The AACC. Alien Audio Control Center.

OK so I wasn't terribly happy about the feet. Due to the fact there is quite a large hole (about half of a 120mm fan) on the bottom at the front (I have the PSU exhausting through it so can't cover it) there is not a lot of metal for the feet to glue to. Not only that but they were rocking around a bit.

So last night I designed this odd looking thing.



And then cut four of them. The circle is only to depict where the foot will weld on.



If you look into the background you can see the ground cable just arrived, so I should be able to turn the unit on and off to my heart's delight shortly. Any way when I lay them out like this they should make more sense..



Ignore the cut marks. I normally polish them out but given they will be glued to the case and you won't see them there was no point.
 
Not much to report today. Yesterday I turned the unit upside down and laid down some masking tape to make sure the feet all go on straight. Whilst I was there I mapped out the nearest location to a hole so I could run the LED wires through the case. Given there are plenty of holes in the bottom of the case this wasn't very difficult.



I have also had these on order for a couple of days.



They're pre wired with a choke so you can run them at 12v. I had some before in white and ran them for months and they were fine :)

I've also ordered 5m of this



And 5m of this (2mm)



I was going to use paracord but figured it would be easier to tell what is what in there if I used plain red :)
 
Looking really good. Just needs a touch of vinyl to cover the flange between the head unit and the power button where the cage secures into the hole. :D
 
Cenedd said:
Looking really good. Just needs a touch of vinyl to cover the flange between the head unit and the power button where the cage secures into the hole. :D
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There's a trim piece for that dude. I've just not refitted it because when I fitted it I almost snapped it trying to get it back off. I need to grind a small circle into it so that it doesn't block the power button, then I will fit it :)

It's the exact same width as the case too, so looks very nice when installed.

I just got the video splitter so I have fitted that. Currently trying to get it to play divx but every movie I have converted so far has been spat out. I think I have the settings correct now, so just encoding Star Wars :)
 
ALXAndy said:
Just need an hour or two to set.
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....before you realise you've put them on the wrong way round :eek: ;)
or is it just me that does stuff like that?!

Looking good. Nice bit of masking there....you'd think you'd been burned by that recently or something :rolleyes:
 
Nah I'm still being stupid, that's only there to get the lines straight and correct lol. The bottom is curved both sides, so the masking tape goes across where the flat parts begin :D

I *think* the only things left to arrive now are the aerial shark fin thing, the switch box (external) and the RCA plugs for the external wires.

Well, that and basically removing any left over wiring. Once the antenna comes it should all be done in a day :)
 
I almost stayed in bed this morning. Good thing I didn't, as absolutely everything I needed to finish the AACC arrived today :eek:

So I masked up the top.

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The plugs came and they are lovely :D

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Then I had to mark everything out.

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And fit the base.

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Connect the fin.

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And...

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Feets !

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Cenedd said:
Nice. How's the radio reception?
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There isn't any :D I think I need to ground it tbh, as I am not getting fuzz but more of a buzz. I might add a ground to it at a later date but yeah, I would not buy one for a car. I mostly wanted it for the looks really.

I panicked for a moment, then realised that pretty much every radio station these days is on Android, so I just installed Heart and I was off over Bluetooth :)
 
It could be expecting to ground through the bodywork - which isn't going to happen with an ali lid. Some of them expect some juice injected either down a separate wire (sometimes the power antenna wire but usually separate) or phantom power style down the signal cable - depends whether it's an amplified aerial or not.
 
Cenedd said:
It could be expecting to ground through the bodywork - which isn't going to happen with an ali lid. Some of them expect some juice injected either down a separate wire (sometimes the power antenna wire but usually separate) or phantom power style down the signal cable - depends whether it's an amplified aerial or not.
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Possibly yes :)

When I built it I spoke to my wife about it first (because she's an Aspie like me and hates foreign noise) and we sort of agreed that I could play Heart FM as we both found it quite relaxing. So TBH it's already performing its job admirably without actual radio reception. I had it on all day yesterday and have had it on since I got up. I probably could have just bought a bluetooth to RCA adapter but I wanted it to play CDs too (I still buy them) and the next experiment is to see if I can stream my FLAC collection from my phone via Bluetooth using VLC or another FLAC player. I would rather have the music on the phone than the stereo itself, more flexible.

We also did not have a DVD player in here. My wife bought us a multi region player (because I spent ten years out in the USA and we both have loads of DVDs) but it's AV outputs and the TV didn't support it. Again, could have bought adapters ETC but I guess I am old fashioned and just wanted a stereo in here :)

It sounds fantastic. Had to practically turn the bass down to zero on it though because the 12" long throw sub liked it a little too much :D but yeah, got it all sorted now :)

I really want to build something similar for my mother who has been asking me for a stereo/radio but the thing is she would never ever understand the Android like front end. It took us nearly a year to teach her how to use Facebook on a tablet we bought for her.
 
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