Sunday, April 25, 2010

Cigar Box Megaphone Amp

So my latest diy project was to build another megaphone guitar amp, this time using a 10 watt megaphone that I picked up at Harbor Freight (they were on sale for $5.99 so I picked up two, one of which I trashed in a fit of impromptu circuit-bending... but that's another story). I decided to use an old square cigar box for the housing. Here's some pics of work in progress:

out of the box


Disassembled megaphone with cigar box.
Rather than using four "C" batteries for juice I attached a 9v power supply
.


tricked out box interior with center panel for holding the speaker


Front of box with pilot hole drilled for cutting circular opening for speaker.
I had to first replace the front panel (which was cracked) with a piece salvaged from another old cigar box.


Inside of box with attached speaker (which I spray painted black), battery, and 1/4" input jack. The back of the speaker is bolted to the center panel, with a piece of wire screening (also spray painted black) glued to the inside front panel. My original plan was to somehow mount the circuit boards with the on/off button and volume control so that they poked out either the top of the box, or the back - easier said than done...


finished box - front



finished box - back
I stuffed the circuit boards back into their original housing & cut a hole in the back of the box, then slathered with airplane glue to hold in place - not pretty, but it works (nice buzz from the glue, though).



input line on the right, output line on the left.
running a line out to another amp/speaker creates tons of fuzz and distortion



interior of finished box - battery is held in place with velcro so it doesn't rattle around.
side panel is secured in place with two screws.







1 comment:

mickeyj4j said...

hi man what does this sound like as a guitar amp. do you have any sound samples you can add.