How We Turn iPhone 4 Into Loud Speaker.
The Story Behind The Idea
With the recent hype on iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, we decided to shower some love for its predecessors, and no, we are not doing any bend test.
Just in case you didn’t know, we just ended our nationwide SolidWorks Innovation Day few weeks ago. However during the planning of the event, we were stuck with few things:
- What innovative lucky draw gift can be given out? It needs to be unique to the receiver (none in the market) yet innovative.
- It needs to be relevant to the mass participant profile (we wouldn’t want you to receive something that you have no use of).
While we were having casual discussion (still struggling with the lucky draw gift), we realised that most of our customers are using iPhone 4 during our sales visit & past events attendance. That is how we started off with doing something for iPhone 4.
Our Issue With iPhone 4
Most often than not, we “the iPhone” users over here find that the audio speaker seems to be lacking, it is definitely better than majority of the phones where speaker is placed behind, however, placing it bottom doesn’t provide the best experience either. We need an iPhone speaker amplifier.
We did our research and realise that there were many amplifier being sold online. but surprisingly, we didn’t find a 3D printed one. There you go, that’s how we came up with 3D printing an iPhone 4 amplifier.
Here is what we did:
File Source: Own design
Technology: FDM
Printer: Idea Series – uPrint SE
Materials: ABS Plus Orange
Build Time: 7 hours 16 minutes
Screenshots in CAD file:

#IME #SWID2015 3D Printed iPhone Amplifier
It was designed in a way to conveniently stand on its own, you can just simply slot in your iPhone into it vertically and play the music. Hence the printed model needs to be able to support iPhone’s weight (specific endurance).
Outcome:

#IME #SWID2015 3D Printed iPhone Amplifier Functional Test
Here you go! While we hope the lucky draw winner is happy with this, more importantly this proves the concept of direct digital manufacturing – where you can simply design & print on demand.
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