^{DIY Mike}

You probably have a pair of old speakers laying around but if you don't you can find them at garage sales and thrift shops on the cheap. The beauty of using computer speakers is that they already contain all the necessary parts (amp, drivers, volume control and on/off switch). You can make the enclosure as simple or complex as you want. I'm so happy with the way this project turned out that I've already started to make my next iPod dock. Stay tuned It's going to be  awesome.

Alright.......Let's get started!

1. Disassemble your computer speakers - Most of them have a couple of small screws holding the plastic enclosure together. Remove the screws holding the front and back together and open the case. Take pictures of the guts. These may come in handy later when your trying to figure out where everything goes.

2. Remove the drivers - Remove the retaining screws that hold the speakers in place and clip or unsolder the wire going to the drivers (leave some wire if you clip)

3.  Remove the Amp and circuit board - Carefully remove the amp. It may be hot glued or press fit in to the case. You may have to clip the wires coming through the case and once again leave some wire to work with.

4. Start laying out your new enclosure - Try to keep the internal volume of your iPod dock close to the size of your computer speakers. My dock ended being larger than the speakers I started with but it's close and I used some poly-fill (more on this later.)

5. Build your new dock eclosure - You can make your enclosure out of almost anything. I used a piece of glued knotty pine board I bought at Home Depot for a couple of reasons. I had it in the workshop already and it's easy to work with. You can buy a 1 x 12 x 36 (bench stock) for about $5. The best material for speaker building though is MDF. Cut your pieces on a table saw if you have one or use a circular saw using a board for a straight edge. The dimensions for my dock are as follows;

Front & back - approx. 11.25" wide by 6.5" tall
Top & bottom - approx. 4.75" by 11.25"
Left and Right sides - 4.5" by 5" trace these two pieces after putting together all four of the other pieces. The box will not be perfectly square and tracing will help.
Your dimensions will vary......Measure twice and cut once.

6. Cut the driver holes - Find the center of your two driver holes on the front piece and mark them using a pencil. If you plan on staining your box like I did, do not use pen. Measure the diameter of the driver holes from the old speakers and outline these on your front piece. Cut the holes using a scroll saw, jig saw or band saw.

7. Drill ports (opptional) - If your speakers were not ported, skip this step. I used a 5/8" drill bit and drilled two holes in the bottom piece. These holes fit two pieces if 1/2" copper tubing perfectly.

8. Assemble front, back, top and bottom - I used indoor/outdoor elmers wood glue and plenty of it. Place your glued box face down on a level surface, make sure all the pieces are lined up and put some weight on the whole assembly. I used a full 1 gallon paint can. Let this set overnight.

9. Trace your last two pieces - Using your four-sided box trace the left and right side pieces from the inside. Cut these pieces larger than your tracings a keep cutting or sand between dry fitting attempts until they fit snuggly in place. I installed the amp on the right side, so I went ahead and glued the left piece in place using some glued stop blocks on in the inside.

10. Round over all corners (cosmetic and optional) - Because the final piece (right side is inset we can round all corners now if you choose. I used a round-over bit in my table mounted router and rounded the whole box. Sand down to 400 when done.

11. Cut groove for iPod in top - I used my router with a round bullet bit and cut a deep groove in the top approx. 4.5" in length (perfect for iTouch or iPhone) Make yours whatever length you need. Then glue a small piece of wood on top to make an iPod rest 4.5" by 1" tall.

12. Stain or paint - I decided to stain the dock but I think my next dock will be made out of MDF and painted. I applied three coats of mahogany stain to the box and the outside of the right side piece. Follow the directions on the can. I used fine steel wool between each coat and made sure it was completely dry before applying the next coat. My stain called for eight hours of dry time between coats. Did I mention I'm painting my next dock?!?

13. Turn Legs - I decided to turn the legs for my dock on my Jet mini-lathe. For my dock legs were necessary because of my down firing ports. You could port yours out the back or if your original speakers didn't have ports you've got no worries here.

14. Mount the amp - I cut a groove on the inside of my right piece, drilled a hole for the volume potentiometer and hot-glued everything in place. The end result was a solid clean install. My speakers had the on/off switch combined with the volume so this was easy. You may need to drill and install an on/off switch in addition to the volume.

15. Wiring - Identify all necessary wires. Pull your driver wires through the holes in the front paying attention to left and right channels. My speakers came with a cable to be connected to a computer, so I cut the 3.5mm mini-plug off, drilled a hole in the back of my box and ran the wire from the amp out the back of my box (make a knot in the wire from inside the box) then I soldered on a new 3.5mm plug. Next a ran the power wire through a hole I drilled below the input cable and connected to the amp. My original speakers had an LED power indicator light. I relocated this to the bottom of my enclosure and connected to the circuit board with hook-up wire.

16. Install amp - Screw (preferred) or glue the right side/amp in place using stop blocks. If you glue make sure you test everything before final assembly.

17. Poly-fill - Stuff the entire enclosure with poly-fill. Don't pack it tight but lightly place fill on the inside of your box about 75% full. This will reduce standing waves inside your enclosure and and greatly improve the sound quality of your dock. You can remove this from an old pillow or buy it at a craft store. I get mine at  Acoustic Noise Control - Foam Baffles, Audio Sound Dampening, Acoustic Foam

18. Install drivers - Pre-drill the screw locations before install. Line the driver openings with some dum-dum or speaker mounting goop (critical if you are not porting your enclosure) and install them securely.

19. Listen - This is the best part. This dock sounds amazing and far exceeded my expectations. Installing the drivers in a decent enclosure made all the difference. The plastic boxes did these little drivers no justice at all.

Send me an email if you have any questions and thanks for watching.

If you haven't done so already check out my video for this project by clicking here.

The iPod dock I'm currently building is completely from scratch. This project will include a 10+10 watt stereo amplifier, a custom designed cross-over,  four hi-end drivers, and I'll install all this in a custom enclosure. Keep checking back for this project! It's going to be awesome.