Introduction: ICylinder
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This inctructable will show you how to make your own iCylinder. An iCylinder is pretty much an iHome,
without the fact that the iCylinder can't use a song to wake you up, or in my case, play radio and have an alarm clock. Because of budget, i could only get a basic digital clock, but you could use an alarm/clock/radio if you want to. Feel free to change things a bit to your liking, just make sure everything will work together. I take no responsibility for anything bad happening to your ipod/mp3 player. This project uses wall electricity, and you will be hacking an extension cord, so be carefull, and dont shock your friends for fun, as they will leave an never return. I take no responsibility for electric shock or fire, which can result in injury or death, so be careful. I'm not trying to discourage you, i just dont want to get sued in the unlikely occasion. if you are unsure of if your iCylinder is safe or not, ask someone who knows some stuff about electricity.
without the fact that the iCylinder can't use a song to wake you up, or in my case, play radio and have an alarm clock. Because of budget, i could only get a basic digital clock, but you could use an alarm/clock/radio if you want to. Feel free to change things a bit to your liking, just make sure everything will work together. I take no responsibility for anything bad happening to your ipod/mp3 player. This project uses wall electricity, and you will be hacking an extension cord, so be carefull, and dont shock your friends for fun, as they will leave an never return. I take no responsibility for electric shock or fire, which can result in injury or death, so be careful. I'm not trying to discourage you, i just dont want to get sued in the unlikely occasion. if you are unsure of if your iCylinder is safe or not, ask someone who knows some stuff about electricity.
Step 1: Materials
Look at the pictures and picture notes for all the matierials.
Step 2: Make Container
First you must hold the object behind the plastic and outline it with a sharpie. The dock adapter will go on top and back, the speaker in front of it, and the amplifiers volume controls to the side. the clock goes in the front, a slot for the lightswitch in the back, and a hole for the fan. Use the knife and small saw to cut out holes. Use the 1/4 inch file to file a slot for the extention cord. The case in the pictures looks pretty banged up because i had to try several times to get this project to work. Also you must saw off the center peg of the CD stack base as close to the bottom as you can get.
Step 3: Make Speaker
To make the speaker, place the main part on top of the screen and bend the corners over with needle nose pliers.
Step 4: Make Ipod Jack
To make the ipod jack, you must know how to wire it. If you are looking at the front of the ipod jack, pins 2 and 3 are audio output and pins 16 and 23 are power input, 15 being neutral and 23 being hot. The metal case on outside of jack is ground, make sure you have a wire coming from that too. Once you have those figured out, attatch the jack to the ipod through the dock adapter and hotglue it into place. Once it has cooled, remove the ipod and cover the bottom of the jack in electrical tape. An optional is to attatch the headphone cord to the audio output wires ont the jack, so your iCylinder can play any kind of music player.
Step 5: Setup Power Cable
In this step you will learn how to make the power cable. Take the power transformer that works with your amplifier and separate the two wires in three places, and tape the ends of area that is seperated so the whole thing doesn't split apart. Strip the two wires by pinching the ends of what is to be stripped off with the wire strippers, and use the pen knife to cut horizontally between the two pinched areas to get off the insulation without cutting the wire(that was hard to explain but i did as best as i could). This should look like the first picture. You need to have three sets of these strippings. Solder bits of electrical wire about 3 inches long to each wire on the three sets of strippings and cover the uninsulated wire with electrical tape to prevent short-circuit. The final power cable should look like the second picture.
Step 6: Attatch Fan, Voltage Regulator, and Amplifier to Power Cable
Title say it all, but make sure that the amplifier is installed closest to the transformer, the voltage regulator in the middle, and the fan on the end of the cabel. Make sure that you put the hot on the hot connections and the neutral and the neutral. to wire a voltage regultor, attach the input hot wire to the left pin, the input and output neutral to the middle pin, and the output hot to the right pin. The large hole on the top is what you use to attach the heat sink to the voltage regulator.
Step 7: Take a Break.
Get a drink, play ps2 and clear your mind for a while because your halfway there.
Step 8: Hack Extension Cord
This step can make your iCylinder a hazard, so follow it correctly. You have to hack an extension cord in this step. This may be old hat for most of you, and i don't want this project to sound like it's as ticking time bomb about to go off, but i don't want to get sued, so you continue at your own unlikely risk. Enough with all this safety, time to start making. Split the cord like in step 5 four inches from the end of the cord where the three little wall jacks are, and tape the non-split end of the cord so it looks like the first picture. Find and cut the middle of the hot wire and strip both ends, like in the second picture. Take the lightswitch and bend the two ends where the lightwitch would attatch to the wall and bend them down with the needle nose pliers. Attatch the lightswitch onto the two hot bolts like in the third picture. Finally, tape the outside of the black box with electrical tape to keep everyting else safe. make sure that the bolts are completely covered. The final product should like that in the fourth picture.
Step 9: Add Speaker and Ipod Jack to Case.
Simply hot glue the speaker and ipod jack into place.
Step 10: Put Power Transformer, Amplifier, Voltage Regulator, and Fan Into Case.
Solder the audio output wires onto the proper points on the amplifier, and the power input wires to voltage regulator, the hot to the right pin and and neutral to the middle pin. Solder the speaker wires onto the appropriate parts of the amplifier as well. This is a good point to test your iCylindr at, so try it out now. If it doesn't work right, check everything. If it works fine, then continue. Squeeze the fan through the hole it is for and hot glue it into place, and hot glue the amplifier to the case so the volume control is freely moveble through the hole you cut for it. All of the things you have in the case right now, and the clock which you will add later should be grounded togetherif they have ground. the ground on the ipod jack would be the metal outside of the jack.
Step 11: Add Main Power to ICylinder
Put the extension cord in and plug the power transformer into it. Poke the switch through the hole it is for in the back i and hotglue the switch into place.
Step 12: Add Clock to ICylinder
Hotglue the clock into its designated hole and plug it into the extention cord.
Step 13: Cram It Together
Cram everything in there and put the bottom of the case on, making sure the extention cord is in the designated slot you filed. Be sure to give the voltage regulator and heatsink some open area inside.
Step 14: Your Done!
Plug in your ipod, turn your new iCylinder on and listen to its great sound.