want to mod my external speakers, don't know how

Hi!!!

Ok, so for no good reason at all, I got these silly speakers:



Today, they arrived, and they sound absolutely horrible. It's not easy to describe how bad they sound. So I opened them up, and if you look at the attached image, you'll see why.

So since I already wasted over $40, most of it on shipping these silly things here from the UK, I want to spend some more money to make them functional. Cause I can use speakers. How do I do it?

In 2 weeks, I'll be visiting my uncle (out of state) who knows enough about electricity to install an electric wall outlet, which he says is nothing but to me sounds like a lot, so my plan is to have him, er, help me out. Unless it's something simple one would have to be a fool to mess up. But I'll need to have all the supplies ready because I'll only be there for about a day. So what do I need to get?

I obviously need new speaker cones (that currently look flat like pancakes). Can I buy them separately somewhere, or do I need to buy and disassemble a whole speaker set again? Any recommendations on what I should look for? I suppose I'll also need a hot glue gun (unless it turns out that my uncle has one) and those things are a bit expensive, so is there any other way I can attach the new speaker cones to the plastic? Also, do I need some kind of welding thing to attach the wires to the new cones, or are the cones attached to the red thing that's somehow removable? (I don't want to experiment too much and break them.) Do I need anything else?

Btw, the speakers are battery-powered, which is why there's a wire going to the computery thing on the left pig, and the computery thing is attached to the tail which is used to control the volume. But I don't think I need to touch any of that, and just re-attaching the 2 wires going to each cone will do the trick.

Malia

 

wow.....those are......nvm...

you can buy just the cones ( I have a fry's near me and they sell em) but I guess it depends on the stores around. If they're battery powered....you're not going to have much power to get really great speakers; you'll have to limit yourself to ones that have specs that CAN be run by batteries. I don't know where to find those specs, perhaps your personal electrician can help you out.

EDIT: those are 8ohm.....5 (that's .5 judging by the picture....) watt speakers (I just looked at the pictures) Good luck matching that....Remember Voltage (volts on the power source)=Current (amps) x Resistance (ohms)

 

It would probably be better to sell these speakers and get a new pair of laptop speakers.

That would probably work out cheaper. You'd be wasting your time and effort repairing those speakers in my opinion.

 

Car speakers? Pimp my piggy? Sorry couldn't resist... and car speakers wouldn't work.

 

what you could do is buy higher end external computer speakers (ones that some with a sub and a couple satellites), take the speakers out of those and put them in the pigs. you also want to create an airtight "box" for the speakers (it will enhance the sound, you have to decide if the work is up to you) by enclosing them; i.e., a box-in-a-box design (a box inside of the pigs).

that would probably be the easiest (although not the cheapest route).

you could also try to find speakers at a shop, and replace the ones you have, but you have to make sure you do the math right (ohms) for the load on the speakers (this may be irrelevant, i'm going off my knowledge of car audio systems).

all in all, if you're willing to spend money, it should actually be a really easy mod.

good luck.

if you do it, please post pics.

EDIT: to summarize, buy good external speakers and simplay replace the "shell" of the ones you buy with the "shell" of the pigs. you will be ditching the battery power and everything. you do'nt wnat battery powreed speakers anyway.

 

LOL Malia, those things are amazingly cute

But they are not really good speakers, probrably equal to the $5 default generic speakers. If you are up to it, you can buy decent 2.1 speakers, remove the insides and gut them in the piggies

 

The red thing is part of the speaker itself. If you have a soldering iron (the 'welding thing' you mentioned, ~$15 at Radio Shack), you can de-solder the wires from the speakers there. Be very careful with the wires, as they look pretty tiny. I've broken wires that small before, and it's a pain in the rear to fix (had to add an external antenna to my mp3 transmitter since it didn't transmit for crap). You should also be able to get new speakers from Radio Shack, near the same size. It looks like those speakers take 0.5 watts (W) at an 8Ohm impedance (the omega character). You need to make sure that any replacement speakers are at least 4 ohm, and can handle 0.5 - 1W. You won't find many "good" speakers in that range, but you may. Basically, make sure the Watts * Ohms = ~4 in any new speakers you get. Also, the wire with the stripe on it should go to the negative terminal of any speaker you get (there's usually a - on one, and a + on the other).

 

I vote for gutting another cheap pair of 2.0 speakers, probably something about the same size given the limited space within the piggies, and putting it into the piggy enclosures. this shouldn't be too hard, just a matter of transferring and creative hot gluing.

btw, hot glue guns are cheap. i got one for 1.99 at wal mart and it works just fine. the glue sticks will probably end up being more expensive.

Also, i got a cheap soldering iron at wal mart for like $6 at most maybe.

 

Problem is that it's not really a vote. If the cheap 2.0 speakers handle/use 15W at 4ohms, they just won't make any sound with her current setup. She MAY be able to transfer ALL the electronics from the 2.0 speakers to the pigs, but that's iffy depending on the size of the setup inside the 2.0 speakers, how much she can cram into the pigs, etc.

I did get my minor in engineering for a reason

 

well that was my suggestion, to gut the entirety of the piggies and replace them with the externals. the trick would be, as you said, to get the entirety of the internals in there. so you'd have to get similar sized speakers, though i have found that most of those cheap speakers are empty space when you open them up.

 

exactly.

this is a really easy mod.

the only negative is ripping apart a good pair of speakers.

all she has to do is swap the new speakers outer casing with the pigs.

super easy.

i say do it !!!!!

 

BACON! BACON! BACON!




I mean, MOD IT! MOD IT! MOD IT!

 

what if you modded a coffee mug? sorry, this is a random thought i just had staring at my coffee. but how good would ceramic be for a speaker enclosure?...

 

Not bad if you make sure it's rubber-mounted to the surface it'd be sitting on. The problem comes if you try to drill any holes in the ceramic. Tends to be quite brittle

 

well i was thining put it on the opening and then seal it with something. i could always get a ceramic drill bit i might try this in my spare time... or keep talking about it until someone else does it.

 

Wow, all this information! I think I'd rather gut another pair of speakers, because I'm not even good at the meditation "ohm", and the electrical "ohm" seems a few levels above that one. I'll be taking Physics this fall for the first time in my life though, so maybe I'll learn a few things then.

I spent the last hour and a half looking for the right victim and I haven't gotten anywhere, so I've decided to go with Creative SBS Vivid 60. I saw them in store a year ago and I remembered that the drivers looked very small. It seems like they may be 1.25" but I am not sure since nobody publishes driver sizes unless they're something to brag about. Point is, it's under 2", which is the biggest driver diameter I can use if I want to build a box. I think I'll get them tomorrow from a local store (while I order it from Amazon for less to return to the said store). I'll also need to obtain a glue gun, and I'll be ready to start crackin'!

Any ideas of what to make the plastic box out of? If all else fails, I can borrow a saw from my uncle when I visit him and try to make it out of wood, but eh, I'd rather do something less dangerous. Does this box need to be a certain shape, like round or square, and does size make a difference? Cause there's a lot of room in the back..

Malia

 

nah, no real size requirement. the idea is to create a enclosure for the speaker so that it sounds better. you don't even have to build an actual box, if you maybe just stuff something in there that can absorb the vibrations. i'm only suggesting the "box" idea because those plastic pigs don't look like the ideal enclosure for speakers.

so, i would say either...

1. do the box thing with any kind of sturdy-ish material... even really thin particle board or cardboard.

2. don't do the box thing, but just line the inside of the pigs with something like a couple layers of felt (this is probably the easiest, cheapest, and will get you the same results)

don't forget to take pics during the process and post them

 

also quilt filling/pillow stuffing which should be available at any michaels or craft ish store could work, they use that for subwoofer boxes in cars to change the bass.

you could try cotton balls...


Edit: ooo you could try styrofoam cups

 

I'm "working on it" and waiting for something to happen which I didn't think of before.. arrg! Hopefully I'll be able to do it tonight and post results tomorrow. In the meantime.

On the new set of speakers that's going into the pigs, there's a light that turns on when the speakers are on. I don't want my pig's butt to light up, so I want to get rid of it. I can wrap it in something that the light won't be able to penetrate, and the energy that it takes up doesn't matter since it's on AC power anyway. But I was thinking, can I just clip it off? There are 2 wires going to it. I can't see right now where they are coming from, but 1 of them is insulated and the other one isn't. So, (a) would clipping it off and having the wires hanging mess up anything, and (b) if not, should I clip just one cord or both?

Malia

 

with this whole idea of "modding" the speakers. It may be fun but is it worthwhile. I thought companies invested a lot into research, analysing how sound waves leave the casing of the speakers, and how the casing may affect the sound quality.

Anyway, sorry to go off topic there.

Hmm...I don't see any harm in leaving the light Malia. Just put a tiny piece of newpaper around the tiny light and wrap arund a little tape. There is a risk of a small electric shock if you do mess about with the wires. It isn't recommened.

 

if you line the speakers with felt or something similar (which you really really should do), i think the light won't leak out. the only concern i would have is if it's part of a circuit and breaking the circuit would render a/both speaker(s) inoperable. if you can leave it, i'd say leave it.

remember, you def need to pack the pigs with something otherwise you won't get the best sound from them.

 

I'm still dismantling the "good" speakers, but I'm almost done. I tried turning them on in their current state, which is, the drivers are free and the only part still attached is the volume & light, and they sound just as good as they did right out of the box.

So I don't think they'll sound any differently, at least to my untrained ear, but I'll line them with faux fur anyway, just in case. I have a lot of faux fur, it's really long and fluffy one one side and looks like fabric on the other, so it'll work even better than felt. Of course, the "wrong", non-furry side will be facing the insides of the speakers to make sure that the fur doesn't interfere with whatever's going on in there.

I probably won't finish tonight, because the Radio Shack next door closed before 7 though they're supposed to be open till 8, and I need electrical tape to replace some of what's peeling off. I can go to Home Depot in Manhattan, but I don't really feel like spending 45 mins on the train each way. But, it'll be done sooner than later.

Malia

Edit: Arrg! I'm ready to put everything together, but I don't have insulation tape! Darn Radio Shack, now I have to wait till tomorrow!

 

I've run into a bit of a problem. The slave speaker sounds very, very quiet - I can barely tell it's on if I don't hold it up to my ear. I think that's because it's not getting enough power. I think it's caused by me accidentally melting the wire that goes from the master speaker to the slave speaker and carries in it the sound and the power.

I took a photo but you can't really tell what's going on. However, I can clearly see a bunch of teeny tiny copper wires, most of them kind of by themselves, but some are inside this yellow wire that's inside the white wire. The yellow wire is melted, and it's one of the two wires that eventually connect to the slave driver, so if it's the one carrying the power, then that's what's up. The question is, how do I fix it?

Do I... Cut the wire completely, cut out the melted spot, and wrap the black and the yellow wires each in insulation tape? But what about all the copper wires that don't look like they're inside the yellow wire? I'm so close to being done!!

Malia

 

if thats just a power cord....cut....strip....reattach....and buy some shrink tubing.

 

That cord has 2 wires in it - one that carries power and one that carries sound. Does that make a difference?

How do I reattach? Put one end on top of another end and use some solder to stick them together?

Do I really need heat shrink tubing (since I don't have anything to nicely heat it with), or will simple insulation tape do? This part is inside the piggie, so it won't be touching things on the outside that will try to peel it off, so I don't have to worry about it getting messed up.

Malia

 

yeah just cut the wires, then strip the respective ends and coat both ends of the wire that you're going to connect with solder, touch them together, solder, and cover with electrical tape. should do the trick. can't wait to see how they turn out

 

how come it's in a knot?

yeah, electrical tape will be ok

did you solve the problem?

 

Uh oh I did something wrong, and now the "slave" piggie doesn't make any sound at all. This solder stuff conducts electricity, right? It's RadioShack High-Tech Silver-Bearing Solder. 'Cause each part (the part inside the yellow wire vs the part outside the yellow wire but still inside the white wire) has a million tiny copper wires inside, so I soldered them all together on each side, and then soldered the 2 sides together - but most of the wires aren't actually touching each other... What do I do now? :\

Malia

 

Yes, solder is conductive. That's the point of it. Make sure that the two sides aren't shorting out on each other. The wires need to be electrically separated along their whole length. Melting the casing could cause contact and cause a problem. You could also have overheated a component with the soldering iron and blown it. Doubtful, but you have to be careful when soldering on a PCB (the little circuit board). I can't see exactly what you mean by the yellow wire inside the white wire? It's like, the yellow wire is insulated by itself inside the white wire, but still some other copper strands outside the yellow jacket, but inside the white? sounds like cheap wire. You may need to go get some very small gauge speaker wire from Radio Shack (they should sell you a short length of it) and just replace that "coaxial" wire with it. I'd offer to do it for you, but I don't think it's worth you shipping the speakers to Colorado and back

 

yea, the sound carrying wire probablly got messed up. Better than just going to radio shack...take the speakers to them. say , "I need to replace this wire" and once they stop laughing at the piggy speakers, they'll probablly help you out.

 

OMGWTFBBQ speakers!111!111!!!!!!!!1!!!

 

Well, I took it to RadioShack, and the point when they stopped laughing never came. The solutions offered were (a) throwing the piggies in the trash and (b) getting new speakers that are on sale for only $15. So I left. And went home.

Proceeded to desolder the wire from the circuit board so I can resolder the wire that came with the "bad" set of speakers, since it was still lying in my trash. But it looked really bulky so I went back to RadioShack to try to get a wire and they didn't have anything that was good, so the best available scenario seemed like getting a headset for $10 and chopping off everything, leaving only the wire. ****, another $10! This was getting expensive. I figured, I'll go home and try the ugly wire, and if it works, then replace it with the Skype headset.

So I went home and hit myself in the head. Duh, instead of trying to fix the wire, why not just cut off the whole end until after it's not melted, de-solder the remains from the driver, and re-solder the fresh unmelted ones? So I did, resoldered the other end back to the circuit board, and it worked. Hooray!

Malia

 

Well...feel free to send mean and nasty letters to radio shack. My radio shack people are nicer. They'd still laugh, but they would at least stop! 8). Glad it worked. Glad you have.....piggy speakers that have some bump!....next project....make them dance....

 

Remember, pictures!