Memory Box with lid-triggered audio

After having our son, my partner wanted me to make her a memory box where she could keep all the trinkets and keepsakes from his birth.

As it is something of an old stereotype that such things would be kept in an old shoe box, I wanted to mimic that aesthetic.

The box is made from iroko, sides of approx 1cm, joined with box joints.
The base is simple hardboard, rebated into the sides.

I didn’t really want to add hardware such as hinges as I felt it would detract from the shoebox aesthetic, so I opted for a simple lift off lid.

The lid itself is made from a thicker piece of iroko, with trim added around the edges.

In order to provide a good friction fit, a piece of plywood, wrapped in t-shirt fabric, matching the boxes internal width and depth was added to the lid. This holds the lid on without rattling around, and incidentally hides the “bonus feature” of the box.

The bonus feature

Of course I can’t do anything normal like just make a box.

During his first few weeks, whenever our son sneezed, he would follow it up with a little noise that sounded like he was saying “oh..”. Of course it was incredibly cute and a memory we want to cherish forever.

What my partner didn’t know at the time, is I had managed to catch this on video, and I wanted to surprise her with it. 

A few years ago (around 2015-2016 I think), Sainsburys brought out a Christmas biscuit selection box which included a gadget for recording a message that would play when the biscuit tin was opened.

Somewhere along the line somebody I know must have got one, I scavenged the gadget from the tin once it was empty, and it spent the past few years sat in my electronics junk drawer, waiting for a project to be used in.

 

 

The circuit board is clearly designed as a disposable product – it is powered by 3 button cell batteries, which are riveted to the PCB itself. Whatever microcontroller powers it is hidden under an epoxy blob, and the only other notable features are a small microphone, speaker, a light dependent resistor (which is how it detects if the box is opened), and a small switch used to start and stop recording.

First thing to do was to drill out the rivets and get rid of the dead batteries.
Rather than replace them with more button cells, I opted for wiring in a AAA battery holder, I just had to follow the PCB traces and connect it at the right point.

 The microphone is pretty much as crap as you would expect for something of that size in a ostensibly disposable product, so I needed a better way to record the audio.

To do that I replaced the microphone with a 3.5mm jack and coupling capacitor. Once I’d copied over the recording, I removed that as well to save space, and also removed the record button to avoid overwriting.

 

Then it was simply a matter of hiding the electronics in the box. This was done by carving out a hollow in the middle of the lid. The ‘inner lid’ of plywood that was also used to create a friction latch, added sufficient depth to the lid in order to hide the battery and PCB.

The underside of the lid with hollow for PCB/battery and speaker.

The t-shirt fabric that covered the inner lid also hid the circuitry, while also allowing enough light to pass through to activate the recording.

Hardwood slim line LED panel light fitting with accent lights

I recently purchased a pair of low profile LED ceiling lights from a charity auction on Ebay.

It seemed like the kind of thing that I’d find a use for eventually, and it was for a good cause.

After buying I had a message from the seller to tell me that they only had one driver for the two panels – I went ahead with the purchase because at the end of the day I wasn’t expecting them to be new and pristine from a charity auction.

My curiosity was piqued when they arrived. I noticed another label sticking out from underneath the address label. I peeled it back, and revealed an Amazon delivery label to a different address.

Initially I figured perhaps it was an Amazon returned item – one of the drivers was missing, therefore the original purchaser returned it, and it was sold on to the charity as one of those wholesale return pallets that you see advertised.

I did also think that the wires on the mains side of the LED driver seemed a little bit thin. However I tested it with those panels and they actually seemed to work okay, so I didn’t think much more of it.

Losing faith

So, I started to put together a project plan to make a light fitting with them.

I wanted to add in a few extra accent lights but everything I had was 12v, and the light fittings driver was 18v. While I was mulling over options – adding in a separate transformer, the space and heat issues to work round, etc. I noticed a couple of other things.

The case of the driver seems to have fake screw heads stamped on them. Not in itself a problem, but kind of sketchy.

And the panels themselves are stamped with 18w, not 18v.

The output of the driver says 9-18v at 300ma.

W=V*A.

There’s no way that if those panels are 18w, the driver can provide enough power to them.

This made me rethink my theory on the background of these lights.

Having a look on Amazon I can see very similar products, with identical looking drivers – the only difference being that the outputs are rated differently.

My guess is that this set of lights came with incorrect drivers, and the original purchaser damaged one whilst trying it.

It’s only a theory and not enough to make a claim against, it ultimately is enough to destroy my faith in these lights and make me not want to use them as they are.

Rebuilding the electronics

I had built the design around the size of these panels, so I decided to rip out all of the electronics.

On doing so I realized that the panels were just flexible LED strip edge mounted to a diffuser.

I swapped out the LED strip that was there with some white 12v strip LEDs. I had to trim about a millimeter off the sides of the diffuser in order to account for the slightly larger LEDs.

In an initial test the LED light was quite patchy, so I took the diffuser from the second light and doubled up. This makes a notable difference.

To drive the strip I’m using a regular RGB LED control box.

Initially my choice of this was simply because it was available and had a small profile so would fit well in the fitting.

However this also gave me the idea I could run the accent lighting and the main light on different color channels, allowing them to be controlled separately. It would also allow me to dim the light.

The design

Because I don’t want to carve out my ceiling to flush fit the panel I planned to build a small mitred frame, with another frame mounted at forty five degrees behind it. The back frame would contain some accent lights, with the front frame housing the main light fitting.

the fitting needed to fit in with the of our lights in the room, so I disassembled the original fitting and spray painted it black.

For the wood frame I opted to use zebrano.

The frames are simple squares with 45 degree mitres, and a 2mm deep by 10mm wide rebate to fit the light fitting frame flush with the surface.

The back frame was turned at a 45 degree angle, and screwed to the front frame.

The back frame also had a pair of key hole plate mounted to the back, which will be used for connecting to the ceiling.

Accent Lighting

Rather than cut up the filters from the second light, I opted instead to use a stack of filters from an old PC monitor. It was simply a case of measuring out the triangles, cutting them and then gluing them in place with hot glue.

Each corner would have a single segment of white LED strip (3 LEDs per corner). These would be connected in series and then connected to the RGB LED control box, on a different color channel to the main light, allowing them to be used independently.

The rest of the electronics

The IR receiver from the control box sticks out behind the front frame, so it is not visible from ground level, but catches enough reflected light from the ceiling to function.

However, this didn't last long and soon found itself wrapped in black tape because what I didn't realise at the time was that the IR receiver worked on the same encoding as our TV remote and we soon bored of having the lights change as we scrolled through TV guide menus.

PSU

The power supply is provided by an AC-DC “wall-wart” – I had to be quite selective in which one I picked to fit within the frame. The one I opted for had a removable face plate which allowed me to remove the socket pins and wire directly into.

The end result

 

“Picture and Collection Bar”

This is another one of those projects I found on Pinterest & decided to make a DIY implementation of. The original pin describes it as a “picture and collection bar”.

Essentially using a wooden strip to trap marbles in such a way that they have a little movement but due to the sloped design will always try to move downward and towards the wall.

This means that if you push a piece of paper through the gap at the bottom, there is enough movement for the marbles to get out of its way but they will immediately roll down, providing just enough friction to hold the paper – but not enough friction to prevent you from easily removing the paper again if you need to.

It’s kind of like an ultra slim pin board, but without having to put holes in your paper.

Design
The original design I found used pretty thin strips that appear to be jointed it mitred angles.

Instead I opted for using a larger piece of oak, but then cutting out an angled gap for the marbles.

The cross section looks something like this:

Construction
The actual construction of this was very simple, just a series of rebate cuts on the table saw, occasionally making one of them angled, and making one very us at the bottom of the piece, so that when it’s up against the wall there is a slight gap as can be seen in the above diagram, which will allow paper to pass through.

Then I capped off the ends with a little piece of mahogany, to prevent the marbles from rolling out the sides – this is simply glued and pinned in place – and then finally some finishing.

As the piece of oak I was using was reclaimed and had a couple of screw holes, I patched one which looks a little bit like a knot in the wood, and the other two which were at the edges, I decided to patch using brass tacks, as the holes were in a position where if I were going to screw this to the wall I would have put holes anyway.

Mounting
The tricky part of this project is mounting it to the wall. My design does not have a back piece because I did not want it to protrude too far from the wall. The downside of this means until it is on the wall, the marbles could fall out the back.

So, firstly, I filled the back with some marbles.

 I then used gaffer tape across the back of the marbles and the lower part of the bar – leaving the side top bit exposed as this is where the adhesive is going to go. I left enough excess gaffer tape to be able to fold it round so that there was a ‘handle’ hanging off the bottom of the bar.

Obviously the next step is to mark out a position on the wall to mount it, make sure that it is level, etc. Then apply the glue to the back of the bar, and stick it to the wall.

Once you’re confident that the glue set, you can put on the gaffer tape ‘handle’, to peel the tape away from the marbles on the back, releasing them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Result

Desk Stationery Organiser with pin and chalk board sides

This project was a spur-of-the-moment "Pinterest request".

Without any prior planning, I was given a picture from Pinterest and asked "Can you make me something like this?"

The pin in question was this desk organiser:


I found some thin plywood offcuts that were roughly 2/3s to 3/4s of the length of a new pencil, so figured that was about the correct height.

The length of the offcuts was slightly longer - approx 9 1/2 inches. It seemed a bit too much to split into 2 4-and-something inch pots, so rather than cut it down and create waste, I'd make my desk organiser three pots of roughly 3 inches each.

For the width, I figured it would look best if the pots were square, so I found some other offcuts and cut them to 3 inches.

The end result is a three-pot desk organiser with pots of that are 3x3 inches by somewhere between 4 and 5 inches tall.

For the base, I cut a length of pallet wood and cut grooves along the position of each of the middle dividers, and in turn cut a short section of each divider, so that the dividers would sit in the grooves:


On one end I cut a finger groove, as sticky notes are a standard 3x3 inch square, so one of the pots could be used as a dispenser for them.

I took apart a 'corkboard' (which turned out to be a thin veneer of cork over cardboard, and glued this around one side and the back.
On the front (the sticky-note side) I took part of the cork veneer and glued it on - purely for aesthetic reasons.

On the other side I attached a thin, flat piece of hardboard coated in chalkboard paint (which according to the tin was supposed to also be magnetic, but in reality isn't.)

I re-purposed some of the old corkboards frame to create a neat border around it all, and it was done.

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Nov 3, 2017 at 5:26am PDT

Reclaimed Wood Pirate/Treasure Chest

The first step was to join the slats together to create the boards that will form the sides of the chest.

As I don't have access to a planer/jointer this was a case of hand planing boards where necessary and being selective which boards matched together best.

In the absence of enough clamps I screwed the boards to a piece of scrap wood to hold them in place whilst the glue dried.

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Aug 16, 2017 at 5:19am PDT

With the boards joined, I could get a better idea of how the panels would fit together.

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Aug 24, 2017 at 4:15am PDT

The panels were too big to cut on my small tabletop saw, so I opted for handcut box joints.

I measured them so that the would line up with each of the slats on the long sides of the chest.

Cutting the curved top required some maths to match up the number of slats that would form the lid with the angle that would need to be cut in each slat to form a proper semi-circle.

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Aug 30, 2017 at 4:18am PDT

Once these were cut I glued them and used a metal bar bent to a curve to temporarily screw them to as it was not possible to use a clamp.

The handles are simple bought. The hinges were standard trangular shaped hinges, but in order for them to work with the curve of the lid, I bent them to a curve by heating them with a heat-gun and a hammer.

Finding a suitable padlock was more difficult - sure, DIY stores sell padlocks, but I wanted something more old-fashioned looking to fit the "pirate chest" aesthetic. After quite a bit of searching I found this one at a car boot sale.

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Sep 26, 2017 at 5:05am PDT

For finishing, I used the heat gun to heat the wood to the point where it started to brown (almost like toast), without burning. I thought about going the burn-and-sand method, but at this point I had invested enough time in the project that I didn't want to risk it.

Finally, the chest was finished with a coat of oil to help highlight the grain

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Oct 13, 2017 at 1:58pm PDT

Can Crusher

At work we get through a lot of cans of soft drink, and an comment about incentivising recycling gave me the idea of making a can crusher.

So I doodled up this sketch, and decided to set myself the goal of building it without leaving the workshop.
















With my initial sketch I was envisaging using PVC pipe as the container for the can, but it turned out that I didn't have any. What I did manage to use instead was this metal tube - it was scrap from an old side table.

Cutting apart the tube was substantially trickier than PVC would've been though. The ends were cut off with a hacksaw, and the middle 'window' section where the can would be loaded was done with a Dremel, a file, and a lot of patience.

The two plugs that would form each end were cut from a scrap of kitchen counter top, cut by bandsaw and trimmed to create a tight fit for the base end, and slightly looser for the plunger end.

Building the rest of the frame was a fairly straightforward process, the plunger became a metal rod scavenged from an old wardrobe rail, and the frame from lengths of 1cm x 1cm wood.

Initial testing showed the wood wasn't quite strong enough on it's own and started to crack, so I took the whole thing apart and reinforced all the joints with metal u-channel.

In the end, the design works, but it's a lot bulkier than I'd originally hoped, and would be best suited to perhaps being mounted next to a recycling bin, or maybe a can vending machine - as the test video below shows, it's a bit wobbly when just free-standing.