Guitar Guitar-amp

by drums4reel in Circuits > Audio

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Guitar Guitar-amp

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As i watched my brother about to throw away an old beat up guitar he has had for months,I couldnt help but stop him. Weve all heard the saying, "one mans trash is another mans treasure." So i grabbed it before it hit the land fill. This build came together magically. The amp is from an old pair of computer speakers that have been in my "fix" pike for quite some time, and the other little speaker i used was an old bluetooth speaker that has been in the "fix" pile as well. Lets just dive in....

Supplies

-amplifier PCB (use a small one that will fit in the back of the guitar.

-soldering iron/solder

-screwdriver

-9v power supply

-box cutter or blade

-sound exciter

Mount the Amp

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Remove the back plate on the guitar. Inside you will find the POTS and toggle switch. This is where the amplifier board is going to go. Remove the toggle switch if there isnt enough room. I also wrapped the board in electrical tape so it doesnt ground out or make anything short out. After making sure you have enough room for the board to fit, set the board aside for now. The amp i used had 2 speakers, so one channel went to the sound exciter and the other went to the square speaker put in place of the pickup. Solder a small piece of wire about 6 inches from one of the speaker channels.

Mount the Sound Exciter

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Now without getting to in-depth about these "sound exciters," ill give a breif explaination about what they are. I bought this one from Parts-Express.com. This website has everything speaker and sound related. Sound exciters basically turn things into speakers. Once screwed in to an object, it sends the vibration to whatever its mounted on. They are pretty neat. So, i decided to put the sound exciter on the part of the guitar that bolts the neck to the body. Remove 1 of the screws and put the sound exciter there. make sure you solder the terminals on before doing this.

Mounting the Other Speaker

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I used green wire to be easier to see. Use the holes in the guitar used for the pickup wiring to feed your wire through. The wire should poke out the other side pretty easy.. Once its out, solder the + and - wires to the speaker correctly. The speakers i used were from an old bluetooth speaker that broke a while ago, so i really lucked out with them fitting in place so well. Add some hot glue or similar to make sure it wont fall out in the future.

Bring It All Together

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Now you can put the board in place and close the cover. Its up to you which wires go where. I would have really liked to be able to plug into the guiatr jack, but it was too complicated at the time. There it is.....

Adapter

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the amp has a 3.5mm cable that comes from the amp. you can use any phone or mp3 player to play music or simply hook on the 3.5mm to 1/4in adapter and plug in your guitar.