Modding the Soundboks Mix: How we built a custom LED mod without voiding the warranty
Thor and I recently took on the challenge of building a custom LED mod for the Soundboks Mix. If any of you have ever worked on the Mix, you know it’s not really built for customization the way the gen 3 or 4 is. The grill is harder to remove and there’s little clearance inside.
We wanted to make the mod without breaking the warranty. In the process, we ran into three hurdles.
LED strip placement
There wasn't room along the edge of the grill for a standard LED strip. So we designed and 3D-printed a custom ring that sits around the foam edge of the woofer. We mounted an individually addressable RGB strip (96 LEDs/m) onto the ring. As you can see in the video, this position creates a unique visual effect that differs from the edge mount.
Controller housing
Because we didn't want a plastic box on the outside of the speaker, we made a housing for the controller that is hidden behind the Soundboks logo on the grill using the original screws.
Power delivery
Drilling holes for power was out of the question (again, keeping that warranty intact). A lot of LED mods just have the power-wire dangling out the front, which looks a bit messy in our opinion. Our workaround was building a DC input directly into our controller housing that perfectly aligns with one of the existing honeycomb holes in the grill.
We got a custom-length DC splitter cable made so the speaker's own battery powers both the Soundboks and the lights simultaneously. The whole setup is power-efficient, so the battery drain is negligible, and you can just unplug the external cable when you aren't using the lights.
Curious to hear what the community thinks of this approach! Has anyone else tried modifying the Mix yet?