Gadgetory

hello and welcome to see nets to fix the show about do-it-yourself tech and how to's I'm Donnell Bell and I'm Eric Franklin and we've got some great do-it-yourself projects ahead there are a lot of fun and sometimes they're the best way to make the most out of your tech definitely if you're looking for an original way to share your favorite music this may be the way to go there are a lot of portable boom boxes out there but I guarantee you the best sounding one is the one you make yourself I'm going to show you how to make your own self-contained boombox that's unlike anything you can go out and buy now let's go over the parts you're gonna need for this first up you're gonna need the X mini happy speaker this is a critical item and it's probably the most expensive item in this whole thing around sixteen seventeen bucks has a built-in speaker and a built-in mp3 player it's called the world's smallest boombox we're gonna make it bigger next you're gonna need is a basic craft box this is gonna hold everything together the speaker the mp3 player everything's gonna go in here this is gonna be your boombox you're also gonna want a four ohm speaker probably overkill bigger than we need but why not it's a boom box now for the rest of the stuff you're gonna want a momentary switch some odds and ends some bolts some solder some wire some tools we're gonna cover that when we get to it for now let's open the X Mini up and see what's under the hood alright here is the speaker itself we're gonna actually take this speaker off we're going to replace this speaker with our big one this is the guts this is the brains of the whole boombox here we've got an mp3 player that reads off of this SD card we've got a little control here for play pause and power and then we've got a recharging port on the side here and the little battery this is all we need to make our boombox creation all right so here's our in car replacement speaker eight bucks steel this thing can handle 50 watts I think our mp3 player spits out about two watts of sound we're going to put the speaker facedown on our box safety first we're all drilled out we have a few more holes to drill ones going to be on the side and that's going to be for our power play pause button the other is going to be on the back and that's going to be for our charging cable for our next step we're going to mount the speaker in the hole and then we're going to solder the connections from the back of the speaker to the X mini you should have read on positive black on negative and you got it and then go red wire red wire here on the X mini and black wire is going to go where that green wire is connected to the negative all right trying to flip it back over and wire up our momentary switch to these two little contact pads that will control play/pause and power I should do it let's hot glue the circuit board into the box all right now you can temporarily seal it up a little dab of glue so there you go now you've got your own self-contained rechargeable mini boombox you can just load it up with your favorite tunes and give it as a gift or just save it for yourself all in all the whole thing cost me just about $60 there you go rock out excellent job on that dude I like making a mess yeah make a mess of that one though but you did a really good job thank you all right it's time for a quick break and when we come back we've got some clever and easy ways to hide those ugly power cords welcome back understand you're not really into ugly power cords no I mean is anyone really into awkward dangling from the knife to the power cord is like audio cables hose HDMI cables yeah a ton any form of cable dangling from my appliances I hate them yeah without reason fortunately we have a clever way to hide those power cords hiding your cables isn't always an option but if you're willing to get a little crafty there's an easy way you can camouflage them with just a couple of supplies you can turn any power cord HDMI cable or ethernet cord into what looks like a house plant for this project you'll need stem tape or florist tape which you can find at a local craft store you'll need artificial vine in the length of the cord that you want to cover I'm going to cover this power cord and it's about four feet long so I don't expect this project to take any more than about 15 minutes when you're covering this cable only cover the parts of the core that are actually exposed because if one end is in a media console or directly behind your TV it can create a fire hazard it's best to work with the tape in one foot long pieces so that things don't get all tangled up only part of this cord is exposed so I'm starting down here and just make your way down the cord wrapping it really tightly as you go down use one hand to wrap and the other hand to really make sure that that's done tape is adhering really well to the cord so just keep going all the way down pressing down with one hand and wrapping with the other we're giving this cord a nice green base that it blends nicely with the artificial vine tada we are done see that wasn't too hard and that was the hardest part now comes the fun part we get to turn this into what looks like a vine I'll start it down here I'm using the same tape adhere the vine to the cord and keep attaching the vine to the court about every five or six inches to make sure it really looks like it's a part of the court looking good all right we're done wrapping the cord and I do have a little bit left over so luckily it's made out of plastic I can just rip it off use it for something else and now check it out our cord looks a lot more visually appealing than as it before so plug it in and there you go the power cord is now a vine plus if you want to make it look a little fuller and cover that cord even more just double up on the vine that was really cool definitely better than using like a random binder clip or some other random tools and rubberband this time twist is someone who's run cables through my wall before in order to disguise them I can tell you that route is nothing but pain yeah I feel you a lot of times yeah back to the binder clip though there are actually some clever uses for binder clip specially for using like the tech gadgets true I am a big fan of the binder clip and it comes up in our next DIY segment dan Graziano is going to show us how to make his own smart phone stands there are cases and stands out there that can prop up your phones but if you're on the go or just want to save some money you can actually create your own the best part about this is that we will be using items you can find around your house or the office for the first one you will need a paper clip and a pair of pliers start by straightening out the paper clip and place your finger in the center of the band and then bend the band around your finger at the bottom bend up to little feet make sure to bend it forward a bit to keep the phone balanced all you have to do now is spread out the legs about 45 degrees and place your phone in pretty simple but if you are nervous about scratching your device you may want to try the second stand this one is even easier all you need are two binder clips a larger one and a smaller one on the small clip clap the two arms together and then while holding them bend the body upwards then insert the arms halfway into the mouth of the larger clip then just place your phone in and begin watching your favorite movie the reason I like this stand is because you can use it with either your phone and landscape or portrait for the last stand all you need is a small paper cup and a pair of scissors or a box cutter I will be using this four inch special CNET Edition Cup to start cut two lines across from each other down about an inch from the bottom of the cup when connecting the two lines cut a curved line this will help your phone stay in place you can also cut a small hole in the back and run a charger through it these are only some of the ways that you can make your own smart phone stand but really with a little creativity you can use just about anything that's it for this week's show we hope you enjoyed these projects and maybe got inspired to make something of your own I was inspired good yeah are you gonna make I don't know I hope did you just have the inspiration when you find out email us at the fix at cnet.com or you can tweet us i'm at donald and i've at need opel we'll see you next time right here on the fix