A simple DIY project I did yesterday. Martha Stewart would be proud.
So I looked on the swap shop at work, someone was selling a G model Airport Express for only $25, this isn't a bad deal. I already had 1 G model and 1 B model - the B was free to me and the other G I bought off of Amazon. As it stands I can play music at low and reasonable volumes and hear it well everywhere in my apartment, except for the bathroom. Music while taking care of the three S's isn't such a bad thing.
Note the presence of a USB port for printing. That will provide power.
I actually keep my apartment quite tidy and clutter free most of the time, I lapse a bit on occasion, but overall it's better shape than bad. I really didn't just want to string the crap out everywhere on the bathroom counter. So the wheels started to turn. I wanted as few wires as possible, I wanted the speakers to be USB powered to achieve that goal and I wanted everything concealed.
Here's the area I have to work with - notice the power outlet isn't in that great of a spot, the other outlet in the room is in an even worse spot so I wont show it. These are however well positioned for curling irons and hair driers. As you can see I have little use for those. My bathroom has two sinks, I never use that one.
My first idea was to go to Big Lots and get a wicker basket to put it all in. I don't think this would have been such a bad approach, but when I got there I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I began to look around - the challenge, find something in Big Lots I could put it all in, but wont require me to hand in my Man Card. I found some really cool flower pots that I could hide stuff in, but I was worried about the sound getting through, and I really don't want anything so unruly as fake vines in my bathroom, and I really didn't want flowers. I found a wall hanging planter that could have worked perfectly, but again with the fake plants, and I really wouldn't have been able to use my towel rack if I did that. Then I found the Tiki Tea Light. Tiki gods, that's manly enough right?
Here's what I have to work with. I really wanted some of the cheap USB powered speakers that eMachines sends out with their hunks of junk. No luck finding any that cheap, Best Buy had some really expensive models, finally I found these for $20 at Fry's. Aren't the Tiki's cuddly? I hope they don't freak my kid out next time she's over.
The speakers would just fit inside of the Tiki's, so it was time to free them from their casings. About the time I first started to actually work on this was about the time it occurred to me that a soldering iron was something I hadn't picked up post Ike. Oops, no soldering allowed because I didn't want to spend anymore money or leave to get one.
The innards were a bit more complicated than I expected. That circuit board at the bottom was quite large, that's the one with all the knobs and power control and conditioning on it. This is something I was going to have to keep, and of course it was the one with all the wires attached to it.
Now ideally I would have just cut all the wires down to more manageable length, however being sans solder iron I had to take a different approach. I switched to a hack saw for the second speaker.
Holes in the Tiki's. This was a bit problematic. I couldn't tell what they were made from, they felt sort of like stone, I was thinking maybe some sort of poly stone. Holes drilled in them quite nicely, however I later realized I was going to need a bigger hole to stash the circuit board in so I switched to my Black and Decker Dremel knock off. The material the Tiki's were made of gave off a noxious plastic like smell. Whatever it was it was synthetic, and I'm not sure if it was the best thing to put fire in or not.
This part got nasty. I'm not proud of all of it. I'm not showing pictures of all of it since I'm not proud. The hole in the back of the one that housed the control board wound up being huge and I couldn't figure out how to mount it well. There's now a gaping hole on the back side of that Tiki. I'm going to figure out something to cover it with and make an old fashioned butt flap pajama bottom for it, or I may figure out a way to extend the control knobs and bondo or something. Longer control knobs shouldn't be a problem. Just depends on the amount of work I decide to put into it. I originally wanted to put the Airport Express and the control board in the same Tiki, but they just wouldn't fit, so I put it in the other Tiki. There's now three wires between them, USB power, the audio feed from the express to the control board, and the wire from the control board back to the other speaker. I'm leaving the Tiki's close together.
I used the tea light suspension brackets to suspend the speakers. On these HP speakers the mesh grill portion actually screwed into the lower portion, after unscrewing them they were still great for hanging the speakers off of and the black mesh looks good behind the Tiki's eyes. Unfortunately they're not long enough to go to the bottom.
You can click on any of my pictures to enlarge them, the couple of them that aren't mine, not so much.
I plan to buy some scraps of black cloth (or maybe retire a T-Shirt) to put at the lower part of the Tiki's so you can't see out their bums through their mouths, and to cover what's showing through there otherwise. As you can see the wires are still a bit unruly in the back. I'm going to do a bit more stuffing on the power cord
Another note - most modern Apple power connectors are deceptive. Even though they look like something fancy based on the folding connectors and the rivet/slot power cords, they're actually just a modified IEC-C8 connector (I'm not sure what the single notch version is called), luckily I had an IEC-C7 cord to use in it. I figured this would be easier than the Apple version of the cord.
I bought some LED light strands and some glass gems, I thought about putting those at the bottom to give it a fire effect, but there's really not much room left in the bottom of the Tiki's for that, and keeping the wire clutter down is problematic. After securing a soldering iron I may reconsider. I do think a red to orange, maybe even a purplish glow would look good, especially after putting some more cloth in for black out purposes.
Better wire management is eminent. Some electric tape will fix a lot of that, maybe now. The black cloth can't come soon enough either - I'm considering shirts for sacrifice now.
I found a strip of midnight blue cloth I forgot I had. It came wrapped around a blanket from the store, I've been using it to tie up my blinds when I open my windows so they don't rattle. Doesn't look bad in there, and I taped up the wires. Much nicer all around.
Note the presence of a USB port for printing. That will provide power.
I actually keep my apartment quite tidy and clutter free most of the time, I lapse a bit on occasion, but overall it's better shape than bad. I really didn't just want to string the crap out everywhere on the bathroom counter. So the wheels started to turn. I wanted as few wires as possible, I wanted the speakers to be USB powered to achieve that goal and I wanted everything concealed.
Here's the area I have to work with - notice the power outlet isn't in that great of a spot, the other outlet in the room is in an even worse spot so I wont show it. These are however well positioned for curling irons and hair driers. As you can see I have little use for those. My bathroom has two sinks, I never use that one.
My first idea was to go to Big Lots and get a wicker basket to put it all in. I don't think this would have been such a bad approach, but when I got there I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I began to look around - the challenge, find something in Big Lots I could put it all in, but wont require me to hand in my Man Card. I found some really cool flower pots that I could hide stuff in, but I was worried about the sound getting through, and I really don't want anything so unruly as fake vines in my bathroom, and I really didn't want flowers. I found a wall hanging planter that could have worked perfectly, but again with the fake plants, and I really wouldn't have been able to use my towel rack if I did that. Then I found the Tiki Tea Light. Tiki gods, that's manly enough right?
Here's what I have to work with. I really wanted some of the cheap USB powered speakers that eMachines sends out with their hunks of junk. No luck finding any that cheap, Best Buy had some really expensive models, finally I found these for $20 at Fry's. Aren't the Tiki's cuddly? I hope they don't freak my kid out next time she's over.
The speakers would just fit inside of the Tiki's, so it was time to free them from their casings. About the time I first started to actually work on this was about the time it occurred to me that a soldering iron was something I hadn't picked up post Ike. Oops, no soldering allowed because I didn't want to spend anymore money or leave to get one.
The innards were a bit more complicated than I expected. That circuit board at the bottom was quite large, that's the one with all the knobs and power control and conditioning on it. This is something I was going to have to keep, and of course it was the one with all the wires attached to it.
Now ideally I would have just cut all the wires down to more manageable length, however being sans solder iron I had to take a different approach. I switched to a hack saw for the second speaker.
Holes in the Tiki's. This was a bit problematic. I couldn't tell what they were made from, they felt sort of like stone, I was thinking maybe some sort of poly stone. Holes drilled in them quite nicely, however I later realized I was going to need a bigger hole to stash the circuit board in so I switched to my Black and Decker Dremel knock off. The material the Tiki's were made of gave off a noxious plastic like smell. Whatever it was it was synthetic, and I'm not sure if it was the best thing to put fire in or not.
This part got nasty. I'm not proud of all of it. I'm not showing pictures of all of it since I'm not proud. The hole in the back of the one that housed the control board wound up being huge and I couldn't figure out how to mount it well. There's now a gaping hole on the back side of that Tiki. I'm going to figure out something to cover it with and make an old fashioned butt flap pajama bottom for it, or I may figure out a way to extend the control knobs and bondo or something. Longer control knobs shouldn't be a problem. Just depends on the amount of work I decide to put into it. I originally wanted to put the Airport Express and the control board in the same Tiki, but they just wouldn't fit, so I put it in the other Tiki. There's now three wires between them, USB power, the audio feed from the express to the control board, and the wire from the control board back to the other speaker. I'm leaving the Tiki's close together.
I used the tea light suspension brackets to suspend the speakers. On these HP speakers the mesh grill portion actually screwed into the lower portion, after unscrewing them they were still great for hanging the speakers off of and the black mesh looks good behind the Tiki's eyes. Unfortunately they're not long enough to go to the bottom.
You can click on any of my pictures to enlarge them, the couple of them that aren't mine, not so much.
I plan to buy some scraps of black cloth (or maybe retire a T-Shirt) to put at the lower part of the Tiki's so you can't see out their bums through their mouths, and to cover what's showing through there otherwise. As you can see the wires are still a bit unruly in the back. I'm going to do a bit more stuffing on the power cord
Another note - most modern Apple power connectors are deceptive. Even though they look like something fancy based on the folding connectors and the rivet/slot power cords, they're actually just a modified IEC-C8 connector (I'm not sure what the single notch version is called), luckily I had an IEC-C7 cord to use in it. I figured this would be easier than the Apple version of the cord.
I bought some LED light strands and some glass gems, I thought about putting those at the bottom to give it a fire effect, but there's really not much room left in the bottom of the Tiki's for that, and keeping the wire clutter down is problematic. After securing a soldering iron I may reconsider. I do think a red to orange, maybe even a purplish glow would look good, especially after putting some more cloth in for black out purposes.
Better wire management is eminent. Some electric tape will fix a lot of that, maybe now. The black cloth can't come soon enough either - I'm considering shirts for sacrifice now.
I found a strip of midnight blue cloth I forgot I had. It came wrapped around a blanket from the store, I've been using it to tie up my blinds when I open my windows so they don't rattle. Doesn't look bad in there, and I taped up the wires. Much nicer all around.