I have a new project for the winter time because my 3D printer is in the garage and it's really cold here in the midwest. It's very similar to my calculator speaker case except it's much smaller and can attach easily to TI 83's and 82's and the ones who have the port on the bottom as opposed to the 84's which have a recessed port. It's basically an attachment that slides in to the calculator. Here's a render I did in Blender yesterday:

What do you think? I'll need to figure out plastic fabrication but I already have parts ordered for an amplifier and two speakers. I might make it black plastic instead of white just to blend in with ti-83's and 2's a little better. Any suggestions for plastic fabrication? I would love some help there.

It would be cool is someone developed a cheap "Orion" like attachment for the 84's (excluding the CE), which would do exactly what you have shown here.
Sorry, I cant offer any help past 3D printing advice and 3D modeling

I agree, I did think of that but I already have my speaker case so I figured since lots of sound programs have already been created for the non-84's I though this would be killing more birds with one stone.

Looks Interesting.

I wonder if you could make it like a battery pack,and have the wire just stretch a little. (Wouldn't it be clunky if it just connected to the link port?)

Or you could make it so that the speaker has ridges to hold it in place while being connected the calculator, so it doesn't swivel around.

I'm suitably impressed by how well you and Blender rendered that design! My biggest concern at this point is that that module looks huge compared to the calculator with which it will be mated. A small Li-Poly battery, charging circuit, speakers, and a small amplifier should ideally fit in something at most about 1" high, and the width and depth of the calculator. I like Caleb's idea about ridges that curve around to the calculator's sides to help hold it in place. Can you please clarify a little more about the following? Are you distinguishing between the TI-83+ and TI-84+ family (on which the same sound programs work, more or less)? Or the TI-83+ and TI-84+ versus the TI-82 and TI-83?

I like the ridges idea, something like this?



I still can't figure out how to build a simple audio amplifier. I have completely ditched the lm741 as it has proved itself useless time and again. If anyone can point me towards something that would help with this amplifier that would be great, because I have no idea where to look (aside from digikey.) I realize now that the perspective in the first image made it seem big. This one has less of that. The calculator should fit inside those ridges and should look kind of like Orion except on the bottom of the calc.

EDIT:: I ordered this audio amplifier ic off of digikey after extensive research and makind sure it would work. I have a circuit that makes it work (found on its datasheet) and I hope that that is what will end up going inside of this thing I keep making renders of

That looks about what I was thinking for the ridges, maybe even a little more concave to help it grip the way the calculator curves from back to front. Good luck using that new audio amplifier; has it arrived yet to test it out?

It has arrived. I hope to get to testing this weekend. I kind of almost dont want to go with the ridges because of all of the different shapes of the bottoms of calcs and without the ridges it would fit into all calcs with a bottom io port.

It'd be really cool to do something like this with the TI 84 Plus CE USB port, and use something around the OTG cable that comes with the calc and do some signal manipulation with the USB connector to produce sound. It'd actually be really cool to do something like that, with maybe a new MobileTunes with support for the faster processor making for better songs.

The only issue I guess with that would be mounting, but the idea for the 82 and 83 look really cool. Making an 84 Plus edition using the USB port for more power would also be really cool for louder sounds (since I'm assuming the I/O port gives off somewhat of a low power)

Anyways, good luck with the speaker!

I don't know about using the USB port
I don't think that would work, but if it did, I think a modified speaker attachment like this one should wrap around the back of the calculator, if anything.

Going back to the original attachment, When I brought up ridges, I was definitely thinking front to back ridges. If you are sticking with the side ridges, maybe add some rubber grips to hold the calc in place (if this seems like a good idea, consider just buying some replacement calculator grip pads from TI to match the calculator).

What do you mean front to back ridges? Can you make a diagram/drawing?

Appreciate my lovely mouse sketching:

Basically the ridges hold the calc from rotating, by holding onto the front and back of the calculator.
Edit- fixed link

I think your image link is broken.

I thikn I understand it now. I do like the idea of having one of those in the back. I feel like a front one would come too close to the buttons. I'm gonna try and wire up this amplifier tonight or tomorrow. I'll post the results when I have them!

Sorry to dig up such an old topic, but I believe that I have the needed parts now for this project as I got some for my birthday last Thursday. It's an adafruit audio amplifier. However, when I hooked it up following this guide all I get is a really annoying static noise sound whenever any sound comes out of the calculator. Here is my setup:

Ideas?

What does the noise sound like?

I feel as if a resistor is missing somewhere. What is the impedance of the speakers, and is the receptacle wired correctly?

Receptacle?
I'm pretty sure I followed the wiring guid correctly and there were no external resistors...
The impedance of the speakers is 3Ω

Except for the fact the input requires resistors https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/3730 ...Also note that you did not connect the gain pins.

I tried connecting the gain pins, but the page also says it has a default value. connecting the gain pins did not fix the issue. I will try adding resistors to the input tomorrow and see if that works.