Speakers for Bicycle

These speakers are a combo of those swapmeet foldup speakers they sell for ipods and some i salvaged from an old I-mac computer.  the battery holder is from the first version of my bicycle lights and the wires were either bought at radio shack or found in dumpster.  this is a custom job i did for someone who wanted speakers on their bike.   

Available at home depot or lowes

X2    1 1/2" PVC end caps

X2    1/1/4" PVC end caps

X4    1/2" Conduit hangers

X4   AA batterys- i got nicads from harbor frieght  theyre not great but cheap

X2   rubber grommets ( see picture)


From radio shack or digikey or dumpster

X2 Male RCA plugs

X1  female through hole 3.5 MM stereo jack. i salvaged it from dead walkman radio shack sells these if you dont have one on hand

 Battery holder -( one that holds 4 AA) or any 6v battery will do you can find these at digikey or radio shack, mine was designed to hold 6 batterys but i shorted it to hold 4, since my amp runs on 6v

Speaker wire a very thin guage im not sure exactly but it was alot from the dumpster

some kind of donor plug to go from battery holder to DC in on the amp also found in dumpster

X2 female to female RCA plugs

 

Some kind of paint , i bought candy apple because thats the color they wanted

RTV sealant- available at the 99 cents store

Screws and nuts of your choice 

fold up ipod speakrers


bicycle tool bag that was given to me by a crackhead. 

IIRC these are the tools i used you might need more or some of these maybe not be needed at all you make the call

1/4" drill bit and power drill

philips head screw driver

7/16" nut driver

sand paper of coarse and fine grit.  

razor blade like xacto or olfa are good

soldering iron from dumpster

60/40 rosin core solder

heat shrink tubing and lighter to shrink the tubing these are to cover the solder connections

wire strippers/ cutters

the speakers were exact fits into the 1.5" end caps. so in order to get a better fit i had to sand both the speakers and about a 1/4" wide section down the  inside of end cap to get it to fit, also had to lower the profile on the contacts on the speakers.

for the smaller i mac speakers i had to remove them from the bubble thing they were installed in on the imac.  but the speakers have some plastic flanges so those need to be sanded down to fit inside the gromet that fits in the end cap

this step took me the longest  about 4 nights to get it right. at this point your just checking for fit into the end caps dont do any permanent assembly

drill one hole near back and bottom of PVC so your speaker wont hit the screw, and another on the back wall to run wires and half ass band pass, 

now pull everything apart and scuff the end caps with fine grit sand paper to all surfaces that will be painted and go paint it then reassemble.  put your conduit hanger and screws in first

at this point the larger speakers can be glued in with the RTV sealant. it takes a few hours to set well so maybe do this over night.  the speaker should have plenty of extra wire to hook up with the smaller speakers. solder your speaker wire to the speakers to extend them so you can wire them. my speaker wire had two different conductors. one of steel the other of copper. i used copper as my ground and the steel as my positive

for speaker wiring i used series wiring. or i think i did. i actually went with what sounded better while testing it out.  

series is two speakers  with + to the - so you end up with one - contact on one speaker and one + contact on the other speaker. then they can share the signal and work as one speaker in unison

since i had two speakers per channel for a total of 4 speakers i stashed the extra wiring behind the imac speakers since they fit in by pressure with the grommet which made an excellent seal and quick repairs


from the imac speakers i ran another speaker to the amp via an RCA plug and used a Y cable to amp.  

my amp runs on 6 volts.  unfortunately it only takes 4 AAA batteries and they are weak. so instead i used a AA battery pack to the DC in.  black is universal color for ground and red is positive so wire accordingly.   i also modified the amp to have an output.  before this project i used it to blow out my ears with headphones when the volume on certain things just wasnt enough.  its called a "TRS" connections tip ring and sleeve.   headphones have 3 wires in one.   the only way i can  test which is ring or sleeve is to get an mp3 and notice on which side the sound should come from. like if the song starts with music on left then your conected to tip.  the convenient part is that if the sound is on the wrong side i can just disconnect from Y cable and swap sides to correct it. 

tip - is the left audio i think +

Ring-  right audio +

Sleeve- ground / common -

so heres a pic of it in action just not installed on bike i was testing it for quality. in hind sight you could just add a conduit hanger to an un torn down foldup speaker and have a more portable less cluttered system