Looking for a fun weekend project? How about making your own speaker from scratch using some very basic materials?
[Go Repairs] makes a bunch of how-to videos for Instructables in a style very reminiscent of the classic Art Attack from the 90’s — very clear, concise and he’s even got the accent!
The project requires only what you see in the photo above. The lid forms a simple plastic cone of the speaker, the magnets are the core, and using some paper, tape, and enamelled wire a very basic voice coil is constructed. Don’t expect amazing sound quality out of it, but it certainly looks like a fun project for junior hackers as it requires no fancy tools or equipment!
Stick around after the break to watch the video — does it remind you of Art Attack also?
Looking for a bit more of an advanced speaker hack? How about making your own reverb plate speaker?
Gods, I HATED Art Attack! Are you talking about the UK one with the smarmy scouse tosser? Did they have foreign versions with a different presenter? He made my blood itch!
Meanwhile in other news, you can order a Pringles-can speaker from Pringles, the last 2 summers they’ve done it to coincide with the festival season. It’s just a little round speaker with an amp and 3 AAA batteries, that fits on top of a Pringles can as some sort of comedy infinite-baffle thing. I suppose it keeps the electronics out of the spilled cider.
the head always freaked me out as kid.
I don’t remember Art Attack being *that* bad but Neil Buchanan (smarmy scouse tosser) certainly was a vindictive wanker to those poor kids on Finders Keepers!
Now, onto the hack – While this is a good demo of how speakers function, it certainly is not cheap! I don’t know about anyone else but I certainly don’t have magnets like these just laying around & a quick look at my local supplier shows they are prohibitively expensive (easily a tenner for magnets alone).
Also, Pringles are mank!
You sir need to order yourself some magnets from China! I must of bought 100 of that size for a tenner… I keep a ton around cause their handy!
This brings back old memories. When I was a kid, I used to do something similar with a margarine container. I’d stick a nail through the center of the lid, wrap magnet wire around a paper tube (or straw), and hot-glue that to the inside bottom of the container. Then I popped the lid on, with the nail sticking down in to the tube/coil, and hooked the wires up to Dad’s stereo. Good fun, even if I did trip the amp’s self-protection a few times during the process.
Just be happy it had proper protection or you would have blown the output stage.
Nonsense. Those things were built like a tank. Output was usually fused (with a REAL fuse on the back panel) so if anything did go wrong, it was no big deal to replace.