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Post by trevordj on Dec 24, 2019 16:20:05 GMT -5
Great work with the CNC. Also diggin' the Festool goodies. Got a few in my wood shop as well and they are top notch.
Only issue I had was a recall with my Festool track saw. Still haven't gotten around to getting the repair completed.
Looking forward to future progress updates!  Scott
Yes, they are awesome tools. I wish they weren’t so expensive but have acquired them slowly over the years. The only issue I ever had was one of the chucks on a drill broke. They replaced it under warranty sight unseen. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 2:10:27 GMT -5
Back to work after being gone for the holidays. I had a pause from working I. The speakers as I was working on modifying my SpeakerPower amplifiers to add a 12v trigger in and out. They don’t come with one, or at least they didn’t when I purchased them although am they are able to add it as an option now. No matter though, I had a lot of fun learning how to add it. What’s life without the risk of destroying $6k worth of amplifiers anyway 😅 I don’t know how much “in the weeds” you guys are interested in here although this could likely be applied to any amplifier you are looking to add a 12v trigger to. This would likely be most helpful if any of you are using pro amplifiers to run your subs (behringer, crown, etc). I started with the relay, it is just a cheap DPDT solid state one from amazon. I am using the relay to switch the amplifier (obviously) and a 120v AC in, 12v 1a DC out power supply which will serve to provide power to the trigger out without any additional stress on the incoming trigger.  I used some stainless machine screws to attach weld nuts to the power supply and relay. The weld nuts are nice because they provide a large surface for epoxy to adhere and they act as a stand-off for the boards.  These were bonded in the middle of the case with 3m panel bonding adhesive. This stuff is awesome    After 24h the epoxy was cured.  |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 2:20:07 GMT -5
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 2:24:09 GMT -5
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 2:30:34 GMT -5
I have officially given in on the cheap rustoleum. Any money I am saving by using it is offset by how long it takes to dry and how poorly the primer fills. It is wasted using expensive house of kolor stuff on something like this that will be hidden though so I am going in the middle. I sprayed some evercoat slicksand tonight. This is basically sprayable body fillet and works very well as a grain filler.    After I block this I have some house of kolor epoxy primer that I never use, I will use that as a sealer and then I will spray some single stage satin black and be done. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 20:28:17 GMT -5
More work today. Sanded the slicksand, sprayed some more, sanded flat.  Sprayed the epoxy primer over the top to seal the slicksand. This will have to cure for 12h or so and then I can flip the grills and seal them. I don’t need any filler primer on the other side because these will be covered in grill cloth. The only reason I filled the backside is in case I take off the grills to show the speakers, I want the underside of the grill and the baffle to look professional. Everything is nice and straight now.   Downside is that the single stage paint I ordered won’t be here until next week. After these are all completely ready for paint I will be changing focus to finishing all the wiring boxes in the room and will prep the room for paint. I need to sparkle in the trim rings for these Atmos speakers and I hope to get the room painted this weekend. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 2, 2020 20:39:47 GMT -5
I also ran the 16ga speaker wire to the Atmos locations. All the wiring is done now. I second guessed myself a bit though and want to future proof the wiring even more. Coax and cat6 are already run to each location with this goal in mind but the HDMI spec is in such a state of flux right now so I am going to pull the HDMI cables I already ran, run some 1.5” conduit, and then re-install the HDMI. It seems there are no HDMI 2.1 cables on the market that are currently readily available, long length (35ft in this case), and CL3 rated. The current consensus seems to be that conduit is the only way to ensure future-proofability with HDMI.    This will be helpful as I am planning to get a 77” OLED for the room after I am finished. I previously was going to do a projector but the room really isn’t suited for it. My current last generation 65” Panasonic plasma will go to the spare bedroom. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 5, 2020 1:56:03 GMT -5
I wish I had more to show for the last couple of days. I put in a good 16 hours of work and... the room looks the same. Actually I think I backslid a bit. Running the ABS conduit proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. It was tough to find a place to do one of the drops, and I had to make a few extra trips to the store for fittings, and I was trying to not cover the openings for the Atmos speakers with the conduit. It took me about 8 hours to get this stupid conduit run. And, I shredded three of the cables I had previously run while drilling a hole so now I have to replace those  . Not too exciting to look at. Here is the conduit on the TV wall  And in the equipment corner  I cleaned up the room a bit and started putting together the plates. They are labeled with numbers and the Ethernet connections are labeled additionally with a different color/wall.    I sanded the polyester filler primer on the top of the Atmos grills. Then I stayed epoxy primer. These are now ready for paint after a quick sanding, as are the enclosures. I should get the paint next week so I am a holding pattern for now.    Unfortunately because I screwed up when drilling that hole I am also in a holding pattern with the wiring. Since I have two coax and one cat6 cable to replace I can’t close everything up until this happens. I had used all stock of my cat6+ and coax when I did this the first time so I had to order some fresh stock from markertek. Those will be here, at best, at the end of next week. I could purchase locally but I have specific Belden cable I like to use. In fact, all speaker wire and signal cable is Belden for this build excel the HDMI which is Monoprice luxe series. I will be able to mount the Atmos trim rings tomorrow and start sparkling/texturing some of the room. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 5, 2020 20:58:24 GMT -5
Trim rings were press fit into the Atmos locations   The rings were spackled in place.  Some more sanding and spackling and then some texture and the ceiling will be ready for paint. I want to wait until I have the Atmos speaker installation solidified though, I haven’t nailed down exactly how I am going to secure them. I am probably going to build a simple frame with 2x4s in the attic and then I can temporarily hold the Atmos enclosures in place with a 2x4 screwed into the ceiling. Then I can go into the attic and screw the mounting 2x4 into the frame at the exact correct height to flush mount the enclosure. Then the temporary 2x4 can be removed and the enclosure screwed to the attic mounted 2x4 frame from the room reaching through the speaker hole. Kinda complicated and will require multiple back and forth trips to the attic but probably the best way to do it. |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 11, 2020 1:00:11 GMT -5
Paint is on. Will flip the rings and finish the other side tomorrow. Grill cloth on Sunday  Got the coax and cat6+. I’ll run those tomorrow and lots of spackle/prep/wire clean up |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 11, 2020 4:53:20 GMT -5
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Post by simpleman68 on Jan 11, 2020 10:07:26 GMT -5
I wish I had more to show for the last couple of days. I put in a good 16 hours of work and... the room looks the same. Every project I've ever worked on had at least a day or two of this.  I just keep reminding myself of the end goal and have another cup of coffee.
Looking great man.
Only thing I'd ask about is the 16 gauge wire. I know the Atmos stuff isn't running full range but distance plays a big factor as well.
I used a flat wound 12 gauge wire for mine that look like they are 16 gauge and take up very little room and can even be tucked behind soffit mouldings. Scott
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2020 12:36:34 GMT -5
trevordj, you're doing excellent work. Hats off
I agree with Scott about wire gauge- due to distance.
I'm anal about wire gauge, alway use 1 size over needed on everything (if I can)
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Post by trevordj on Jan 11, 2020 17:52:56 GMT -5
trevordj, you're doing excellent work. Hats off I agree with Scott about wire gauge- due to distance. I'm anal about wire gauge, alway use 1 size over needed on everything (if I can) I wish I had more to show for the last couple of days. I put in a good 16 hours of work and... the room looks the same. Every project I've ever worked on had at least a day or two of this. I just keep reminding myself of the end goal and have another cup of coffee. Looking great man. Only thing I'd ask about is the 16 gauge wire. I know the Atmos stuff isn't running full range but distance plays a big factor as well. I used a flat wound 12 gauge wire for mine that look like they are 16 gauge and take up very little room and can even be tucked behind soffit mouldings. Scott
Thanks guys! I agree with both of you about using larger speaker wire than needed. I'll explain how I came to my conclusion to use this size wire for below. The 16 gauge wire is actually 2 sizes over what it could be (20 gauge), see explanation below. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to speaker wire. It is all about meeting the goal of the system while minimizing audible losses. My longest atmos run is 20 feet. The volt6s are nominal 8 ohm speakers. Based on this distance and wire size I will only experience 0.17dB of output loss due to the speaker wire, this is 1/10th an audible amount. Heck, the speaker wire is 6 gauges too large if you consider that anything <1dB signal loss is acceptable and inaudible. In this case 16ga wire is way, way overkill. The other thing to consider, will the thermal capacity of the speaker wire be compromised? The generally accepted value to measure this is circular mils/1amp. As long as you are over 300 circular mils/amp you are good. In this case 16 gauge wire has a cross sectional area of 2580 circular mils/amp and, at 80 watts (the maximum power of the UPA-700 I will be using to power this thing) there will be just over 3 amps of current. This has a healthy 860 circular mils/amp which is nearly 3 times more than necessary, even 20 gauge would be sufficient from this perspective (333 circular mils/amp). Although 22 gauge wire would have resulted in inaudible signal loss, it would not meet this specification. Another way to look at this, it would take 120 feet of 16 gauge speaker wire to result in 0.98dB output loss. When one considers that it is much more likely that the atmos speakers are unlikely to get nearly that much content information it would be, in my opinion, wasteful to use anything larger. In fact I probably should have used 20 gauge in this case but the belden stuff I used is just not as readily available in that size. I usually fall into the bigger is better perspective as well, but I feel speaker wire sizing is something people just go crazy with. The interesting thing here is, if you go through this exercise for all the wire I used (14 gauge to surrounds, 12 gauge to FCR, 10 gauge to subwoofers, and 16 gauge to atmos), there is one wire that is almost undersized. It is the 10 gauge!!! If I ran my SP2-8000s full tilt it will put out a legitimate 4000 watts/channel or 22 amps. This is 450 circular mils/amp and 0.09 dB signal loss at the longest distance, 40 feet. The good news (sort of), is that there is no way my subwoofers will handle that much power and its not likely my ears will be able to handle that much power either. |
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Post by pedrocols on Jan 11, 2020 18:04:37 GMT -5
I am hoping you are using Cryo treated cables throughout...😂😎
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Post by trevordj on Jan 13, 2020 2:12:07 GMT -5
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Post by trevordj on Jan 26, 2020 20:37:35 GMT -5
The last couple of weeks have been full of progress but not progress that made for good internet content. Buttoning up wiring, repairing holes, and running electrical for lighting. I also had to run some Ethernet cable and coax to two additional rooms in the house. Call it project creep, but I needed network cables run to these rooms and I figured since the walls were open it was a good time to do it (even though I really didn’t want to). I was able to do this without opening any additional walls so that’s a win. I relocated and upgraded the light fixture to the center of the room.   The 10 x 4” recessed lighting fixtures along with LED lights (super inexpensive sunco brand I found on amazon). The retrofit cans worked better than any others I have used. Wires everywhere  All the wiring done and lights buttoned up.  |
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Post by trevordj on Jan 26, 2020 20:38:59 GMT -5
I got all the speaker enclosures mounted in the ceiling. It was a pain. I ended up making a simple frame glued and screwed the the ceiling joists. I then screwed the enclosures to the frame through the speaker hole. It all sounds easy in theory. It was very challenging in practice. Mounting these boxes took me about 6 hours. My back is killing me.     I am going to get the drivers, insulation, and crossovers in tomorrow or maybe later tonight and these things are done. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2020 17:26:33 GMT -5
trevordj
Do you hire out?! lol
Excellent work, impressive.
I'm sure there are many who would like a demo.
Enjoy,
Jeff
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Post by trevordj on Jan 27, 2020 22:57:00 GMT -5
trevordj Do you hire out?! lol Excellent work, impressive. I'm sure there are many who would like a demo. Enjoy, Jeff I appreciate it Jeff, I admire those in the trades but I suffer from being very slow as I have no formal training other than reading the relevant NEC codes. I am in the process of starting a cnc milling company on the side but that will be 6 months out before I can get a professional unit up and running. My door is always open for anyone who wants to check it out after I am done! -Trevor |
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