the brains of the operation, a little amplifier. i'm no good with this camera.



continuing the dismantling, to get at the speakers i had to attack the grill from behind with a 1 euro chisel.



and then the front




aha, the speaker, i'll need that...




2nd, victim, a HINARI super dynamic sound speaker.

important thing here, it says 4ohm, the other speaker is also 4 ohm, this means they wont catch fire later on.




ripped the luxury cloth off the front as i couldnt find a way to open it




no way in there, so i went at it with the hammer and chisel, seporating the front panel from the main box. jackpot.




liberated speaker:




this one was a book end in the flat for the past year.

so i've isolated all the useful stuff,

captain a

now to rehouse it; the wood i'm using is a sheet of 18mm plywood that i lifted off a skip.

disclaimer

I have an extensive history of using power tools at work under supervision of professionals, who taught me how to use them safely. i use eye protection, gloves and an expensive dust mask. i don't recommend that anyone who hasn't been shown how to use them safely try things like this, its not safe and there are many risks. thats why i haven't shown the cutting process here.

so i'm using the little circuit board as a template, i'm going to build round it.




this is a piece of 10mm ply that i've cut to the size, based on my completly chaotic sketch that wont make sense to anyone but me, just checking the layout here




the same piece, test mounted in the now cut sides from above



i just wedged in this waste piece to see if it was even going to work



and from the front



i made the roof then, and used some green paint. that much i bought. making sure its fitting here, and generally seeing whats going to work -
the chaotic plan is visible on the right there.




the i rounded the edges and clamped it, to make pilot holes for the final assembly, doing it this way, i wont **** up the final coat of paint, and if theres going to be bother i'll know in advance




on to the tricky part now, making it all work. found two old pioneer tweeters from a dead stereo (the oval ones at the bottom) at this point, which made me decide to use the wires from the pioneer instead of the original wire. dont know if this was a good idea or not.



before i threw away the original enclosure i took a snap of the output/input section of it, which was my guide for wiring 5 speakers where once there were two.



the red tape was my third hand for soldering,

to join the 4inch extra speaker on, i had to solder it directly to the 'white' spkr output. the black cable on the right was just an mp3 player for testing it out now and then.



it only works if the cable is in the socket. go figure.

soldering all done:



i made a proper piece to support the back of the circuit board, it had two screw holes in it so it go secured off them - also added a 4 way power bar, mostly to lessen the mess at the front.




they didnt have one with a green cable.



all stuck together, proportioned to hold up the turntable, an added bonus was that the turn table speakers also stay on when its connected, so its not a great stereo field but a good room filler. i'm calling it a separates system. the spray was 8.50, the extension lead was 3.00.

YourName

Beast mate, the people over in the HE DIY might like to take a look at thsi thread, but good work man ! ! ! !

studiorat

Very nice.

If I may, rubber sealer between the speakers to form a gasket between the wood and the drivers to help kill any vibration and some rock wool inside the box to isolate the speakers from each other, use the old speaker grilles to keep the rock wool off the electronics.

captain a

i did think of insulation of some sort, but considering this was a free project, i didnt want to spend on anything other than wires and paint. it mostly gets used around the 3am mark on a saturday night so fidelity isnt exactly the top priority. meantimes i made a greenhouse.

if i was doing similar again i'd definitley put some rockwool in there.

MrPain

Well done, quite impressive.
I used to have those gateway speakers but I threw them out:(