DIY Bluetooth Boombox Can Take A Beating!

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Looking for a nice portable audio solution that can take a beating outdoors? This RaveBOX (v1.0) might be what you’re looking for!

[Angelo] is a 15 year old high school student from the Philippines who loves making things — in fact, he has a collection over 40 Instructables that he’s written himself to share with the world. He wrote his first when he was only 10 years old.

He was inspired to build this boombox when he stumbled upon a Pelican-like rugged case at the mall, so he bought it and started planning the build around it. He’s using a pair of 2-channel audio amplifiers hooked up to a Bluetooth/FM/USB/SD card player module which has a nice face-plate for external mounting. It drives a 4″ woofer, and 4 full range speakers. To modify the case, he used a Dremel and pocket knife, and we must say, he did a great job! The 12V 2.2aH lithium polymer battery provides a surprising 18 hours of playback.

It’s a great beginner’s project to get into soldering — nothing too complex, but the resulting boombox is quite useful — and [Angelo’s] got a great guide to get you started!

If you’re looking for a bit more stylish boombox, why not build one out of a briefcase?

18 thoughts on “DIY Bluetooth Boombox Can Take A Beating!

  1. How can this take a beating? If you drop it on an edge with the speakers down they’re ruined, and i wouldn’t think that cheap chinese MP3 player module protruding from the side is very sturdy.

    1. Agreed. Please concentrate on making the blog entries accurate instead of focusing on flowery wording that makes the article seem more interesting than it actually is.

  2. https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=45020 is a safer lipo battery it has a bms with lvc built into the battery that will stop the battery from working when the cell voltage reaches around 3 volts

    you can monitor the pack but i think above is safer and it should handle the current demands of the device.

    if you really want to be safe you can just use a 12 volt lead acid battery like you find in security alarms and ups units they are cheap and much safer especially if you travel internationally or go on a plane.

    1. You can also get protection circuits and mount them yourself.

      If you’re scared of LiPo just go with some standard discharge (1C to 5C) cells instead of these 30-40C high current ones. This device hardly draws any power anyway so those 30C batteries are just a waste.

  3. it isnt just safety there is also lifespan overdischarging any kind of lithium even lifepo4 can shorten the life of the cells although safety is the biggest concern because you would not want to burn down your house because a battery failed

  4. I wouldn’t consider butyl rubber and paper durable. Using marine speakers with Santoprene surrounds and polypropylene or aluminum cones under a grill would be ideal.

    Of course, this would have been far more expensive then what he likely had on hand, but as others have pointed out, I’ve seen cheap Magnavox boomboxes survive being completely flooded with water and then repeatedly dropped.

  5. He needs to buy/make some speaker grills…and the buttons on the side should be moved close to the split in the case, so that if it falls on that side the raised plastic will take the beating instead of the fragile buttons and switches.

  6. DIY Bluetooth Boombox Can Take a Beating!
    …. until a stick pokes through one of the speakers.
    Seriously, put some cheap protection on them. Take a screen window, cut little squares out of it, and attach it using the screws already there.

  7. When I get a chance, I’m registered with the Hackaday projects site, I’ll upload my worklog of a “boombox” that can take a beating. It was built for being used just about anywhere, more or less a project of one of my EE/ME classes in college. (Yea where I went I decided to get a dual degree in EE and ME, no life for 5 years. It wasn’t that much more time, just a lot more work.) I used it at the beach, on a sailboat, my good friend used it for a long time afterwards on his Mate’s duty on a heavy lift vessel, so it’s been around the world a couple times. Not that I had copies of it so it could get actually certified but if it had been it would have been to the highest milspec ip standards. The casing was a weave of carbon fiber and titanium alloy, a tag name nowadays is carbotanium. I was lucky enough to source this from the University research lab where a fellow was conducting PHD level research into the efficient manufacture of such materials and some neat applications. The speakers were built from scratch as well (this being the EE part of the project), along with all the circuitry. A lot of work but a satisfying experience.

  8. This is just dumb!
    I build my camp speakers into 20mm Ammo boxes, in transit the speakers are protected by the lid.

    I’d have to think about it, but I’d say I’ve built at least 20(?) pairs to date, every outdoors person who sees them wants a pair!

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