Kwltop, the 2nd Generation

The quick project for today, an addition to the Kewlers product range.

Toshiba L300

Some months ago, I got a couple of broken laptops from a colleaque and eventually managed to piece together a working dual core system from the parts. The only new item I had to buy was a bigger harddrive.. Sweet, more computing power for next to nothing! Naturally, a new laptop calls for some branding action ;)

The modding workflow pretty much followed my first laptop branding project with a few minor exceptions, so I’m not going to repeat that stuff here. This time around though, no HP logo to worry about and even the display cable is off-center. In other words, I finally got to make The Finger Logo ™ glow and place it dead center \o/

Newschool and oldschool side by side..

..but the newschool has glow!

After cutting the logo there was still a little bit of original Toshiba brand logo visible on the cover, so I gave it a layer of black matte spray. If this gets scratched later down the road, the matte color is more forgiving to spot-overpainting scratches.

I also lightly sanded the reverse side of the clear acrylic insert, giving a slightly milk glass-ish look. The sanding texture (600 grit) is visible up close, but nothing too bad. Putting the parts didn’t require hammering at all, as with the first laptop. Must be learning something..

That’s it. Catch “the glow” at Stream Nine this weekend!

Davetone mixcubes

Figuring out a use for ‘50 digital wood joints‘ I posted about earlier sure didn’t take too long.. Simply ‘extremely inspirational’, and I doubt the content provided can be over-advertised ;)

DaveP’s completed speaker

The actual project this time around is a pair of Auratone 5C clones by DaveP @ GroupDIY, complemented by the aforementioned woodworking finesse.

Breaking from my norm of writing multiple work stage posts, I decided to try rolling everything to a single post. Since the bulk of work is pretty much sourced from the internet and around the ‘drawing board’, there’s only build related details to write about. Once I had the part design figured out and CNC’d, the assembly was a snap.

Flexible Stream

I’m just so excited about all the CNC ideas available at Flexible Stream I can’t resist plugging it a little bit more. So in case you missed this site from my tweets, go check it out NOW! The ‘50 digital wood joints‘ looks much like something I definitely have to draw inspiration from with a loudspeaker project I’m about to start working on (hopefully) sometime soon :)

Oh and Flataalto is so <3

Monotron Delay

Ever since Andy tipped me off about the new Korg Monotrons (Delay and Duo), it seems I’ve been waiting next to forever for my Delay to arrive. Given all the out-of-stock Delay delay (hehe), I’m apparently not the only one anxious to get this toy.. But arrive it did (finally)! If you’ve kept an eye on my tweets, you probably noticed me rejoicing this some days ago.

I never was much of a fan of the first Monotron (better analogs at hand aplenty ;), but the Delay sure caught my attention. Fun little effect-oriented gadget (LPF + delay) to play with and all that..  What gives the Monotron product range an extra edge is that Korg has released the schematics to the public. This makes the series a inviting platform for circuit-bending or modding.. And it’s not much of a surprise, that also my intent is very much just that :).

Klee, mech fuckups

What a nice week of milling fuckups with the Klee mech.

After milling the top panel, I noticed I forgot to draw in three SPDT switches. No idea how this slipped past my radar, as I did check the drawings many times prior to milling. Situation was pretty much saved by the fact that I had at least reserved space for the switches. Just add the holes and the project is back on track..

Three missing.

.. or it would be, had I just drilled these holes by hand. Instead, I chose to go all fancy and use the router! Aligning the board on the CNC table for adding these holes was of course a total annoyance, but I got it right eventually.

Just to have a bit of extra crap thrown in, the CNC program decided that these three holes should have a 1mm offset on Y-axis. Something I of course noticed right about the moment the milling bit went in :). No idea why it turned out this way, after all zero location was ok and I did check for it three times. But whatever, the 1mm difference was persistent so I just compensated for it by offsetting the zero location.