Battery Powered 3D Printed Speaker

In this Instructable, I will be showing you how to build a battery powered speaker. I will walk you through step by step, and if you have any questions please leave a comment below. I have also left a lot of room for customization, so don't be afraid to add your own personal touch. This is my first instructable, so if you find something I could improve on, leave a comment below. Now for the project...

P.S. If you could drop a vote for me in a couple of the contests I'm in, that would be greatly appreciated. :)

For this project you need the following materials/tools (these are the parts I used, but feel free to expand):

Materials:

- Speakers

- Amplifier

- Car phone charger

- Double sided foam tape

- Small switch (any small switch from Radio Shack will do)

- Electrical tape/Heat-shrink

- 9v Batteries

- 9v Batt. Clip

- Wire

- LOTS of hot glue

- Handle (optional)

- Auxiliary cable

Tools:

- 3D Printer with a build volume of 7in in at least one direction

- Multimeter

- Soldering Iron

- Solder

- Scissors

- Wire clippers

- Wire strippers

- Hot glue gun

- Helping Hands (optional)

- Heat gun/Lighter (optional)

- CAD software (optional)

Now that you have all the materials, we can move on to step two...

Next, 3D print the structural elements. I have the files that I used in this step. Make sure that the speaker grill has a diameter of 2.5in. After you print these files (or have them printed), clean them up by sanding etc.

Now, wire up the speakers by soldering a good length of red and black wire in the + and - slots of the speakers respectively. Then hot glue the speakers into the holes of the body. Make sure that the connection between the hot glue and the speaker is solid.

After that, the next step is to wire up the amplifier. Take the leads from the speaker on the right, and solder them into the R+ and R- connections, red and black respectively. Then do the same with the speaker on the left an put them into L+ and L-.

Now, take a length of red and black wire and solder them into the gnd and +5v spots right below L+ and L-.

After that, take the Aux. cable, and cut one of the plugs off right below the "neck". Then, strip the black wire so that there are 3 smaller wires coming out.

The next part is a little tricky. For the small wires, I found that the Aux. cable I used was as follows: Blue = LN, Red = RN, and yellow = Gnd. You may have to do some research if your colors are not the same as mine. Now take the right wire and solder it in the RN slot, do the same to the Gnd and LR wires, soldering into their respective holes.

Now for the power source. The car phone charger I used was from my mom's old flip phone. We all have iphones now so this would be the perfect use for it. First take the case off of the charger, then find the positive and negative connections on the side of the charger that plugs into the car. In the charger I used, the connections that are on the outside are gnd, and the connection on the point is vcc. When you find the + and -, solder the red wire of the 9v battery clip to the +, and solder the black wire to the -.

Next, find the back of the USB's. The solder joint to the far right is +, and the connection on the far left is the gnd. Then, de-solder the female UBS's from the PCB. IMPORTANT! Make sure there is still a solder joint on the two outside ports. I accidentally pulled the USB off on something else, and tore the PCB connection clean off.

Now just like before, solder a red and black wire to the + and - connections on the PCB respectively. Then, solder those two wires to the + and - wires of the amplifier.

You're almost done the wiring, all you have to do is add the small power switch. Cut the red wire of the 9v battery clip in the middle and strip both ends. Tip: mark one side of the switch so you can tell one side from the other when you mark on/off. Now, solder the two stripped ends to the switch.

At this point in the project, this would be the perfect time to test your project and make sure everything is A OK before everything is mounted. If you're not getting any sound, then check all of your solder connections and make sure that there are no shorts and/or weak connections.

Alright, time to plug in the hot glue gun. I mounted the amplifier on top, and the power converter on the bottom. For mounting the 9v battery, take a piece of electrical tape and fold it into a circle, and then stick it on the side, then press the 9v onto it.

I will talk about mounting the switch in the next step.

For the back plate, I traced the back of the speaker body onto a sheet of Lexan (I should really watch my language :P), and then cut it out with my shears. Then drill two holes, one for the switch, and one for the aux. cable. I would personally make the hole for the aux. cable near one of the ends of the speaker. Next, either hot glue the switch in, or use the included hardware. Then mark the on/off sides to the switch onto the Lexan.

To make the back removable, I used double-sided foam tape. I'm looking for a more high quality solution to use in the near future.

Congratulations! You just made a speaker! Before I experimented with making speakers, I had no idea it was this simple. I personally had a lot of fun making this project, and I hope you do to.

Going forward, there are some things you might want to add onto your speaker. As you saw in my finished product, I added a handle onto the speaker. Also you may want to 3D print some wedges and hot glue them to the bottom to give to speaker an upward tilt. Something else you may want to add is Bluetooth, there are companies that sell small Bluetooth modules that are meant to make non-Bluetooth speakers Bluetooth, which I think is pretty cool.

Happy Making!

- Adam