Collapsible Speaker

Interested in making an amazing speaker for your friends and family to enjoy? In this Instructable, we will help you build a 6 foot speaker that can collapse for more portability. Through this project, we developed important skills in laser cutting, electronics and problem solving, and it has been really fun to use now that it's done!

This project is meant for intermediate makers with some experience in electronics, laser cutting and basic building skills. We are Bhavesh and Eshaan, and this project was inspired by the video: "World's Second Best Speakers!" created by Tech Ingredients. We built this project for our Principles of Engineering class and it was only possible by the love and support of Ms. Berbawy.

PRV AUDIO 8FR250 8 Inch Full Range Speaker

Speaker Wire Connectors

S.M.S.L SA300 HiFi Digital Amplifier

Aluminum T-slot extrusions (Amazon Link as of 5/6/22)

1/4" (6mm) Birch Wood 12 x 24 inch

Wood Glue

We begin this project by first creating the wooden speaker box that would house the speaker and is designed to support the acoustic needs of the speaker. The initial expanded speaker design was inspired from this PDF by Tech Ingredients. We adjusted the design to fit the telescoping style of our expandable speaker.

This design contains three different sections to it which eventually combine to create the telescoping speaker as our final project. To create these wooden boxes, we laser-cut wooden planks of 12” by 24” by ¼” Birch wood. We designed the middle box to be ¼” smaller width-wise than the bottom box, and the top box to be ¼” smaller width-wise than the middle box so the boxes will nest into each other. We then scaled the initial design by 11.5”/10.625”, and added ¼” by 1” fingers to the pieces in Adobe Illustrator so the wood would lock together when assembled. Examine the detailed wood cutting designs above to get a better understanding of how we distributed the different parts onto the wooden boards. You can also spice up your speaker by rastering a cool design on the wood parts.

This is a folder with our final Adobe Illustrator design.

Use the first and second pictures as guides to laser cut the wood using these Illustrator files.

Assembly

Once you have laser cut all the wooden parts, you can start gluing them together to create the speaker section. Some major pitfalls in this step include:

• The fingers may be too tight if tolerances are not accounted for. In this case, sand the fingers, and use clamps to force the wood to fit together while gluing.
• Always use clamps, or the wood will most likely shift and set into a less desirable shape (picture 3)
• If your design is inaccurate, the wood boxes may slip out of each other. In this case, add a piece of wood to one side of the lower box, reducing space for the upper box and keeping it tight fitting (picture 4)
• When collapsed, the top box of the speaker may collide with the speaker tail. In this case, cut out a rectangular shape from the front of the top box, and glue two larger pieces of wood to either side of it (shave off a little first). This will create a guide that can move up to create space for the speaker in the collapsed form, and can be pushed down to cover the resulting hole in the extended speaker form.

Once these steps are finished, simply put the boxes over each other, and lift the top piece. It should catch on to the middle piece and lift it as well creating the full expanded speaker as shown in the 5th image.

Next we created a linear slide that is able to hold the expanded speaker together and support the structure when fully expanded. This part is made up of Aluminum T-Slot Extrusions that join together to create expanding rods that can keep the speaker upright.

To create the linear slides, cut one T-slot extrusion to match the length of the sloped side of the bottom section. The next T-slot extrusion should be at least 3” longer than the sloped side of the middle section. Finally the length of the third T-slot extrusion should be at least 2" longer than the sloped side of the top section.

Next, screw the metal rods and T-slots in the way shown in the pictures. They should line up to slide within one another.

Remember: screws for the middle slide should be just the right length so as not to interrupt the slides on either side. Check to make sure all three T-slot extrusions are sliding without hindrance. Finally complete the linear slide by adding a stop piece so the slides do not over extend, as shown in picture 3.

Extend the linear slides, and make sure they are the right length. Then, drill 2 holes where the separate T-slot extrusions intersect, so you can insert an Allen key to keep the speaker from collapsing when you want it to stay in its expanded form (picture 3).

Now it is time to finally add the electronics to the housing boxes we created earlier.

Solder wires to the speaker, following instructions given with the speaker itself. Connect the wires to the speaker banana plugs, which will go into the amplifier. Next, add the speaker to the hole in the middle section of the speaker box. The speaker should fit tightly.

Ensure that the wire connectors can come out of back end of the bottom part of the speaker (picture 3). After all the electronics are sorted out, you can begin playing music. Connect the amplifier to your phone or another music playing device, and enjoy!

It is now time to fit all the pieces together. Attach the linear slides on the speaker box by screwing the the bottom slides to the bottom box 1” from the sloped edge. Make sure it is parallel to the sloped side of the box. Slide in the other slides. Now you can attach the top box to the top linear slides by screwing them to a strip of metal. Your speaker is now complete!!!! Now all that is left to do is listen to good music. For easier transportation, since the final project is heavy, we screwed caster wheels to a thick piece of wood that can serve as a base for the speaker to roll around on. Wheeeeeeeee!