How do I make ipod speakers?

[pacislander007]

ok. so i'm new to this whole thing but i want to get into making homemade speaker stations and subwoofer stations for my ipod. well I hooked up a speaker to a headphone jack and put that onto a speaker and it worked but not as well as i wanted to.

i looked online and found that i need to buy an amplifier chip. I just bought the LM386. How would I go about setting up this speaker?

[Richard Ellis]

OK..Lets' figure some things out first. Let us help you to organize this.
First off...Do you intend to build this with some existing speakers you already have or will you be making speakers specific to this application.
If so, this will be a better path for you as some speakers will not be suitable for this project.
Assuming you will be making speakers, lets break this down. First off the project can be broken down into blocks, One: Amplifier. Two: Power Supply (assuming not portable), Three: speakers.
Since you are making speakers also we can integrate the amplifier into the speaker enclosures.
How big a speaker are you willing to make/have for this project? Very small speakers have troubles making great sound and consume greater amounts of amplifier power. The old adage bigger is better generally applies to speakers.
We will assume for now you will be OK with speakers not much higher than one foot high (12").
We can now integrate the amplifier and the power supply into one speaker.
My thought is two speakers 12" high by say ...seven inches wide, eight inches deep. A simple patch cord (From the Ipod) to one of these speakers..one cord going to the other identical speaker......a power cord from your "master" speaker..plugged into the wall, and an On/Off switch.
Does that sound OK for you?
This would be a rather straightforward build.I could gather any and all info and parts to make this work for you.
I would compile a list of things to get....The LM386 amp chip is a little low on power,but there are MANY ampchips to get this going. If you want to stay with the LM386...thats fine too...we can build it accordingly.
_________________________________________________R ick..........

[dangus]

Take a look at the class-d amps. You can get a module from eBay for under $20; just search on "TA2024". Power and sound quality is much better than the LM386. And, all you have to do is add a volume control (Radio Shack, or salvage one from something), and supply power... a laptop power supply that delivers around 12 volts at a few amps should do the job.

If you visit enough yard sales and thrift stores, you should run into a good deal on used speakers. Like the pair of Energy mini-monitors I got for $6. I thought that was a fluke, but recently I got a center channel speaker (also Energy) for $5.

[fishline]

Is that LM3886 instead of LM386? If so, I thought that has higher power rating than the Tripath TA2024 or even TA2020. The TA2022 would be higher power, but like the LM3886, it needs something more than a laptop power brick.

I built a pair of Zigmahornets with the FE103e drivers last Xmas (see my thread in the Full Range speakers forum), and recently had been using them with my iPod and a naked TA2020 board (naked because I have not put it in an enclosure yet). The board was bought on eBay for around $30 if memory serves. A finished amp with the same board goes for around $80 I believe. (Look for HLLY TAMP on ebay. There's a thread in the Class D forum on this amp as well.) The Zigmahornets are probably the easiest speakers to make, and being quite sensitive, can be powered by the Tripath amp quite well. You'll likely need a powered subwoofer though, if you want deep bass. Dayton ones on partsexpress are cost effective.

Last year there were Psclone PSP dock that were selling for under $30 (coseout) that has a tripath chip and two 3" drivers in one enclosure. That's probably the cheapest good sounding solution.

[pacislander007]

Richard thanks. here's the list of things I have.
x1 LM386
x1 TL082
x1 35mm headphone jack
soldering gun and solder
x1 8ohm 1.5W speaker about two inches
x1 6ohm speaker from pioneer [it doesn't say the voltage on it]

how would i go about putting this together?

[Minion]

Well yer gonna need at least 2 of each of those Parts , that is if you want stereo ... also you need 2 speakers of the same kind , 2 different Impedance and sencitivity speakers aren"t going to sound right , one will be louder than the other and sound different ......

You are also gonna need some resistors , capacitors and a piece of Proto, Vero ,or perf board to build the curcuit on ......

if you look in the LM386 Datasheet it will show a "Typical Application" curcuit , use that ..... You don"t even really need the TL082 as the Ipod output is allready low impedance and buffered and has it"s own Volume controll .....

If you are really new to electronics and cant decifer the Datasheet Schematic for the lm386 then I suggest that maybe you start out maybe building a Kit to wet your feet in DIY electronics and start reading books and looking at schematics till you can build a simple amp without needing a kit ....

Cheers

[infinia]

Hi
This will not be Hi-fi the only thing it's got going that it's simple and can be operated by a single 9V or set of 6 cell batteries. Build 2 for stereo Note batteries plus side thru a on/off switch and then to chips Vs connection the other side goes to ground.