Hey, I Made Something!

A few months back my computer monitor died. Searching around the internet told me that my problem may be a blown capacitor and it was a $2 part. So I called around. The cheapest repair I could find was over $100. I thought, "How hard can it be to replace a capacitor?"

I had a soldering gun left over from recording school; I had only used it for repairing microphone cables. Armed with some technical advice from my friend Nick, I cracked the monitor open, found the blown capacitor,

replaced it and...

It worked!

I spent two hours labor and $5 in parts. In yo FACE Best Buy!

I was energized. Hungry for more, I found some podcasts focusing on making and modding electronics. My next project was a simple USB phone charger made from a hand-crank flashlight.

That was fun, what else can I do? I always wanted one of those iPod chargers with the built-in sound system, maybe I can make one of those!

First I needed some parts. Goodwill was pretty lackluster, but I picked up a clock radio that seemed to work fine. I messed around, touching the leads on the amplifier chip until I found an input that would work, and soldered an RCA cable in place. Technically it made sound, but the speaker was so small, it was an affront to the ears.

Searching through my garage turned up my 16th birthday present: an old Sony CD player boom box back from the days when CD players were a rarity; I treasured it. This would make the perfect guts.

Pulling apart the boom box was difficult, but eventually I got the main board separated from all of the components. The original power supply for this thing was HUGE, there had to be a better way. I bought a multimeter and figured out the voltages I would need to power the system. If you're like me, you keep a stockpile of old power supplies from electronics long since forgotten. I found one with the correct voltage (12v DC) and hardwired it to the board.

A few minor sparks and smoke, but it powered up.

Along the way I ran into some hiccups: the clock power was AC instead of DC, the 30-pin connector for the iPhone is WAY too complicated for me to tackle, and moving the headphone jack and volume knobs to where I would need them took some experimenting. Oh and the volume knob. Hours of searching and asking around. No one carries 2-inch metal volume knobs! You know, the 70's-stereo receiver type? I finally found one that was close, but never really got what I wanted.

3-weeks of evenings passed and I had the working guts to an iPhone dock, with pretty decent mono sound and a digital clock. I think anyone who knew what they were doing could have made the whole thing in about an hour, but hey, it's the journey right?

Next was the case. I was a finish carpenter for 10 years so I figured this part would be cake.

Enter Murphy...

The box itself was pretty easy, it was the face that was the terror. My first two attempts ended up as scraps. I was down to my last piece of wood when finally, everything fell into place. The box took me about a week to finish thanks to the mistakes, but I ended up with something I'm pretty happy with.

The design is a little non traditional. We don't have a TV in our bedroom, but sometimes it's nice to stream something on the iPhone, like Netflix, and watch in bed. So I decided to make the dock in a landscape format. Additionally, I wanted to keep the whole thing very clean and simple. There is a headphone jack on the side for quiet listening, and to set the clock, you have to press the pots on the actual board, but hey, it works!

Let me know what you think! I may stain it, make it a darker color, haven't decided yet, right now it's still raw wood. It cost me about $20 in parts to make and I'm taking orders if you'd like to buy one. If you factor in the man hours, I think I could sell ya one for...

$1520.00 sound fair? At least I had a great time making it.

Thanks to Nick, Ali, my cousin Ryan, and my Dad for all your help and advice.