2012 Stereo Re-Build...

[kaneboats]

Coolness! I mean, that's a cool color and I mean that literally, or is it figuratively? Hmm, I guess it's figuratively otherwise it would have to be cold to the touch.

[ian ashton]

We had a rainy weekend, so I decided to put some scrap acrylic and spare LEDs to good use and try to make my own LED cup holder rings. I must say, they turned out pretty sweet, and I like the lower profile as opposed to the commercially available units, which are a bit thicker.

Here is a bit of a 'How Tow' for those that are interested;

Keeping in the 'low budget' feel of this project, rather than buying a router table, I made one of my own, lol. My router has a 'plunge' option that made this work awesome, basically I was able to have the bit under the base of the table, put the acrylic in place, then push the table down onto the spinning bit, cutting into the acrylic. The key in the cutting is constant motion to keep from melting the plastic;

I measured out radius for the inside and outside of the circles and drilled a hole in the "table" for each, and marked them with an orange highlighter so I remembered which were correct (it was a trail and error process).

So, to start I drilled a hole in what will become the center of the circle. From there, I used an allen wrench through the hole and into the hole on the table that I drilled for the outside, cutting a perfect circle;



Then I switched the allen wrench to the smaller hole and cut the inside circle;

Note - the inside circle was a little tight so I had to open it up freehand with the router, hence the rough inside edge - not a big deal since you can't see once mounted.

Once I had the rings figured out I needed to shorten the LED strips - easy enough, I just had to cut them to length and solder wires onto the ends;

[ian ashton]

*Not pictured: I used a coarse sanding block to give the acrylic a frosted look, and remove any rough edges from the router.

Ready to mount. the ring and LED strip;



This is where the cup holder rings are a little different than the speaker rings; because the thickness of the ring is less than the LED, I stuck the LED strip directly to the cup holder, rather than gluing it to the ring. Once I had the LED in place I slipped the ring over top, and gave it a test fit;


Once I had each cup holder setup complete I just had to go into the boat and put them in place. I secured them with 3M double sided tape;


And a shot in the dark;


Mounting in the fiberglass was a little tricky - I had to cut a bit of a slot for the wires to feed through, as the factory hole is very tight and wouldn't allow the cup holder to sit flush due to the thickness of the wire - I guess if I used smaller wire this might not have been an issue, but it was an easy enough fix, and you can't see where I had to cut because its under the lip.

[bergermaister]

Sweet work Ian! I'm ready to place my order!!!

[dusty2221]

Ian, since we have the same in boat's, I'll go ahead and take 3 pair please, in red.

[viking]

Nice Job Ian. Very resourceful and turned out pretty frickin sweet.

[jmvotto]

where did you get that custom Hi tech router table??? LOL

[ian ashton]

Yesterday evening I dove in to re-making the faceplate that will cover my sub box, as I didn't like how the previous attempt came out. Rather than having the faceplate go on around the subs, I'm going to mount the subs on top of it.

Here you can see the first try - the vinyl looks bad because I messed around with some different boarders, so it looks extra crappy. I used the outline of the old piece as a starting point for the new one. I made 2 flaps on the new one to make it easier to get in and out, as the old one was really cumbersome;


Some of the cuts made, I'm also going to put 2 blue square voltage gauges on a switch so I can monitor voltage between the 2 battery banks when the boat isn't running, which is what the square holes are for. The heater vent will come out of the top;


Speaker holes cut, and playing with the voltage gauges and heater vent;


Going to pick up some vinyl this weekend and wrap this aspect of the project up (literally, har har har.)

[chawk610]

Man, I have been dying for speaker rings in the bow... You used 1/4" acrylic? I have some in the shop as well as (2) LED strips left over. I only have wood bits for my router, is that what you used?

Great job BTW!

[dusty2221]

Ian, did you get mine cut and sent?