I ran into a problem recently, or, well, two: the xbox, which is currently residing in my desk area needs sound and my laptop is really quiet when playing movies. The simple solution (which I eventually went to): speakers! So I brought up some speakers from the basement, hooked them up with a splitter (bad idea), and got tons of dropoff in sound. I looked around for a simple solution, but couldn't find anything. The solutions I did find were either too expensive to justify not taking the five seconds to actually switch cables, or was just too convoluted to really bother with. I decided instead to do homebrew solution. It is bound to be cheaper, right? Well no, but at least now I have some tools for the next potential project. Anyways, the project:
The pieces: 1 project box, some wire, a single pull double throw switch, 3 1/8th inch jacks, and some time. It is incredibly basic. My new box has 2 inputs, one for the computer and one for the xbox, an output to go to the speakers, and a switch to change which input I am listening to.
Originally, I had all this taped up, no solder, and it worked fine, but I figured I should make a more permanent solution. So today, while on the phone trying to debug someones computer problems, I soldered...for the first time in years. I am rather pleased with the results.
