Progress on the Equalizer  LED Briefcase:

Speakers are installed. I’m using a pair of full range 4″ 30W RMS speakers salvaged from a broken stereo. They’re not a perfect match for the ovoid vent holes I cut for speakers, but some stretched red fabric hides it.

Batteries are installed. I’m using a pair of 12v 18Ah SLA batteries. Given the system’s average current draw of three amps this will last 12 hours. This is certainly overkill but with this much power to spare I can plug other equipment into the briefcase (very useful). It’s really heavy though. I might decide to take one of them out.

I decided to replace the PIC18F2620 with a PIC18F4550. Mostly because the little 2620 didn’t have a lot of IO pins and I didn’t want to go through the mess of trying to expand it with shift registers or latches.

I still need to finish the analog equalizer control system.  The horizontal slots on the near the center top are for slide potentiometers to be used in this system.

There are also a few potentiometers that don’t go to anything. They will eventually run to the microcontroller ADC and used as inputs to control LED brightness, as well as the hysteresis and sensitivity of the audio response system.