Workshop boombox

Workshop boombox for the shed.

A couple of years back I assembled a pre built flat pack 10 x 10 ft type shed in my garden as a workshop. Fully insulated and with power. An electrician friend kindly wired it up for me, thanks Trev. Until the end of last summer I had used an old transistor radio for music while working out there. It wasn’t much cop though so a workshop boombox was needed.

After researching the kind of thing that others had built on the net a plan was hatched. I had an old car stereo and an old PC power supply so I decided to make use of them. The stereo has an iPod connection to plug in an old phone/iPod rather than just radio or cd’s. I purchased an old 2 channel 125w amp and some speakers from Ebay and some sheet MDF.

Size

Turns out the amp was larger than I needed and because of this the box was bigger than originally planned. At least the amp was very cheap. Another thing that affects the overall size is the speaker enclosures. They need to be a fair size for better audio. There are formulas to calculate it all but I did a rule of thumb guess. It seems to be OK though.

I had intended it to be portable but it’s a bit too big for that, oh well. Plan was to able to run it off mains or battery hence the guarded 3 position switch. I’ve not wired up a battery option as yet and I may never.

PSU

I did slightly modify the PC power supply. You need to do this to get it to run without a computer attached to it. The power on wire needs to be shorted to one of the ground wires. This tricks the power supply (PSU) into thinking a motherboard is attached. Simple really and it’s easy to look up on the net. I also fitted a quieter cooling fan inside the PSU and some free flowing grilles.

It went together pretty easily with my schoolboy carpentry skills once I had planned out the position of the components. With corner covers and a few coats of rollered on grey garage floor enamel and I think it looks great. The aerial was going to be internal but in the end I ran an external powered amplified one. Internally it was getting too much interference causing crackly radio reception. It’s fine with the external aerial.

It’s now on the wall on a sturdy shelf to free up workbench space. Can’t post a demo with any copyrighted music on due to Youtube restrictions, but here’s a clip with a mates band’s track. The Shrinking Violets and Mug.

Update

Portable bluetooth speaker that’s the size of a cigarette packet. JBL GO2, it’s waterproof too to a couple of feet. Great little bit of kit, not as powerful as my workshop boombox but very portable.

Looking forward to the cold winter days when I can retreat to my workshop with music…