The AACC. Alien Audio Control Center.

Please note this project is not sponsored by any one.



Hello every one and welcome to my next project. I know my other one is not complete yet but that is because I am waiting on two cables in order to be able to spend the hour or so needed to assemble all of the modded parts. In work terms the other project is finished, so it was time to make sure I had all of the stuff I needed for my next project.

Some of you will notice this is not a PC I am building and you would sort of be correct. Whilst it does not perform computing functions it uses PC parts. I figured some of you may want to see what I am up to

Projects like this are very good for me as they keep my mind from going to the dark side, where it permanently likes to reside. So having something to do and keeping physically busy are two good ways of alleviating that. Well, that and lots of pills.

Any way, time for the back story. If you want to skip along please do so but you won't really know what is going on if you do. Your call, I don't make videos I'm still very old fashioned and like a good read myself

OK, so before I go into pics and what this is going to look like the idea of the project was relatively simple. A long time ago now I built a cinema surround system and me typically being me it was different and much more convoluted. I could have bought one receiver, one box full of speakers and just did what everyone else did or I could have done it differently, viva Asperger Syndrome !

The story goes that back then my wife sent me some money as a gift and asked me what I wanted to do with it. I said that since I'd arrived back home from the states I'd always wanted a nice stereo hifi system, so started buying it. However, I got pulled off course and ended up building a cinema surround system instead. Viva Asperger's !.

OK so what I am doing here is building a stereo system. But, as usual with me I could not just walk into Currys or what not and buy one, I have to do it myself. From the ground up. Using parts not meant for the purpose. Viva Asperger's !

The thing is I wanted something that could perform multiple functions. The main functions (obs) were playing CDs, MP3, WMA etc. I also wanted it to be Bluetooth so that I could play FLAC files on my phone and send them to the stereo. I also wanted a radio, as I have not had one in years and so on.

So, I started looking at my old hunting grounds, car audio. I found this.



At the lower than the floor price of £129. It literally plays everything you can throw at it, has USB, MicroSD, Bluetooth DVD etc etc. So once I had found that I started thinking and making lists of everything else I would need. Obviously I need a decent 12v power supply and then I remembered I have one of these sitting in a box.



It's been braided black and white but I will be gutting pretty much every wire out of it any way and replacing them with 8awg.



Now the chassis was difficult. Did I build my own out of MDF or just try and find a PC case to hold it? It turns out that after doing a lot of research this fits the bill almost perfectly.



It's 10mm wider than the head unit and should be more than tall enough to house the PSU lying flat on the bottom (needs modding) and the head unit in the front (needs severe modding).

So then I worked out what else I would need. Obviously because of the Nakamichi logo and the colour of the case I have gone for the red and black theme, so this was next to be ordered.



I also wanted it to have some lighting, so I ordered this to go in the back (32 LED, same sort of array as Enermax Vegas)



And I will be making some of my clear/solid/clear/solid etc feet with LEDs inside. They will be switchable of course, and all will be able to toggle between on or off.

Now obviously the top USB/headphone etc will need to be ripped out so I ordered these.



Caps for the audio jacks and these.



To hide the USB. Then I started planning out what I wanted to have on the back panel. Initially I was not going to bring the speaker terminals out as I don't need those (only the RCA out) but then I got nagged by my conscious telling me that one day I may want to use it somewhere else. So I ordered these (speaker bindings)



And these (RCA sockets)



And finally this (video out socket)



At first I was not going to use the video out either, then I realised I could stick in a SD card or USB stick and play movies through the TV. Now obviously I could do this now with my Android console, but given this thing has a screen inside it it could easily be taken on holiday with us. So yeah, I figured it would be wise to include the video socket. Then I also realised we don't even have a DVD player in here so sorted.

The idea is to cut a 5mm red acrylic panel to cover the back, but not all of it. I only want to cover the IO panel and the PCI plates. So I ordered an A4 sheet of 5mm gloss red acrylic.



I also don't have a radio in here (yes I know I could use the PC but that defeats the purpose, I'm trying to get off the PC and onto the couch ) so an antenna was important. I ordered this (I need the screw in base only)



And then ordered this. I figured it would look cool on the top



So that should be about all of the parts I will need for this, as well as a custom order from Pro Bolt of course.



Lots of masking tape, as my PC project pretty much ate all of it.



And I'm good (I think, oh wait no..). I also need a power button or two, but I have no idea what size the actual button on the Metis is and no one seems to know. Once I know for sure I can order a couple from HK, as they're about 80% less buying from there. They will light up of course, in red

And the first arrivals.



Sadly all was not well. Look where I have peeled up the corner. That's bloody clear not red !!



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Balls ! just looked at the back of my TV and no AV or SCART inputs at all. Bad news.. So I have ordered this lol.



And this.



I will split the video signal so that I get AV component out and now HDMI also. I will need to power it though, so not made my mind up on how to do that yet (I will either use a phone charger or some sort of 5v USB signal from the PSU).

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Today I took the front on pic of the case (this one)



And blew it up to the correct size in MM (in Photoshop like). Any way, it seems that the front panel switch is 16mm. Well, either that or the hole is 16mm. The only thing that is odd is the height measurement. See, if I take that pic (^) and blow it up I have to stretch it out of scale to get 254mm. So I left it (it was 190 wide in scale and the hole measured 16mm).

I am hoping that the measurement is correct and that the 254mm height dimension is the case *and* the feet. That would explain why it won't fill up a 190x254mm in Photoshop.

Any way I have ordered one of these from Hong Kong for £2.30.



It doesn't matter if it fits or not any way because I am going to need a latching switch in the back keeping the power to the unit permanent so I don't lose all of my settings. I will then turn the head unit off at the head unit with the power still running into the back. If the PSU fan is noisy I will most likely replace it or stick it on a resistor. IIRC it's a 140mm fan and sod's law I gave them all away recently lmao. Still, possibly adding a LED fan will be good any way.

If the switch I ordered is the correct size I will use it, then fit a different one in the back. Either that or I can just wire the green cable to the ground and use the switch on the back of the PSU itself (I think it has one? will need to check that).

Once I feel up to it (need a few days rest been burning the candle at both ends lately !) I will get the PSU out and then the daunting task of removing nearly every single wire from it will begin haha.

Getting conflicting reports on the power button haha. Some one measured it at 12mm and some one else said it's 15mm :S

Any way I had already ordered a 16mm button (I need two, one for the mains power constant and one for the accessory switch to turn off the stereo) and now I have ordered a 12mm.



I will find out for sure tomorrow but I needed two any way so it's no biggy. You can see in the pic how the 12mm sticks out when off, I would imagine it's down to it being really small.
Either way they'll both get used

Decided last night I wanted to split the video so I had more options on the back panel. So I ordered this for inside.



The postman just came (good thing I got up super early) with some bounty !



Aerial, braid, rear fan, speaker binding posts and the main wiring kit/fuse. I have everything I need to convert the PSU so I will probably begin doing that later today

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Time to convert the PSU. Here it is out of the box. I originally wired it for a black and white themed Hackintosh but that is long gone. When I bought my 4k monitor it only had one input so I broke down the hack and sold it.



Man what a mess ! that's a serious clump of wires :S So the first thing to do was to find the green "on" cable and the ground next to it.



Then I realised that nearly two years in a box was a long time so I figured I would test it before spending hours working on it.







OK all seems good Then it was time to separate what I needed to keep. I decided on 3 x 12v positive and ground, two 3v positive and ground (LEDs probably) and one 5v and ground (no idea?). I originally planned on three 5v, then realised there was no point.



Time to delid the PSU.



I was pleasantly surprised that the fan lives on its own platform. So no stupid awkwardness here. Fan came off on four screws.



Then the nip and tuck began. Snip, shrink, snip, shrink ETC. 1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100.



You will note I have kept three single 12v from the same post and three ground wires from the same post (three on each is how this thing is wired). You will see why later

Time to put the music on and get ready for my brain to go numb



I really don't know how I used to be able to braid a full PSU. See what those two sets of three wires were for now? the nice big fat cable This will be the constant live to the head unit and a ground, which I will put onto a ground plate and connect up some grounds to.



Test it one more time.



Then assemble. I will probably mod it so that it's all black and red but that will be a ten minute job with some vinyl.

I tested the fan. It's probably the quietest fan I have. It doesn't shift an awful lot of air but that's OK it doesn't really need to. Car stereos are usually ran in a hot dash with no fans.



Then the PSU met the isopropyl and the vinyl.



Much better. Sadly I forgot there's a large one on the top/bottom depending which way it's orientated. The case came, hurrah !



I won't bother with photos of the case. First thing I did was ripped it to bits and made sure the PSU fitted where I wanted it.



What can I say? PHEW !!! basically. When I looked at pics online it did not look like the mobo tray was removable. This would have been a real git, because I would have had to cut a stereo shaped hole into it depth wise. I literally yayed when I saw that it could come out. One obligatory shot of it all in bits



All put away now. The only thing scaring me is how thick the front panel is. It's going to take ages and ages to cut a hole in there ! Still, thinking about it now I would rather that than have to cut back that mobo tray !

Oh yeah, I also got a response from Trent Plastics (who sent me the wrong acrylic) and they have apologised profusely and promised to send out a new piece in red and said I could keep the clear one.

Which is nice, 'cause I had already sort of earmarked that to make my custom feet with

Massive thanks to OCUK for getting my case to me nice and quick

OK so I was going to use the RCA cables that came with the wiring kit to connect the head unit into the terminals on the back of the unit. However, they were blue and not so hot in quality terms. I've made up four cables and braided them using Rockford Fosgate RCA cable and found these on Ebay for a fiver, so I've ordered them (X4).



And I finally have my answer on the power button. It's 12mm.



Oops. Forgot to press the reset button on my calipers /facepalm.

It's 16mm.

OK the postman didn't bring too much today. Some of the stuff is coming from HK so I expect a week or two before they arrive. He did bring the video-HDMI converter box and I know where that will go. I've now ordered the last of the things I need to buy.

This is the box I need to power the video converter.



I forgot I have to make up some video cables, so I have ordered these.



I can just use the same RF cable and my braid to make those.. Lastly I ordered one of these.



OK, onto work done today. Firstly I mapped out the back of the back panel for the cover that will host all of the RCA/speaker etc connections.



Then cut two templates.

One to stick down to the acrylic (which isn't here yet) and one to play with.



I cut out the "one to play with"



And dropped it in.



As you can see the intake fan is done.



And the other side.



I realised I had two empty screw holes because I will not be using the motherboard tray. They're here.



But rather than leave them empty I will use those two holes as well as drill another two to hold in the back panel. Finally the "sort of done" PSU. It's sort of done because I think I am going to have to flip the fan so that it intakes inside the case and exhausts out.



Which is obviously no biggy.

You have my interest. Great workmanship

Thanks fella

Was up at 6am this morning. I don't know if it's because of the humidity or what. Any way, good thing I did because at 7:50 precisely parcel post turned up. The seller had been giving me the runaround for a couple of days as the tracking number was not showing it scanned by RM, meaning it hadn't been collected or sent. It worked this morning at long last though.

So one head unit wrapped in a ton of clingfilm.



Unwrapped.



Nice and new as promised.



Connected everything up and, she's alive !



Made a quick phone call for the LOLs



And then tested Bluetooth using audio files from my phone (note the small AF sign?)



Works wonderfully. So then I thought I would test to see if the DVD player is working and multi region. I stuck in my Region 1 copy of South Park and !



F-WORD. erm, F-WORD AGAIN. Hang on a second, F-WORD. And so it continued. I read the manual and it was of little help so I Googled it and, by shoving a wire to ground I got this.



Thank heavens for that ! Postie should be here soon, hopefully with more gear. Have realised a few things though.

1. The head unit is very heavy.
2. It gets quite warm (not worried about this though)
3. The cage that holds it in will not clamp down onto the front of the case as the front of the case is too thin to reach the locking tabs. I will need to glue some pieces of acrylic around the cage so I can lock it.
4. Being so heavy I do not want the whole weight pulling along a 5mm aluminium front. So I am going to fit the cage first (nice and light), get it secure and then put some acrylic pieces on top of the PSU so the weight of the unit bears down on the PSU.

None of which are any biggies though.

This may be a silly question but you said you're burning the candle at both ends....so maybe it's not me being daft Why do you need the power convertor to power the video convertor? If it's USB powered, it must be 5V and with a PC PSU in there, you have a 5V rail. Could you not just run a 5V and ground pair to it neater than mounting the box and producing more heat?

Like the project though and the fin aerial on the top should look good. The good news is that the aluminium case lid (assuming it's ali) will still act as a ground plane - thought it worth checking since car roofs are usually steel. Needs DAB though for a bit of Planet Rock

Cenedd said:

This may be a silly question but you said you're burning the candle at both ends....so maybe it's not me being daft Why do you need the power convertor to power the video convertor? If it's USB powered, it must be 5V and with a PC PSU in there, you have a 5V rail. Could you not just run a 5V and ground pair to it neater than mounting the box and producing more heat?

Like the project though and the fin aerial on the top should look good. The good news is that the aluminium case lid (assuming it's ali) will still act as a ground plane - thought it worth checking since car roofs are usually steel. Needs DAB though for a bit of Planet Rock

Click to expand...

You mean to chop up a mini USB (it's mini not micro) cable and run 5v to it? you can't dude. There's way too much amperage on a 5v PSU it would burn the box out. That's why I'm using a choke for it

Don't worry about the ground, I always use the bolt hole in the back to ground to (of the stereo) so the whole stereo and the metal cage are steel and act as a ground

F-WORD. So I measured the cage for the stereo and it came in at 184mm. It was supposed to be 179 or less. I got the front panel.



And it was indeed 190mm with no room to spare. I marked it out.



And it was even worse because the edges are bevelled, leaving me with not even 3mm of meat left after chopping out the hole.

Two hours, 9 reinforced bits, 3 shafts (the screw heads kept snapping off) a complete clean of the kitchen and a bath later, and !



I was fully expecting to have to make a new front from acrylic tbh.

I've gone onto the power button a little so I will make an allowance for that in the cage and in the plastic edging strip on the stereo.

More stuff came too, I got the hole covers for the headphone and mic jacks, the HDMI to back plate HDMI and the red acrylic (not pictured).



I'm going to take the rest of the day off now to relax as it's bloody hot outside. May go down the beach tbh. I need to cut some acrylic now, so will do all of that in one swoop tomorrow.

I'll confess to not knowing for certain but I was under the impression that it would just draw as much as is required from what is available - logically it would depend on its internal resistance I=V/R.

When I said about the case being a ground plane, I meant for the antenna rather than electrical ground....but a bit more Google'ing shows that it's only relevant for transmitting antenna anyway

They send us a nice shiny case and what's the first thing we do to it? Cut big holes out of it. We're so unappreciative!

wow, that's definitely a project I've not seen before. Looks like you've got your work cut out but its looking awesome!

Cenedd said:

I'll confess to not knowing for certain but I was under the impression that it would just draw as much as is required from what is available - logically it would depend on its internal resistance I=V/R.

When I said about the case being a ground plane, I meant for the antenna rather than electrical ground....but a bit more Google'ing shows that it's only relevant for transmitting antenna anyway

They send us a nice shiny case and what's the first thing we do to it? Cut big holes out of it. We're so unappreciative!

Click to expand...

I wasn't 100% sure on that and rather than risk a fire I just decided to get the converter thing. It comes with the cable for £1.90. I'm pretty certain that if I used a 5v line I would have needed a resistor of sorts tbh.

The aerial will go to the same ground as everything else. That includes the 240v mains ground dude. Far bigger than any car but yeah, I will make sure they all tie up so they all end up in one place somehow the distro block I bought will help that too.

Snips - TBH mate most of the work is done now. I actually enjoy cutting acrylic as it's so easy to work with. I need a few pieces, namely the back IO part which will take some time as I need to drill a few holes in, two guide rails to sit on the PSU and support the unit's weight and some sort of small shelf for the back so I can stack things like the AV converter, fuse, distro block etc. Sadly I can not braid the stereo wiring itself, but will do what I can.

It's more soldering than anything else. Sod's law my nice new iron died the other day so I am back on my old one. Reminds me, I must get that returned.

From what I can tell a resistor would just lower the voltage to the device and the device should just pull the current it needs as long as the voltage is correct. V=IR fix the voltage (5V) and the resistance (the device) and the current should also be fixed. I'd go with the safer option too though....and as you say, for £1.90 I'd begrudge myself the time to make up the wiring! It's an option though, if you find you don't have space or it gets too hot.

I'm on the Iroda 120 myself. Sucker for a gas powered iron - a hangover from my auto days too but also damned handy for heatshrinking

I just very gingerly test fitted the front panel onto the bottom with the PSU in.

1. The side panels close. Just. They literally press up against the cage lol.
2. The 3cm gap I was going to have between the PSU and the cage is actually 1cm. Trust me to go with the dimensions they give you with the feet on

At some point I need to screw it together so I can measure the gap properly, but it seems the only room I am going to have will be at the back. I can always tuck some wiring in there when I am finished though

Today the postman came with more than I expected. I got the Nakamichi plugs for the internal RCA cables, the video out socket, the glue I had ordered, The video RCA plugs, the Van Damme cable (for the external RCAs into the stereo) and two sheets of 3M Dinoc in two separate envelopes. I had only ordered one so the second was a nice bonus

OK so first I went to the tools. I cut two small circles from 8mm acrylic, hurting myself quite badly. The piece spun around and caught the end of my thumb so I had to do some first aid and clean up the blood. I patched my thumb up with masking tape and some dressing and pressed on. Here's what I cut.



So the IO panel and two half circle pieces of 8mm acrylic. You will see what these do later so I made sure the IO panel fitted where it should.



Nice, a perfect fit. Then I flipped it over to make sure it all lined up where it should on the other side.



Nice. Tape it down.



Now in between doing this I drilled two holes. Once done I put the panel back in and flipped it over again, this time marking where the bolt holes would go



So I took it out and drilled four 2mm holes into where I had marked it.



Then I got out the soldering iron and started making the threads.



OK so the method. Solder iron left hand bolt in right hand. Press the solder iron into the hole until you can press in the bolt and turn it in a little. Then simply apply the solder iron.



I use two hands to keep it steady. Once it has sunk in all the way through leave it for about two minutes to cool (you can blow on it to accelerate the cooling/setting process.

Once set you can simply unscrew the bolt from the new thread



Here I have fitted the back using four black screws. These will be replaced at the end with the nice red bolts I bought from Pro Bolt

OK so remember those tabs? They are now here.



And here.



If you look at the cage you can see there are little V shaped pieces of metal. These bend outward, securing the stereo into the dash board. They will pull out and hold against the 8mm pieces I made. The glue is now setting, they should be good to go tomorrow. At least no one can nick it

Here are all of the pieces for the IO.



And I have started to design the IO in scale.



Then when that is finished (note there's no video socket on there yet...) I can cut it out from the plotter twice. Once to use as a template for drilling the holes, then the second one can be used to show what everything is

Now I am going for a bath and to change out of my bloody clothes lol.

There's nothing like a good baptisement with blood to make a project feel special!
I can recommend Gorilla Glue (like super glue but with added rubber fibre and it actually sets!) for patching up such wounds - once you've cleaned them of course! Really useful when you need to carry on and finish up rather than crying off.

Andy, take a day off once in a while

Looks pretty neat though. If you have space, you should build some speakers into either side of the case

Cenedd said:

There's nothing like a good baptisement with blood to make a project feel special!
I can recommend Gorilla Glue (like super glue but with added rubber fibre and it actually sets!) for patching up such wounds - once you've cleaned them of course! Really useful when you need to carry on and finish up rather than crying off.

Click to expand...

I usually clean it then wrap it in tissue and masking/parcel tape lol. Or if I am really busy just some masking tape. My fingers and hands are pretty battered now tbh. I got a few burns from holding the face panel cutting it yesterday (it's like one big heatsink) and when the acrylic spun out it sliced my right pointer finger tip, left pointer finger at the second line in the skin (1" slice) and smacked into my left thumb, cutting it open. I used to glue them shut but don't like the feeling of glue on my skin.

implosiveturnip said:

Andy, take a day off once in a while

Looks pretty neat though. If you have space, you should build some speakers into either side of the case

Click to expand...

There won't be any room for anything else sadly. It'll be a miracle if I can get everything I have ordered in/on it tbh. There's going to be very little space in there, and if it wasn't for the fact that every panel comes off I don't think I would have pulled it off at all. It really is that tight :S

I'm taking tomorrow off (going over to see my mother) and Sunday (meeting with family) so I can let my wounds heal

I'll probably get the back IO finished in Photoshop before Monday and then just get on with drilling the lots of holes into that.

One thing I had not thought about much until now was the front badge on the case. I want it to be the Nakamichi logo, not Raijintek. I had a few ideas going around in my head, and after seeing another build on here using 3M's new Titanium wrap I decided to use some of that. So I placed an order this afternoon for some of that.



And some red pearl brushed (as close to the case colour as I could get)



I will be making a round logo that includes the Nakamichi N.



To replace the Raijintek one on there