project: personal
About project
A restored old desk with built in woofer, with amp and speaker
Step 1: Buying an old desk
I bought an old desk for about $10 and I wanted to restore it and make it look like new, with a new style, something like IKEA desks. I saw the potential in it and I started with...
Step 2: Pasting and sanding
As you can see, there was a lot of hard work. About 10-15 times pasting and sanding, and again and again...
I made my bathroom and whole apartment a mess, but it was worth it.
Step 3: Painting preparations and some sanding
After one month sanding finally it was time for paint.
As you can see it wasn't over that easily. After I painted the parts of the desk some minor bumps were poking my eyes, so I...
I decided to go with white, I wanted to make it look clean and esthetic, inspired from IKEA desks. I like white :)
Step 4: Subwoofer preparation
Then an idea came...
Why not make the cabinet into a subwoofer, together with an amp and have some speakers. And make all components that I enjoy into one multi functional desk. I hate cables and they being all over the place. This idea would make it easy for me to have a pleasant work station. And I said to my self: It would be really cool if I add a big volume control to the front of the cabinet. It will look awesome and unique!
So I both a sub.
I whent with a 10 inch HERTZ ES250, Power Handling - peak 500W, continuous program 250W, 4 Ohm
For the amplifier I used a german hi-level brand named Teufel from an home theater system Concept E Magnum Power Edition.
The bass refleks has a diameter of 7.8 millimeters and I needed to maкe it longer so I used a cylinder box of Pringles. Don't laugh it works ;)
I used software for calculating the sub box and length of the reflector called BassBox Pro. The graphic shows that with the woofer's technical specifications, the dimensions of the box, the position and size of the bass reflector it can drop down to a minimum of 27 Hz at 3 dB.
The speaker will be positioned pointing at the floor, at the bottom of the cabinet, together with the reflector. The amp will be mounted on the back so that it all looks clean and the main attraction on the front is the volume control, like it shows on the blueprint.
Step 5: Cutting and matching
In order to have the front of the speaker aligned with the surface at the bottom I needed to cut out one more panel that goes inside the box to hold the woofer.
For the feet I used the same used for furniture build attached with strong bolts.
Step 6: Details
I glue up the inner sides of the box with wool. It's effect is to make the box bigger for better and lower bass/sound.
A friend of mine helped me with connecting a potentiometer to the amp, after which the custom volume control is mounted on it.
I used a profesional CNC router to cut out from wood a perfect circle and a straight hole in it. As you may know the end of the potentiometer is a cylinder and at the very end it is cut almost in half, so that it has a grip and the controller can turn. So in the hole on the back of the controller I glued a small metal plate to resist when turning. I had an exact plan on the assembling and painting parts of the sub box.
And finally the subwoofer is done (almost)... the final layers of paint are still needed...
Step 7: The big finally
Finally it is done, it is finished and now I am enjoying the sound and vibrations.
As I mentioned I hate cables. Even having them on the back all mixed up annoys me. So I used covers to hide as much as I can. On the back I mounted an extender for electricity where I have connected my monitor, amp, laptop and now all that I have is one cable coming out of my desk.
Finally...
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