Concrete Bluetooth Speaker

Can you upload the file you've got so we can have a gander? I can get the original of course but I'd like to see what's dropped at your end.

Ah, I think I see the problem. You'll need an A3 printer to print even parts of the template at 1:1 scale. It's possible to slice and dice it but that gets tricky.

The JPG here is huge (1.5 metres wide by over half a meter tall!) but it's got the whole lot on so you can see how massive it is. The PDF shows a section printed within the usual margins of an A4 printer.

If your printer is scaling the images to fit, it won't work out - that's an easy gotcha.

@marcdraco 

Ok, that makes sense as to why my printer was formatted to fit the a4 printer that I have currently. 

Is there a way to wrap text on the image in Word onto multiple pages and drag the image until it is the right size? Or is that not possible?

Thanks Again

OK, there's one real offender here that simply won't fit to A4 no matter what. So I've chopped into two so you can print and align them. The others will need rotating but I think Word can do that.

Hi All, 

Slight change of topic, but it falls under this discussion title, so here it is: I have noticed that in most of Matt's speaker projects that involve batteries, he makes them removable to charge, rather than building in a charging port. Is there a reason behind this, other than that he prefers to operate that way, i.e. ground loop interference, or something electronic that I don't understand... Especially for the truly wireless speakers, it looks like you have to remove screws to charge the power cells. Along this line, on the concrete speaker, how do you charge the power cells? He swapped the usb ports for xt60 connectors, so does this mean that you have to use an xt60 adapter or hobby battery charger to charge them? 

Basically, I am just trying to gather information here for my own speaker project, where I hope to use aspects of Matt's designs as a starting point. Not that my result will come close to his, but my design goals are slightly different, so none of his speaker designs would work straight up:( .

So, to recap, I would like to know the pros and cons of making the power cells removable, and for the concrete speaker, how you charge through the xt60s.

Thanks for the input!

Safety I would imagine (although I haven't asked Matt).

LiPo batteries are infamous for autoignition. It's relatively easy to get a charger PCB from China and put a LiPo brick in there but if something goes south, the chances of serious injury or death from fire is a very real.

@marcdraco and if you ended up with a dud cell, I guess this approach would make it very easy to swap it out. Food for thought...

@marcdraco How do I print this thing? I know it is probably a genuinly stupid question. But I have at the moment for a very short time access to a plotter, and can therefor print full trye size. Issue is that even at 100% scaling, it comes out rathes small. 

Does it exist some Cad file for the parts that can be sent directly to a lazercurred or other cutting device? 

Sounds like there's something awry with the printing system. The original designs were intended for an A3 printer but I don't have the original design files and I don't know what @diyperks used for them. I don't have the time to make up an vector unfortunately, but that would be the way to do it. Serif's Affinity suit (has or had) a demo version but InkScape will do the job and it's free - just not as well designed so it's a bit harder to use.

You can load up the images to scale and make sure they are working at A3 and then ("simply") trace out the large parts using the Pen tool.

@marcdraco Thanks, I'll give it another go tomorrow on the plotter. Seeikng some workplace assistance. 

No worries. I wish I could be more help. To be honest I should have re-drawn them for a plotter the first time this came up but it never occurred to me.

Does anyone have detailed dimensios? Spoke on board here where I work, and was told I don't get true size because I am printing from 3D paint. My 8yo son saw this video, and promises were made from my side! 🙂 

The original drawings are scaled to A3. Apps might autoscale to fit, although they shouldn't.

If you look at the full drawing above you can see the one of the sections outlined on a 297 mm x 210 mm rectangle - and that's utterly dwarfed by the rest of it.

Can you tell us what software and hardware (i.e. printers) you have to hand and we can be more help.

According to the "expert" help I received on board.(I'm on a ship at the moment) They always use PDF files when printing. However we are unable to convert files to pdf. I'll play around a bit tonight and see what I manage. We have some HP printers as well that does A3. The plotter is a HP designjet T650. As for software we only have the normal stuff that you would find in  microsoft office.  

PDF files can (I emphasis *can*) contain images but bitmaps do take up a lot of room.

I have access to better software (on Linux and with a decent broadband) so I'll see if I can figure that out for you.

Would you look at that, service with a smile, this grumpy ol' *** is obviously in a decent mood today. I can be a bit spiky online but I keep it professional here.

Magic! Now for clarity these are the OUTLINES only (with the text). I've made the outlines a few pixels wide so your printer/plotter doesn't go ne're-do-lally-tap.

(Bonkers)

I've included the SVG I used to create these outlines to PDF at scale on A3 sheet. And even on A3 it's pretty tight.

I strongly suggest you refer to Matt's original drawings before you start cutting! He has used different colours from what I can tell.

At least you can keep your promise - we can't have you letting down the kids mate, I know that feeling!

Many thanks! That worked. Managed to print A3. Now let’s see if I can cut straight! 🙂 I will post a picture once completed. Many thanks again for the assistance! Travelling home on Wednesday so it will be a fun project for us. 

Happy to help and delighted you won't be breaking that promise. As as a dad myself to three grown up girls, I've been there myself...

And those little faces - it's like telling them Santa Claus isn't real!

Hi, 

Thought I add an update regarding the speaker. A lot to learn both for me and the kid! Thank you @marcdraco for the assistance! It is highly appreciated. 

First of all, for accuracy, the mould does indeed need to be cut by cnc router. And for that you need a drawing. I tried, but I am not sure how far we will get with the drawings we made. Nevertheless, my son have enjoyed the process so far and in this case that is whats important. Link to drawing if anyone is interested, and you are allowed to criticize, this is a learning event for us: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/8bd616f79410de87e6fcfae9/w/10c4838ce7bc091b4a1af5cb/e/54aedb6fc276c39919bee7fd?renderMode=0&uiState=67652b1f3e345546fbe185c6

Hey that's great news and the drawing looks spot on. I'm not familiar with that package but, as you said, you're both learning which is probably the most rewarding part of building stuff at home. Not to mention that special bond when you can create something with a child that they will remember their entire life. Such memories cannot be bought.

I look forward to seeing this progress!