Here are some pictures of the boombox that I took in the spring, while procrastinating instead of painting.
The stereo was made from a construction sign. I used a CNC router to cut out the panels and make holes for the speakers and ports. This wouldn’t be hard to make without a CNC, but my school had one so why not!
The top houses a car stereo. Above the stereo is a plate I made with external speaker output, USB charging, line in. Most of this is now redundant as I had to replace the car stereo ($100), and these days stereos come with USB, SD, and line in.
At the top right is the power connection for charging the stereo. It charges from a car battery charger.
The battery was a surplus 7Ah gel battery ($12) originally from princess auto, until it exploded. The new one is from canadian tire ($30)- they stock it as a replacement for one of their kiddy toys.
The speakers were salvaged from the side of the road. They are not very high end, but they were free. To get close to making the right size enclosure, I took measurements of the rotten speaker box that they came in, and then recreated that same volume when I designed the boombox.
sam roesch 
Awesome project! How long did it take to build?I have been gathering parts to make my own boombox. One of these days …
Thanks, It took a few weeks to gather the parts, and then about 3 days to put it all together. You should definitely build one, wherever I go people think its the coolest thing ever!If it helps I could make an instructable if there is some demand for one.
Looks nice, how does it sound?
I would love an Instructable. Your work is very nice!
Nice work I was gonna build something very similar to this, until I found a little thing called a MusicFan, which you use a line in, or Bluetooth streaming for music. Out of interest, how long does your battery last?
@Ed Can you post the link to MusicFan?
Sound is definitely not audiophile quality, but it's not bad, and it is pretty loud. @Ed- The battery lasts about 4 hours when is blasting music, but it's very dependent on volume. In the summer, I had it out in the woods. It was hooked up to 4 small solar panels, which kept up the majority of the time.
It would be fun to do something like this with one of the T-amps and a nice mp3 player. It might not have quite as much volume, but they are a lot more power efficient and only about $30 on ebay.
Yeh, that was sort of the thought that I was having with the TDA2009A chip amp that you can see elsewhere on the website. Are the T-amps bridge-able? I think the speakers could be improved greatly too, as they are not very efficient. Parts Express has a great selection that would work nicely.
hey can i get the dimensions for this? im building it i have particle board and everything and mines going to have a sub and amp in the middle but i was wondering if i could get some numbers
Definetely- Do you have google sketchup? Because I could just send you the sketchup model that I made if you like.
yeah i do my email is wesmcouch@gmail.com thanks man
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3796355&l=422d74d94a&id=782096802 im working on it im going to trim to those side boards because it is way to big, the box in the middle is where a 300w sub woofer is going to go, the amp for the sub is going to go on the right behind the right speaker. the battery on the left is a highend deep cycle marine battery to power everything.
@wes- Awesome! I'm really stoked that you are building one. I'm sorry I didn't email you the dimensions yet, I wasn't sure the file I found was absolutely correct, and didn't have time to check it out. I'll send you the files now, you can have a look and play around, but you might want to check that what is in the file makes sense!
You think you could send me the sketchup file as well? I was planning to build my own speakers but I had to put the project on hold for school but during Christmas break I'm thinking about starting.
@CFTC- sure thing, I'll send it right now. I should probably mention though- if your speakers are different from mine (which they probably are), the speaker enclosure's will be the wrong size, as a speaker needs to be housed in a particular volume that it was designed to work in. If you buy the speakers online, it might give you this value, or you might be able to figure it out using an online calculator. Using the correct volume will give you much better… volume. Why does that word have to mean two things?!
http://i34.tinypic.com/2nk7ur4.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/ketc12.jpgcheck it out. its still not done im gonna finish it so it looks good and do up the wires and stuff and have my buddy paint these tight designs on the front. tell me what you think
Nice work. You got that done really quickly! What sort of thing are you going to paint on the front?How are you planning on charging it? Are you just going to open up the lid, or is there a plug on the back or something?
Sam, this is a the only link I can find, I believe it may have been discontinued, and the bloke who was selling them on ebay has stopped. The pictures dont really do it justice, its about the same size as a medium shoe box, and the speaker grill comes off. http://www.superetrader.co.uk/kmate-music-fan-bluetooth-hifi-stereo-shelf-speaker-p-3019.htmlEd