When I moved away to college for the second time this past fall, I didn't bring a car with me, but I did take my car stereo. I figured I could somehow make use of it. It took me about half the semester to finally get around to working on it. I initially used a regular brown FedEx box, which lasted me until the end of the semester. I decided I wanted something a little better than the ghetto box, so I asked my dad, who likes wood working, to help me build a box for my stereo. Here are the pictures from that little endeavor.
The first picture is an angle shot where you can see the stereo in the front and the power switch on the side. You can also see the switch in the fifth picture. The switch acts just like the ignition in a car. With it off and the power supply plugged in, the stereo acts like it would on battery power in a car. You can check the time and insert and eject CD's. When you flip the switch, it's just like turning on your car. You can now turn on the stereo and have it work just like it would in the car.
The second picture is just the head-on view. Nothing special there. Oh, by the way, the stereo is a JVC KD-SX980.
Third picture: Back shot where you can see the power supply and the frame which holds it in place. The PSU is a 200W AT taken from an old IBM.
In the fourth shot you can see I trimmed down the wiring quite a bit. All that's left are two 12V wires and one ground wire. I shorted the power_on wire to ground, but you can't see that because I shortened the wires and left them in the PSU so they wouldn't get in the way.
The final picture is of the switch which I explained above.
There you have it. My own stereo box made from a car stereo, a computer power supply and some wood, screws and little glue. If you have any questions or just want to call me an idiot, go for it.
Edit:
Here is a picture of one of the sides of the box, with the speaker wires poking out. I'm planning on putting some speaker terminals on the side some time, but I'm not sure when.
