Beats by Kenney and Ofelia (DIY Headphones)

Materials

Copper wire (28 Gauge)

2 neodymium magnets

2 plastic cups

Electrical Tape

Duct Tape

Sand Paper

Glue stick (2cm diameter)

Wire cutter

Scissors

AUX plug

Aluminum wrap

Card board

Step 1: Cut 3 different strips of copper wire with the wire cutter. (Cut a 300cm long wire).

Step 2: Get your glue stick, and get electrical tape and wrap it around the glue stick sticky side up.

Step 3: Start wrapping your 300cm long copper wire around the glue stick and the tape 30 times, and leave 1 inch of extra wire hanging on each side.

Step 1: When done coiling, pull the coil out of the glue stick carefully, and leave an inch of wire on each end to sand.

Step 2:Start sanding the ends of the coil. Sand about 1 inch of the ends of the wire to get rid of the coating on top of the copper on each end.

Step 3: Once done, make sure that the coils are still wrapped and compact and close together.

Step 1: Take a plastic cup and put the bottom side of the cup up.

Step 2: Place a magnet on to of the cup, and inside of the cup, so the magnets can connect.

Place the coil over the magnet, so that the magnet is inside the coil.

Step 3: Get 2 strips of tape and attach them on top of the coil to secure it with the two ends of sanded wire sticking out of the tape.

Step 4: Now follow all of the previous steps to make the second speaker.

Step 1: Get the sanded ends of the wire and loop it through the AUX plug.

Step 2:Once you looped it through the AUX, you can now attach the wire to the other wire on the second speaker to connect the terminals. You can connect the two wires by tying them around each other.

Step 3:Make sure that you have a good connection that goes around the whole headphone, so sound can play through both of the speakers.

Step 1: If you are having problems hearing sound, you can check the connection between the AUX plug and the sanded wire. Make sure that the wire is twisted tightly on the AUX plug.

Step 2: If your speaker is still not working, you will want to check your coils, and make sure that the coils are not separating. If they are, you can make a new coil or you can try to fix the coil by trying to make it tighter by taping it together.

You can decorate the headphones the way you wish to. You can make it your own personal headphones. For my headphones, I made the headband out of cardboard and hid the wiring through out the cardboard. I also had tinfoil to cover the plastic cups.

Important Parts of a Speaker

The three main components in a speaker is a diaphragm, voice coil, and magnet. The voice coil provide path for electric current to travel through. It strengthens the magnetic fields, and vibrates. The magnet provides the magnetic field. The diaphragm amplifies vibrations to push sound waves in more directions.

Number of Coils

The voice coil affected the loudness of our headphones when prototyping. The volume that your phone is on has also affected the outcome of how loud the speaker was. If it was low, you can not hear it at all. We tested 10, 20, and 30 coils. When testing the 10 and 20 coils, the sound and amplitude was not as loud as the 30 coils. It seemed that if you increased the number of coils, it increased the loudness of the sound, so we went with 30 coils. If you want to increase the loudness of the sound, you can go beyond 30 coils, but we decided to just go to 30 coils.

What Causes Coils to Vibrate

Voice coils vibrate because, if you have any current flowing through a wire, it will become magnetic. The alternating current flips the polarity of the voice coil. This will make it attract away and towards the magnet, which creates the vibration from the voice coils. In the voice coil, when opposite sides face each other, they attract. This means that when the voice coil is pulled inward, the diaphragm is also pulled in. It is the opposite when the same sides face each other because, they will repel. This means that the voice coils are being pushed outward, and the same thing is happening with the diaphragm.