Hey Trippy, can you tig weld? For thin material and best apperance, that would be ideal. However, we aren't building a car so we don't have to weld like structural considerations are paramount. In fact, I think a few strategically placed tack welds would suffice. First,t he chassis/cage should be welded or we can just secure with fasteners. However, small C,U or L pieces should ideally be tacked along the panels to make them more rigid and minimize bowing. Securing those with fasteners might not be as good. This would only be necessary if the material is thin. Not sure how thick it needs to be... maybe Joe is the best judge of that since he has the stuff in hand and can tell better than I.
Reli, design wise, although it would be nice if this has the sexy design of say a ferrari or lambo if this were a car, keep in mind that we are only talking about a handful of boxes here, not 50,000, so that's a reality and compromise that we have to consider. But as you say, in my mind, I dismissed the option of just a square rectangular flat box. However, a few raised areas and depressions I believe is all we need to add interest, and this can be doable. Also, lets not get too carried away design wise. Again, remember that we are only talking a handful of boxes and aren't mass producing. Anyhow, I don't want to go to the other site and introduce this idea there because then I would have to monitor both sites for reaction and I'm barely here now, lol. So we are limited to easy to obtain off the shelf parts. That strobe thing you want, remember that Sony probably had those drivers custom made. The more custom made stuff we add to this, the higher the cost. In fact, I'm going to say that by far, the highest costs for this project is going to be those things we have to professionally commission and it's just not practical cost wise to do it for a run of a dozen or two. A huge center sub might seem like a good idea but we would lose a lot of real estate in the center to place all the features we want. I don't want top controls. Due to the large size, front controls only, otherwise on the table, you might need a chair or ladder just to see the top of the box. Anyhow, maybe back or side subs (ala kaboom might be an option?). In other words, the effect without the visual feature.
Any artists here that can help with rendering a photoshop visual on what this might look like? I'm going to try to fit most of the display into a top tuner sized acrylic panel display, maybe about 24" x 4" or so. If someone knows how to etch a square line around the edge around 1/2" from edge of an acrylic window, this will light up nicely with side illumination. Maybe even add some lettering (the Boomboxery project?). Inside this window will be the digital tuner LCD display, spectrum analyzer, MP3 LCD, CD control LCD, and maybe along the bottom edge, a LED VU meter. Acrylic etching can be done with a hobby CNC laser engraving. The top 1/4th of the front can be raised proud by maybe 1/4". Maybe just the acrylic panel ala M9994? Then we need to reserve enough room in the center for the front loading CD player, controls, etc. Otherwise, design wise, the lower part of the center is open to suggestions. Once complete, all of the internals will be revealed so anyone else can duplicate this into their own cabinet. Well, to a point. I think I will have to rig up a custom power supply with various rails to accommodate all these modules with differing power requirements. This might be challenging since this could lead to ground loop noise issues. Also, until all these parts are integrated, there is no telling what the final S/N ratio is going to be. Since we aren't designing this from scratch, not for such a small run,and these "modules" are all going to be made in china, it's probably going to mean that there is going to be some less than perfect S/N issues. The only question is whether it's going to be something we can live with.
Reli, design wise, although it would be nice if this has the sexy design of say a ferrari or lambo if this were a car, keep in mind that we are only talking about a handful of boxes here, not 50,000, so that's a reality and compromise that we have to consider. But as you say, in my mind, I dismissed the option of just a square rectangular flat box. However, a few raised areas and depressions I believe is all we need to add interest, and this can be doable. Also, lets not get too carried away design wise. Again, remember that we are only talking a handful of boxes and aren't mass producing. Anyhow, I don't want to go to the other site and introduce this idea there because then I would have to monitor both sites for reaction and I'm barely here now, lol. So we are limited to easy to obtain off the shelf parts. That strobe thing you want, remember that Sony probably had those drivers custom made. The more custom made stuff we add to this, the higher the cost. In fact, I'm going to say that by far, the highest costs for this project is going to be those things we have to professionally commission and it's just not practical cost wise to do it for a run of a dozen or two. A huge center sub might seem like a good idea but we would lose a lot of real estate in the center to place all the features we want. I don't want top controls. Due to the large size, front controls only, otherwise on the table, you might need a chair or ladder just to see the top of the box. Anyhow, maybe back or side subs (ala kaboom might be an option?). In other words, the effect without the visual feature.
Any artists here that can help with rendering a photoshop visual on what this might look like? I'm going to try to fit most of the display into a top tuner sized acrylic panel display, maybe about 24" x 4" or so. If someone knows how to etch a square line around the edge around 1/2" from edge of an acrylic window, this will light up nicely with side illumination. Maybe even add some lettering (the Boomboxery project?). Inside this window will be the digital tuner LCD display, spectrum analyzer, MP3 LCD, CD control LCD, and maybe along the bottom edge, a LED VU meter. Acrylic etching can be done with a hobby CNC laser engraving. The top 1/4th of the front can be raised proud by maybe 1/4". Maybe just the acrylic panel ala M9994? Then we need to reserve enough room in the center for the front loading CD player, controls, etc. Otherwise, design wise, the lower part of the center is open to suggestions. Once complete, all of the internals will be revealed so anyone else can duplicate this into their own cabinet. Well, to a point. I think I will have to rig up a custom power supply with various rails to accommodate all these modules with differing power requirements. This might be challenging since this could lead to ground loop noise issues. Also, until all these parts are integrated, there is no telling what the final S/N ratio is going to be. Since we aren't designing this from scratch, not for such a small run,and these "modules" are all going to be made in china, it's probably going to mean that there is going to be some less than perfect S/N issues. The only question is whether it's going to be something we can live with.
