Giving Thunder and Lightning a Boost with Add Volume, Jack

Maker News


The basic thunder and lightning machine. It’s better described as a strobe light and thunder-thru-a-small-speaker machine. My job was to connect it to a mixer and amplifier, but to do that, it would need an audio output jack. Luckily for me, Peter Edwards already covered that base on Make: Projects with his Add Volume, Jack project. This was my attempt at that neat little modification.

Weekend Projects reader Martin writes in with this wonderful mod of the Add Volume, Jack, hacking a store-bought 110V strobe with embedded thunder audio effect.

The insides post-modification. Yes, this is a high voltage toy, kids, so if you’re gonna take it apart, you’ll need to know what you’re doing! Note the volume pot and audio jack installed in the bottom. I’d also like to mention that as I was unable to confirm which side was ground, I had to go by trial and error.

Martin’s strobe mod was part of his Halloween decor, and accompanied his Giant PVC Spider and other lawn elements.

More:
See all of the RadioShack Weekend Projects posts (to date)

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I'm an artist & maker. A lifelong biblioholic, and advocate for all-things geekathon. Home is Long Island City, Queens, which I consider the greatest place on Earth. 5-year former Resident of Flux Factory, co-organizer for World Maker Faire (NYC), and blogger all over the net. Howdy!

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