Music Box From Car Radio + Wall Mounted Sockets

Hi everybody,

My name is Christophe, I live in France. I am registered on www.instructables.com for quite a time now and I enjoy discovering what everybody is sharing in here. I decided to show you what I made last year. Nothing fancy as I took a similar idea on this website but I made it to my feeling and requirements. The idea started in my basement where I have a small desk to work on with all my tools and stuff around. It often gets pretty messy as you can see on following picture. I like to "work" with music and I was used to take my mobile phone and plug it to a computer sound system on one side and its power supply on the other side. I always had the cables running around, catching them while moving, making the phone drop... Not usefull at all. I have only one power socket on the wall in this place and I had to use a extension cable with multiple sockets to be able to plug any tool. This adds even more cables around... As written above, I found an instructable on how to turn a car radio into a sound system and decided to give it a try. In addition I wanted to have more power sockets available to plug various things in the same time. So I made this sketch and started to play...

- a car radio. I bought mine second hand for 10€. It has good features as remote control, MP3 CD player, external audio input...

- a car antenna. Bought it on internet for 5€

- a pair of dedicated car sockets to connect on back of radio (power + sound). 10€ on second hand market

- a pair of speakers. 10€ on second hand market as well

- a bit of 12mm plywood that I got from my employer (offcuts)

- a computer power supply that I got out from an old computer laying around

- a double switch

- 3 wall mounted sockets

- 4 electrical wall boxes

- a couple of wires/cables and connections

- wood glue

- masking tape

- drill with bits and holesaw

- sanding paper, screws...

My system will be wall mounted so I decided to leave the back side open. I did not want to see any panel edges so I went for 45° cuts on joining sides. Job was made easier by using the large saw at my job but obviously you could use any hand saw or sawing machine according to what you can put your hands on.

the front face will receive the radio, the 2 speakers as well as the 3 power sockets.

The top panel will have one hole for ventilation and to pull the power cable through as well as another hole to receive the double switch.

the advantage of 45° cuttings around the panels are both aesthetic and offers larger gluing surface.

Lay all the panels with their visible face upwards like if you unfolded the box. Then put masking tape over each joint so the panels can not move away.

Then, carefully flip the box on its other face so you have the inner faces visible.

Apply wood glue on each 45° cut. I used a brush to make sure the glue is applied on all the surfaces.

Once all the glue is applied, fold the 4 faces upwards until they join together. Control with a square they they are properly aligned and secure them in place with masking tape all around. I then placed a strap to add more pressure all around so the glue is under strain.

Remove the excess of glue on the inside before it dries.

Leave it to dry according to the glue you used.

Once dried, remove the strap and all the masking tape.

Sand the edges. DONE!

put everything in place on the front and top panels

I do not have much detailed pictures but the electrical fitting is pretty easy.

I used an old Y computer cable with a plug on one side. The 2 other side of the Y go on each side of the double-switch. One switch will control the 3x 220V sockets, the other switch will power up the computer power supply.

In order to make the computer power supply to work, you will need to cut the green and black cables on main connector and fix them together.

Then use the car radio socket (black one) to connect to the 12V computer power supply

Use the other car radio socket to connect the speakers (brown one).

I fixed the computer power supply inside the box with 2 brackets screwed.

connect the antenna

wire the 3x 220V sockets onto their switch and the computer supply on the other.

last step: 2 brackets made of bent steel stripes are secured to the wall and the 2 brackets fixed inside the box will clamp into them so the box can easily be removed if required.

Did it work: YES!

Did it fulfill my expectations: YESSSSSSS!!! :-)

A lot less cables lying onto my desk, sockets always available, music ready to play any time. All that I needed!!!

One drawback eventually... Now that I have more space on my desk....well... I put even more mess onto it :-)

This will be fixed soon with another instructable with more details and better pictures.

Hope you liked it as much as I took pleasure to build my music box and to show it to you!

Cheers!

Christophe.