the chassis is a cigar box , ACID , by Drew Estate , they seem to pretty popular , for an 8 dollar cigar . i guess they have 2 sizes , this is the larger box , i have a few of the smaller box's . i actually offered to give one of these smaller box's to a good friend . they are really sturdy , they smell great , you put your money in there , or what have you (crack) . he took it , then gave it back cause it says "acid" , he didn't want his nephew to think he does drugs or condones smoking .
dude bums a half pack off me every time we hang .

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the over size GEM lite really pulls it all together . it was a gift from a good friend who found it cleaning out his late father-in-laws garage . odd twist of fate , this guys's wife passed away recently as well (aneurysm) . such a tragedy , they were in love , she was way too young and sweet to leave us so soon .

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the top right switch shuts down the speaker for headphone use , a switching jack doesn't have the thread depth for mounting thru thicker panels (wood) .

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the two knobs on the bottom where mod'd in to provide tremolo rate , and echo time . this mod gives the unit 3 and a half seconds of echo , opposed to the stock 1/3rd of a second . i got lucky on the trem , but the echo mod required removing an smt resistor (the size of the head of a pin) and soldering micro wire onto the leg of a tiny 16 pin ic chip , Phew .

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yes the speaker grille IS from a fan . my lil bro garbage picked this odd string of five of those fans on a single ac line , it had one switch . i still cant figure out what that would be for ? some sort of ikea design that was inspired after a bad glug night perhaps . i cut one of those fan units on to a long cable and i use it as a fluid less bbq charcoal briquette starter with one of those steel chimney tubes . fantastic little contraption .



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the actual amplifier is a danelectro hodad , 29 bucks on amazon , it only has a couple 2 inch speakers , but if you run it on a larger speaker its much much louder . the speaker i used came out of another guitar amp i mod'd into a battery powered bass amp for my wife . i use power transformers hooked up to deep cell batteries for remote . you can run a few these amps for 8 hours with that set up . for home use , i use wall warts . you see how its a little crooked there , thats on purpose , now its got character , see ?

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i had to remove the original input jack , it was in an odd location . it was a switching jack that turned the input on . no reason whatsoever for this , i guess so it makes em tougher to mod ? it took an extra hour , what a hassle ! i filled the hole with a little hot glue so when i spill beers on it , maybe it will take a little longer to explode .

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i also removed the stock led so i could utilize the mega mojo gem lite . the voltage off the pin was 1.8 volts . i bought a fancy super brite 1.8 volt led for 2 bucks from frys only to realize it wasn't very super (turned out to be RED , when it was clear and that was not specified on the packaging) and also it was not very bright . later i ended up getting lucky at home depot , they had a reduced package with a super nice box cutter knife , a 9 led mini flash light and a miner light for 3 bucks . the miner light is what shines in the gem now . it runs on 6 volts . on the board there was an smt (teeny tiny) resistor cutting 9 volts to 1.8 for the original LED so i held my breath , removed that smt resistorand slapped in a 100 k (i think) to get it around the proper level for the 6 volter . i popped an amp board doing that with out a resistor before , just the power section for the lamp , but . i smoked an led or two like that as well (use your meter you dummy) .

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this was a pretty fun project , i took my time , only got hung up for a minute or two on some of the switching for the headphones , power in , and that goofy pointless input jack . the insides look fantastic , but my wife took the pics and its super late . i am in an incredible amount of pain from messing with this thing . the main challenge is making everything fit and this one was pretty tight in some spots . NOTHING compared to my metal amp though . . . that build was a living red nightmare .

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thanks so much to my wife , she really does quite a bit of the work for / with me . since my injury i cant do much , i will be laid up for a week cause i did a little work tonight . sure we bickered a little bit here and there but it wasn't like the cops showed up a few times like with the metal amp . :lol:

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the mojo emitting from this gem is capable illuminating even the darkest depths of a broken heart .

i think this may be the last one for me , i have 5 now including the bass amp , i do need to test this with a guitar , tomorrow , its too late to crank it .the preliminary tests sounded great though . cigar box amp , really fun project , try one sometime ! i cant wait to make a few more , lets see , stereo amp , thermin amp , compressor / auto wah / echo amp . . . .