A 3DPrinted Speaker Box

When we decided in our school tech club to pull all the components out of a desktop computer and mount them on the wall (post on that coming soon), we didn't really expect this to turn into a 3D Printing project. But without the computer case, turns out there are lots of parts which need a home - and a few custom things where 3D Printing came in handy.

The Problem

Besides the Power Button (which resulted in the Big Red Button) and the custom brackets to hold all the main components, it turned out we also had an orphan speaker which needed a home. Sure, we could have just hot-glued the speaker to the board - but #3DPrinting a custom solution seemed like much more fun. We decided to craft a 3D model of a small box to hold the little speaker.

The Model

The design is quite simple, and the main challenge was to line up the screw holes with those already on the speaker component itself. 

Once we got that done on the bottom part of the case, we replicated it to make the top and cut holes in the top to let the speaker sound come through. We also added a couple of mounting parts for screws modeled after those we used on the Big Red Button.

The Result

We're quite happy with this small part of our larger project. The slots which let the sound escape are little less clean looking than we had hoped, so next time (yeah, right, I'm sure we'll do this again) we'll likely make those a bit wider and do more cleanup on them. The screw holes took one iteration to get aligned right, but once they were aligned, they worked really well. The slot on the side to allow the wires to enter the box was a good plan and don't detract from the aesthetic of the box at all. The mounting brackets for the screws also worked well.

Custom Brackets - 3D printing is perfect for School Maker project

As part of our middle school tech club's "PC on the wall" project (which I'll describe in full in a future post very soon), we found a few opportunities for using 3D Printed custom parts. I've already posted about the on-off switch - which we aptly called the Big Red Button. This time, I'll share how we created custom brackets to hold most of the PC components to the wall board.

The Challenge

Once we had extracted all the main components from the PC case, it was obvious we needed some new method of holding these things against a board that would hang on the wall. We thought about creating straps out of canvas or even duct tape, or perhaps making custom wood brackets. But it struck us that 3D Printing might actually be the most efficient and flexible solution to this problem.

The Solution

Each component has different dimensions and weight. Besides holding the component to the wall, we also hoped to raise each component away from the wall board by just a little bit to help with cooling and perhaps leave room for some lighting for decoration. The brackets could follow a simple consistent design and just be measured to fit each component. We used our caliper to measure the height of each component away from the wall and that was pretty much all we needed to know. The width and length of the components didn't much impact the design, except in the case of the power supply - explained below.

The Design

Each bracket has a spacer for under the component and a screw hole to hold the bracket firmly in place. Then attached is a simple "L" shaped part which extends away from the wall board and over the top of the component by an inch or so.

The power supply needed a slightly different approach given it's weight and height away from the wall board. For that we designed something that looked more like a strap - a single part that started on one side, went over the top to extend the width, and ended on the other side - with screw holes on both sides. This worked really well.


The only other customization required was one bracket for the CD drive, which had a slightly uneven top height - we designed one of the brackets to specially fit into that spot. again, the customization worked like a charm.

Here's a quick view of 2 sizes of the simple design.

Here's a partial picture of the finished mounted components.

In an emergency, 3D Print a Big Red Button (then press it)

Working on a project with the middle school tech club - to take apart a computer and mount the working parts on the wall (more on this in a later post) - we decided we needed a Big Red Button to turn the computer on and off. The tiny switch that was on the front of the PC case was just not going to give the right appeal when hung on the wall with the rest of the guts of the computer.

I'm always looking for opportunities to design, model and print things on my 3D Printer - so I took this challenge and pursued the Big Red Button.

The Design

Inside the button, we just needed to have the original switch which the button would activate - but the design of the button could be pretty much anything we wanted. We decided on a simple Big Red Button in a yellow box.

I ended up with three components to this design so that it would print easily on the 3D Printer. This is often the main challenge with #3DPrinting - modeling things that will actually print reliably - so multi-part designs are often the way to go. In this case, the requirement for moving parts also made it likely that multiple parts would be the answer.

1 - The Button Box - a big yellow, hollow box with a hole at the top to hold the actual Red Button.

2 - The Button - a big Red semi-circle which would stick out the top of the button box and move freely up and down.

3 - The Button Base - a flat base around which the button box would sit, containing a mount for the spring, a mount for the switch and some parts which would keep the button in the position we desired.

Building it to work

We also obviously need the non 3D Printed parts - a big spring and the electronic switch. The switch was already present in the electronics of the PC, so we designed the button base to have a stand for that switch which held it firm against the big red button - just the right height to activate with a simple button press. We also decided to hold one side of the button more firmly in place (those two tall towers on the base) so that the button wouldn't wobble too much.

The button works quite well.
At the last minute, we also decided to mount an LED inside the box, so we did that after printing by drilling a tiny hole in the side of the box.

I could see printing lots of these.... for... well... something!
Got ideas? Put them in the comments!