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The project was termed as Mighty Minty Boost as it was developed to function as iPod/iPhone charger with solar power. Aside from being small, it has a large battery capacity of 3.7V at 2000mAh and it accepts input power from 3.7V to 7V. As shown in the images below, it can become a compact USB power supply when the solar cell is removed after charging. The Velcro is used to secure the Mighty Minty Boost inside a backpack or messenger bag after unplugging the solar cell. For faster charging, a larger solar cell can be attached to the bag. Enough power can be generated to fully charge an iPhone in about 5.5 hours and an iPod Touch in 4 hours using a slightly larger solar cell with 6V at 250mAh. The charger will automatically switch to trickle charging when the cell reaches full charge. The charging current is limited to 100mA when charging using the mini USB port and the charging is limited to 280mA when charging using the barrel plug jack . The materials needed to build the charger incl...

This high quality and low cost speaker was designed to be used for iPod or iPhone with the use of old car Hi-Fi speaker and some computer components. Other materials used are shown in the image below and they include an amplifier, 240V-12V power supply, tweeters, crossovers, sealed lead acid battery, MDF, filler, Apple universal dock & remote, glue, nails, and white gloss paint. The front baffle board was drawn on a piece of MDF in order to use it as a template to make the rear of the box. The dimensions of the box based on the speaker do not necessarily need to be exact because the speakers were quite old as it comes from an old Renault 19. From the photo of the round bits below, the trusty circular saw was used to cut loads of 1 inch by 15 cm strips of MDF. Between the front and rear baffle, the strips were glued and nailed. The baffles were cut out using a jigsaw and the strips were kept as close to each other as possible. The first coat of filler can take 3 batches to finish an...

I put this together a while back, but never got around to posting about it. There really wasn’t much to it, to be honest, but I’m going to stick it up here anyway, in the hope that it’s of use to someone. I really wanted to get a Telecaster and liked this kind of style, but also wanted to spend as little money as possible, while still getting a decent guitar. I found a guy on ebay selling solid alder “loaded” tele bodies pretty cheap (where “loaded” means, as you might have guessed, that it includes the pickups, pots, pick guard, etc). I really wanted to take this approach this time around because when I made a strat, I was surprised how much I ended up spending on all the bits and pieces. This way I’d be able to build a guitar by simply adding a neck and tuners. The loaded body: This is the neck I got. It was a returned neck and sold as a “second”. The only thing I could find wrong with it was a very small nick in one of the frets way up the fretboard (on the 19th fret or something,...

Before we start today's blog post, I think I really need to clarify what we’re discussing. I’ve recently got back into vinyl in a big way. Part of the reason for this is the fantastic “Vinyl Decision” in Taipei, run by a couple of very fine gentlemen by the names of Mark and Terry ( https://www.facebook.com/VinylDecision / http://www.vinyldecision.com/ ). If you're in Taipei, and like music, pay them a visit. A recent purchase from there brought back memories of trying again, and again (and again) to play guitar like my guitar heroes as a teenager in the 1980s. In fact, vinyl is making quite a comeback worldwide. A lot of people are realizing that digital versions just lack some of the personality that vinyl can provide. Many of them are buying old record players/turntables and wiring them up to their modern amps. However, they are often disappointed to find that the output audio is very quiet and lacking bass. This is because records are/were recorded using a very specific f...