Modern Music Box

Now that’s down right cool.

-- Backer boards, stop blocks, build oversized, and never buy a hand plane--

pretty awesome… i’ve been wanting to get something together for a little bit of music in my garage. How much did the electronics in this set you back if you don’t mind me asking?

Also, what size motherboard is that? it looks kinda small LOL.

-- San Diego, CA

I like it! Very cool project!

-- Ken, "Everyday above ground is a good day!"

Very nice…
It has a really cool retro look to it.
Great job.

-- If you want it and it's within reason... It's on it's way!

Is that an old Lilliput? If so, was it in your car before this? I have a few of them laying around from former installations in vehicles, but I’m not sure I kept the AC power supply. I think I just threw away that same mobo as well, ha!

Looks great! I’m especially impressed with the hand cutting.

quite impressive….thanks for sharing

Thanks everyone!

@interpim:
I haven’t actually added up the total cost explicitly for this project, but I think it’s somewhere around $700 if I were to buy all the parts for it (wood and other hardware included) The electronics and such is probably around $650. I used some spare parts for this, so I think the out of pocket cost at the time of building was only around $400. If I were to do it again, I might either skip the touch screen part and just do a regular screen with remote, or try to find a cheaper one (something like what HokieScott is asking about). The one I used was around $225 shipped (a bit expensive, but was exactly what I needed)

The motherboard is a Mini-ITX form factor. It’s 6.7”x6.7” in size. It has an integrated processor, similar to those found in netbooks. It’s very low power (the whole thing pulls about 27-30W when in use) so the 2 50mm fans in it are able to cool everything just fine.

@HokieScott:
It’s actually a Soundgraph brand FingerVU 700m (an OEM model). It’s powered from the motherboard’s power supply connection (it comes with an adapter) and plugs right into a motherboard USB header. As I mentioned above, it was $225 after shipping, so it wasn’t cheap. I looked at quite a few Lilliput screens, and almost went that route, until I found this one. If I do another one though, I’d probably look a lot harder at the lilliput screens, but the one I have was easy because it could get its power from inside the computer without a second adapter.

-- Mos - Twin Cities, MN -- Stanley #45 Evangelist - www.youtube.com/MosquitoMods

Awesome !! Nice work !!

-- Regards, Jeff

Very nice work. Good combination of electronics and woodworking (my job and my hobby)!!

-- Dan, Virginia Beach

It’s very cool… but for $700 you could buy an iPod and self contained powered speakers with a dock.

That said… you do have a computer there… no reason why you couldn’t also hook it up to the internet and get all the advantages that would offer in a shop.

-- http://woodwork.me

This is unusual and you really did a fine job on it.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com/

-- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau

Great job, yeah you could of bought a ipod and docking station. I have one, but that
just looks great!

-- Measure twice, cut once.

Thanks everyone.

I could have, since I already have a Zune and some speakers, just built something to hold that, but that’s not as much fun! I also have a file server that I store all of my music, backed up movies, and recorded TV shows on, so I can also stream that to this thing as well as internet radio/music streaming, or tutorial videos. I’ve been using it to listen to music as well as view plans for the project I’m working on that I made in sketchup, and of course keeping up with LJ’s :D

I know that the $700 price is a little steep, but that’s sort of the problem with being a consumer and not an OEM distributor… I don’t get the low ball prices that large companies like dell, apple, hp, etc all get on the hardware… But I’m sure if a manufacturer such as those made one of these, it’d probably be around $500-$600, and if it was Apple probably $800-$900 ( sorry couldn’t stop myself :P ) Not THAT far off of my price, and I had more fun making it than they would :)

-- Mos - Twin Cities, MN -- Stanley #45 Evangelist - www.youtube.com/MosquitoMods

Well said Mosquito ! It’s not always about the destination, half the fun is getting there ;-)

-- Regards, Jeff

I want a Music Box like this ,beautifull and delicate,really very nice ,thanks sharing

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