Description

I’ve decided to downgrade v5 (Mr. Meeseeks) from a 14.2 system to a 10.0 system; primary reason being weight. Most of the materials will be recycled. Here are some initial pictures gearing up for the upcoming float season!

The idea is to have an octagon shape rather than a rectangle/square to more evenly project the sound volume. The eight speakers on the octagon will be 6.5” speakers powered by a 8 channel amplifier. There will also be two 6x9” speakers pointing down towards the raft powered by a two channel subwoofer amplifier in HPF mode.

Photos

First mock octagon shape, 1ft tall with 3/4” finger/box joints made with table saw dado blade and cross-cut sled

Close up of finger/box joints

The bottom with 6x9 holes cut, ripped 2x4s to keep plywood straight and to secure the eight sides

The eight sides lined up

To prevent shared airspace for the 8 6.5” speakers, found some plastic containers at the dollar store that have tabs/handles to be able to screw and silicone them down

The octopus screwed together, awaiting brackets and wood filler

Close up of inside before 135 degree brackets

After the installation of the 135 degree brackets for stability

The lid losely placed on top, the strap in the background was used when securing the brackets to make sure the lid will fit inside the octagon properly. I haven’t decieded if I will entirely enclose the amplifiers or have a removeable opening on top; keep posted!

Here are the finger/box joints, worst and best before placing any wood filler in the cracks

The wood filler was made from the plywood’s sawdust generated from sanding the corners with a belt sander. Super simple reciepe, sawdust + wood glue = ridiculously strong wood filler/paste

Wood filler just applied and still wet

After filler application this is the worst joint from the photo above, turned out pretty good for how bad it was before

Another photo of a joint after filler

Amplifier shelf in loosely in place, left is an 8-channel amplifier for the 6.5” speakers and the right is a 2-channel for the 6x9” speakers

Amps mounted to have enough room for 6x9” speakers, on middle shelf

Plastic containers found at the dollar store installed, they have nice tabs for a screw location

Amplifier shelf with speaker air containers in place, fuse block moved to its final location

And from the other side

A notch is cut in the amplifier shelf to allow the fans to be recessed

Speakers wired up for initial testing, all different length speaker wire cables

Lid installed with fan holes, only slightly misaligned, will be mitigated with some fancy screw work + wood filler

Fans loosely in place with lid

Lid and speaker hole view

Plastic lid with fan holes, 3 switches, and volt meter for battery charge state

Volt meter on top, one switch for fans, one for 6x9” amplifier, and one for 6.5” amplifier + WIFI audio receiver

Rear of lid with all components installed

Rear of plastic lid with wood lid placed on top

Lid wired up

Close up of wiring, all joints are soldered to the switches

Fuse block close up, input power is provided by the white cable going through the bottom where the batteries will be located

Speakers installed doing some initial testing to ensure functionality/tuning before putting on the wood lid

Speaker air separator containers caulked to prevent any air seeping through the joints

Close up of very poor caulking job :)

All the wiring cleaned up, the WIFI audio receiver is the black box on the left

Wiring cleaned up on other side + connector for removable plastic lid

Input to 8-channel amplifier with output going to 2-channel amplifier

Wood and plastic lids placed loosely on top of octopus

Plastic lid removed to see inside the box to be able to adjust amplifier tuning and mess with other internal things

Lid with wood blocks screwed on for strongly securing the lid

Lid secured with wood filler in the small cracks, prepping for paint

Final plastic lid location

I think I am going to float it in a basic round tube with batteries sitting underneath. Depending on buoyancy I may use larger rectangle one intended for a large cooler

Battery and speaker box holder that will fit inside the tube

I’ll cut down the height to minimum to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, notice batteries below the box

First few coats of paint will be truck bed liner for protection. Then some basic latex house paint for some color. I was thinking paint it like an octopus but they change colors! Who knew. Watch this crazy video if interested in that subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcsb8RMmHRg]

Top painted hanging from overhead garage wood beam

All the sides painted

Bottom painted as well

After the truck bed liner I’ve used a few coats of red latex house paint. Not quite finished yet but 15-20 coats total to get the box very smooth with 220 grit sanding between every 1-3 coats.

I’ve also epoxied neodymium magnets to the bottom of the plastic lid for two purposes: 1) hold the lid onto the box (with some studs on the box for positioning and 2) to hold the WIFI antenna receiver for AirPlay/DNLA to the lid.

First few coats of candy apple red

Neodymium magnets epoxied for the antenna

Antenna holding itself to the lid via magnets

Router and router bit used to cut circular holes in bottom of lid for securing 1/2” magnets, will place a metal strip on the box to hold it down

All 14 holes routered for neodymium magnets to be epoxied

All 14 magnets epoxied in the holes

Magnets glued down and metal bars used to recess into hole

Almost finished! Still waiting on the paint to dry because there was an issue with “blocking” because I painted it without letting the coats fully dry so the paint is still tacky. Need to rebuild the PVC holder you see below because the post locations didn’t work out with 6x9’s spacing on the bottom. Need 4-way PVC joints instead of the 3-way (special order from Amazon)

Ripped apart an old pillow for stuffing the speaker holes for the 6.5 and 6x9 speakers

Speaker filling stuffed into hole with wire ready to solder to the speaker

All the 6.5” speakers installed

Preliminary battery/speaker box holder, this is going to change to a 4-way pipe system because the mounts didn’t quite work out with the 6x9” speakers on the bottom

There will be 4 posts to hold the speaker box over the raft/batteries, likely only one battery will be needed for the entire float but the second is for backup and weight distribution