eva-01

I've finished the bass ports now and have been working on finalising the circuit board design and fitting the battery holder - i'm still unsure of the battery power regulator, but i have figured out the switches - i still have to order a few parts, namely the spring contact pins to charge the ux, extra switches, and some other bits and bobs - one last thing i need to find out is how many speakers to buy, since i will only be making 5 to begin with (one reserved for gman) i'm not sure if the buyers will want to buy the speakers themselves (especially if the live in the us as you can get them for half the price that i can - lucky bums )

But lets not get ahead of ourselves, i've got the casing almost finished, just need to round over the corners, and i may come up with problems with circuit board, the battery power and the mould and casting process... so there are still some major hurdles to overcome..... but it's nearly complete. Thank goodness for that, since i've already started planning my next two projects, one involves a psone, an lcd, a pair of speakers and a media card reader, and the other involves making a hd projector using a 7inch lcd, hundreds of led's and some mirrors and lenses.

Well enough of that, here are the pics of the bass ports, enjoy.







I should have another update over the weekend with the progress on the circuit board.....hopefully i will have it working...... ok maybe not just yet. Other work left to do includes internal acoustic damping, i'm thinking of using neoprene foam and cotton balls, a whole lot of ordering parts, and constructing the container to hold the moulding rubber so i can make plastic replicas of the casing..... phew

any suggestions, ideas, comment, criticisms, random talk is welcome

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

m0nkeyb0y

Keep up the good work

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gman

How are you doing Eva-01?

I'm glad to see that you're making extrodinary progress on the PRISM!

There's nothing more satisfying than seeing an ideal come to life through your own planning and hard work! I'm sure I speak for the majority of us when I say that your dedication and commitment to this project is truely appreciated!

Thank You for reserving one of the original five units for me although I do believe you will be asked to construct many more!

I'm looking forward to "blasting' my music using the Prism!

Do continue to keep us up-to-date on your progress!

G-Man

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Gary (G Man) Mathews

eva-01

Thanks gman, it's getting to the difficult bit now, i've been working over the weekend to solve some of the 'problems' i've been having. The biggest is the battery power regulator, it's not so much a problem, more of not being able to find the parts . Oh well, i did manage to get some usefull work done though, ive ordered the sping contact pins from the ONLY supplier in the UK i could find and the pins are not cheap... £2 each for a 1cm long 3mm diameter piece of metal and spring. I've also started making the rubber mould tub, its basically a triangular wooden box in which the PRISM casing will sit and rubber pured around it so i have a perfect rubber mould to make as many plastic replica's as i want .....

What else..... i've ordered some more drill bits, all the switches, the amps, the acoustic damping foam, magnetic tape (bet your wondering what that's for), usb ports...ect..., the only things left to order are the speakers but i'll do that as soon as the first plastic casing is made. Oh and i've sorted out the gain on the amp and limited it to 100 so you can use the full travel of the potentiometer. I should have the circuit board soldered up by midweek, i'm going to put the battery regulator on hold for a bit and get everything else sorted.
So things to do next week - finish PRISM casing, finish final circuit design and solder first test board(minus battery regulator), finish rubber casting tub.

So next week will be telling if i can have it finished by mid november or if it will be finished closer to the end of november

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

eva-01

A little update on the progress, well i've recieved all i've ordered apart from the contact pins, i'm still waiting on them, but in the mean time i have been working on several things - getting the circuit board done, figuring out how i will mount the mini usb and sony connector (more on the sony connector later), rounding over corners ect....
First i have 2 pics of the circuit board which is 70% done, i still have to wire in the switches and the inputs and outputs





Oh and the next pic is of the mould making tub, it still needs some work so that i use as little rubber as possible - more on rubber later



And finally, about that sony connector, well on monday i thought i would make a rubber mould of it, but it didn't work out so good, rubber is meant to set within 24 hrs but alas 4 days later it still hasn't set



It seems that i either didn't add enough catalyst or the rubber has gone off, either way i need to clean up the mess and get all that rubber out of the nooks and cranies and try again.... well i did say that i could run into some troubles.... hopefully they stay small scale
Well thats it for now, the new deadline is now pushed back to the end of november, not because i can't have it complete within a week, its just i've got other work to catch up with.

Oh well, its getting there.....

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

m0nkeyb0y

Don't forget your degree in the middle of all this will you?

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eva-01

Hi again, i've been working on that degree as monkeyboy pointed out but i have made significant progress on the PRISM - it's nearly ready...... but i have had to make 2 concessions:

1. I havn't been able to come up with a battery regulator, BUT its ok, it just means you must use 1.25V rechargeable batteries to get a total of about 5V - in practice you get slightly more ~5.3V but thats fine - using disposable batteries give a total of about 6V, in practice about 6.5V which i think is slightly too high for the UX and i don't want to try it on my UX to see if it can handle it so its better to be on the safe side

2. I would prefer to supply the PRISM without the speakers, particuarly if you live in america and there are 2 reasons for this;
1. Its cheaper for you to buy it from partsexpress.com seperately
2. Its cheaper for me to ship the item minus the speakers

I will include details on how to connect the speakers - it's simple and requires NO SOLDERING

I will post up some more pics by the end of today or tomorrow - including pics of the finished circuit board, the contact pins, the finished PRISM dock casing, the replica sony charger socket and the magnetic aluminium front grille (yes that's what the magnets were for)

The final thing i have to do is make the rubber mould of the PRISM and make the first plastic replica - i should have this done over the weekend

Overall i am very pleased with the look of the PRISM and how it functions

P.S. To gman, i think you will be the first to get your hands on one, it will be in a silver colour very similar to the UX and you should have it to you in time for Xmas, that is if your still interested

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

gman

What????

If I'm still interested? Are you kidding? I didn't leave any posts for you to respond to because I didn't want you to take time away from working on the Prism to answer them!

Yes, yes YES! I am interested... VERY INTERESTED! Please keep us posted on your progress and provide lots and lots of pictures! I'm looking forward to my Prism!

Keep up the terrific work! I'll close now so you can get back to the Prism!

Thanks Eva-01!

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Gary (G Man) Mathews

eva-01

Ha ha ha, ok so you still want one, well i've got quite a bit of work to do over the weekend to get this thing complete, i'll have some pics tomorrow, i'm tired of working on the PRISM

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

caseyatbt

Looking forward to the pics

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Currently own: PEG-UX50 For sale, PEG-UX40 For sale, PEG-TH55/E1For sale, Tapwave Zodiac 2 For sale(I have 2), Sprint HTC Touch Pro For sale, Palm Treo Pro

eva-01

Ok well i've had a long day and not accomplished as much as i had planned, any way here are the pictures i promised, firstly of the sony charging socket which i made a replica of by using rubber to make a mould of the original then making a plastic casting and heres the result, i'm happy with it, it took three moulds to get it right as the first didn't set:



thats the mould which i made using a bottle top because it was the perfect size to hold the socket



and here is the replica (transloucent yellow)with the sony connector plugged in, as well as the mini usb - a neat little trick to avoid drilling is to put the copper wires into the mould before pouring the plastic in so that the plastic sets and secures the wires in place

And on to the circuit board, well, it's not quite finished yet, i was going to solder the pot, the audio jack, the sony connector/mini usb, the charging pins and the master switch (ALL HAIL THE MASTER SWITCH) - i'll do that tomorrow - the first of december shall be known as soldering day ( i'm hungry and tired - can you tell )





And finally to the good stuff - the PRISM itself - which is what i have been spending most of today working on, in the following pics you'll see the dock with and without the aluminium grille and the charging pins. I've still got to drill out the hole for the filter switch and cut out the hole for the battery compartment on the bottom and cut the last 3 socket holes in the back - which i will do tonight
















And that's all the pics i have today, i'll be back tomorrow with more, hopefully with everything complete and ready for battery life tests - oh and on monday i will begin with making the rubber mould and turning out the first plastic PRISM in a nice silver colour - so expect to see pics of the finished article before the end of next week

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

eva-01

Today i managed to finish the circuit board, but i'll have pics up of it tomorrow, today i have the finished PRISM, i spent last night fitting the filter switch and the opening to the battery compartment on the bottom of the dock. Its resady for mould making which i will do on monday as i still have to finish the moulding box/jig. So expect to see a finished plastic PRISM on tuesday/wednesday

Well here are all the pics, enjoy, ill have more tomorrow:

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

eva-01

Well i should have posted this a few days ago but i had some trouble with the circuit board and getting it to work - after a lot of frustration i found out that i hadn't grounded some bits so it didn't work, but today i sorted that out and got it to work. and here are the pics.......(its a bit of a mess with all the wires)




And here it is working off the sony charger (oooooh the light)




And here it is working off battery power (the light it is sooo captivating )




And here is the mess it made of my desk




(there is a whole lot more mess spread evenly around the house )

well thats all i got today, i will have more pics tomorrow with the circuit fitted in the dock - i still have little bits and pieces to finish tomorrow, so i may have the first plastic PRISM done late tomorrow night, so i'll have pics on thursday

To gman:
I should have your dock ready by friday or saturday ready to ship, i just got to get it out before the 10th for the last christmas overseas post. I will talk to you more about the postage and the total cost and other bits tomorrow after i figure it all out - it should be about £12 for the dock WITHOUT the speakers and the shipping is about £8.

I'm sorry but i can't get the speakers to me before the postal deadline but to be honest you can get them for about $40 total with shipping to you from america at partsexpress and it will be very easy to fit it in. And buying them yourself saves you and me money as it would cost me the equivalent of $65 to buy them myself here in europe.

At parts express you can use either one of these two:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/psho...tnumber=264-805
OR
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/psho...tnumber=264-808

i like the first one

you can also find the second speaker at www.audiolabga.com but i don't know about their credibility as a retailer but they are slightly cheaper than partsexpress - heres the link

http://www.audiolabga.com/mal_cart/...l/W2-852SE.html

well get back to me and tell me what you think

__________________
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN. ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

gman

Hello Eva-01...

Thanks for keeping me in mind concerning your first shipment of The Prism!

I can't wait to get it! I have no problem purchasing the speakers for the unit myself as long as it isn't too difficult to install and connect the speakers! I'll most likely follow your recommendation and purchase the speakers you liked!

Let me know what the costs will be... in American dollars!

Thanks...

P.S - for some reason I am not able to see any of the pictures you have posted. has anyone else notified you about this?

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Gary (G Man) Mathews