Building a Rad Bluetooth Speaker that Didn’t Really Exist

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[Nick] came across an awesome Bluetooth speaker online, only, there was a problem. It didn’t really exist—it was just a render of a device that would be nice to have. Of course, there was an obvious solution—[Nick] just had to build the device for real!The key to the aesthetic of the build is the external case. [Nick] was able to recreate the rough design of the rendered device in SolidWorks, before having the components produced on a resin 3D printer which provided excellent surface finish. Internally, the Bluetooth audio receiver was cribbed from an old pair of wireless headphones. However, a little more oomph was needed to make the speaker really usable, so [Nick] hooked the audio output up to a small MAX98306 amplifier board and a pair of 3 W speakers. The tiny tactile buttons from the headphone PCB wouldn’t do, either. For a nicer feel, [Nick] hacked in a set of four hall effect keyboard switches to control the basic functions.The result is a Bluetooth speaker that looks as rad as the rendered unit, only you can actually take it outside and bump some tunes! It recalls us of some fine up-cycling work we’ve seen done to vintage 80s radios in a similar vibe.