Went to assemble everything today. I needed to pick up a few pieces of hardware (screws, spacers, etc) and discovered that a local hardware store has much more than I expected them to. When I got home, I went to put everything together. Unfortunately, the new slots I had cut were tight (I'm just not very good with this measuring thing). The screws just fit. The problem is, when something "just fits" it causes stress. This stress caused cracks around the speaker slots. It doesn't look good, but it's going to have to work.

One my last real decisions had to do with powering the thing. I'm trying to go cheap with stuff I already have, so to get 12 V I was between the 8 D battery holder it came with (yeah, no thanks), an 8 AA battery holder I had, or a 12 V wall plug. The AA pack would make it portable, but had to be filled with batteries. The wall plug was easy, but would restrict where it could be used. I decided on the wall plug. So I pulled one out of my junk pile and started putting some two pin connectors on it. As I'm moving things around, the whole assembly falls off the counter and breaks the face plate. Well, isn't this nice? Should I glue it back together? Dremel it? I Google using a Dremel on acrylic. Google tells me "bad idea, but try a saw." I pull out the miter box with a hand saw and start my latest modification.

It's a little rough, but it will work. I only have one speaker anyway, so it was probably meant to be. Back to the power source. I went with this one:

It seemed appropriate enough. I got the two pin connector on, and put some hot glue, just to be safe.

Time to see if it works. I hooked it up and plugged it in. Then I got a pop and puff of smoke. This isn't good. The switch wasn't on, which gave me hope that this was just a fuse or capacitor or something. Opening it up gave me a view of this:

Well, at least I can fix that. Unfortunately, I don't have a 16 V 100 microFarad capacitor on hand, so it's time to pick one up.

Also, I'll be using a AA battery pack.