Building a radio (Part 4) - loudspeaker mounting

Everything with the radio was going well. However the speakers were facing down onto the desk as there was nowhere to mount them (yet). I had a wooden box to set everything up but certainly not the skills to neatly cut the circular holes that would be needed.

But I have two other things: exact measurements that I could feed into a CAD program and a 3D printer. Oh yes, a 3D printer that will be the focus of many more articles in the future. Anyway, at the moment I needed a simple shape: a rectangle with the required holes for the speakers and holes for the bolts. With that, I cut just cut crude holes in the box in roughly the right place and stick the plastic panel over the top. The mounting holes could be replicated on the box which would handily mount the speakers to the plastic and the plastic to the box at the same time.

After a couple of attempts I had something workable. Luckily each print only took 2-3 hours and its mostly flat shape meant that revisions to the design were quick and easy. Once finished the speakers could be mounted to the plastic while I was still testing, then everything could be mounted in the box when I was ready for The Big Construction Moment.

I had to try the panel in the box for a quick test - it was too tempting - and everything did indeed fit together. I had to ‘persuade’ a couple of the bolts as they weren’t exactly in line but close enough for a bit of brute force and muttering. The biggest problem was that the nuts for the bolts were fiddly to install and kept falling out of my hands and onto the incredibly powerful magnets around the loudspeakers. There was much sighing and counting to ten but eventually everything fitted.

Now to dismantle it all again as I’ll need to worry about the control panel…

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See also:

• Building a radio (Part 6) - the whole shebang
• Building a radio (Part 5) - control panel
• Building a radio (Part 3) - noise reduction