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Post by trevordj on May 1, 2020 1:59:06 GMT -5
I got the additional baffles glued and pressed. I learned a lot yesterday from my maiden voyage with the vacuum press. It went much more smoothly as a result.  After some feedback regarding the speaker design I had to build out a sealed chamber around the tweeter. I will be removing the backplate off the tweeter. It’s too bad I just cut all the holes in the braces but that’s ok. I cut some scrap Baltic birch and sealed the chamber.  |
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Post by trevordj on May 6, 2020 21:32:55 GMT -5
Lots of progress, well for me anyway since I am super slow. Stuffed the upper and lower chambers with denim insulation.  I glued the tops and bottoms onto the speakers. Then, everything was flush trimmed. Next, I made a template for the tweeter cutout out of MDF.  I got the tweeter cutouts and rabbets all taken care of. This was the part of the build I was most nervous about. If I screw up here it’s either lots of body filler or starting over. Luckily everything worked out perfectly.     I got the speaker and port cutouts taken care of.  It’s starting to look like a real speaker!  I have had these speakers for almost 5 years now waiting to build these. I can’t believe how quickly time goes.  |
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Post by cwmcobra on May 6, 2020 22:25:55 GMT -5
Cool. Can't wait to hear how they sound to you!
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Post by trevordj on May 18, 2020 2:45:47 GMT -5
Work continues I just don’t have a ton to show for it. Lots of block sanding and body filler to get the boxes ruler flat. The box is going to be black which shows every imperfection so a large block is helpful. Nothing fancy, just a dimensioned 2 x 4.      I had a delivery. Thirteen of Dayton audio’s finest adjust able speaker feet. These cost more than I wish they did.  I drilled and epoxied the threaded inserts that came with them on the bottom of the LCRs  The LCRs are ready to start getting painted. My plan is to spray the bottoms let them cure for a couple days then install the feet, tape them off, and flip them so I can spray the rest. Back to the subwoofers, I previously made the mistake of trying to fill the routed joint with mid instead of body filler. Don’t do that. Not only was it not easier but the stuff does not stick to MDF well at all. Luckily it was easy to scrape out. Now I am filling and block sanding the subs. Previously I tried to level them with just using the DA sander and it didn’t work. Back to the block.  |
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Post by trevordj on May 18, 2020 2:46:59 GMT -5
I had to take a break from sanding this afternoon so I changed gears a bit. I needed to figure out how I will reverse mount the XT25 tweeter to the diysg seos 8 waveguide. The plate on the XT25 does not line up well with the back plate of the waveguide. I could drill out the back plate and be able to mount 3-4 of the 5 screw holes but it is important to get the tweeter flush into the throat of the WG and sealed.   I removed the front plate and was met with this.  I could mount the tweeter with screws coming underneath the mounting plate but getting the tweeter to seal to the plate would be tough and, when the surrounds are complete, I will not be able to remove the waveguides as they will be molded into the front baffle. The tweeters will mount through the woofer cutout and must be reasonably easy to mount with one hand reverse mount to the plate. To solve this I designed an adapter plate in Fusion 360  Initially I thought I would prototype this in birch and eventually have to mill it from aluminum. That may still be the case but once bolted together the birch seems quite strong 30 minutes later they were cut.    8-32heat set threaded inserts were installed in the waveguides after drilling out the holes with a #5 size bit.  The adapter plate fits perfectly. I need to chamfer the overhanging wood and seal the ring to the tweeter with silicone or hot glue.  The tweeter sits perfectly centered in the waveguide and fits to the throat tightly.  I am really happy with how this turned out. Just another unknown checked off the list. All six of these are done. |
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Post by cwmcobra on May 18, 2020 8:50:29 GMT -5
You rock, man!! Kudos for your knowledge, passion and tool collection! I admire those with effective design and fabrication skills!
Cheers!
Chuck
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Post by trevordj on May 26, 2020 0:14:30 GMT -5
Ugh, I am so tired of sanding. Since I am painting these black pearl they have to be dead flat or any imperfections will show. I haven’t been posting a ton of pics because from a picture perspective you would look at them and they are the same. I will say I wasted a ton of time early on trying to do all of the sanding with the orbital. For my purposes guide coat, block sanding, body filler, rinse, lather, repeat is the only way to do it. At this point I have the LCRs and two of the subwoofers ready for paint. I have about 2 days more sanding on the other two subs to get them flat assuming my hands hold up. After finishing prep on the subs tonight I made a template for adding additional bracing agter getting some feedback on AVS forum. I am used to building small subs for cars and this is my first large volume high powered sub. They need more bracing along the back panel so I am doing so. The two templates for these braces are complete and everything fits well. I need to go pick up some more Baltic birch tomorrow so I can finish cutting them.  I also have had to take some time to complete a task for my wife, I had to strip and varnish some teak patio furniture. If anyone is wanting to get into spraying with an hvlp gun, varnish is very easy to spray. I used man-O-war marine spar varnish thinned 10% with mineral spirits and sprayed with a 1.8mm tip. Very forgiving stuff. I have done 2 coats out of at least 4. Varnish needs 24h drying time between coats and I need nice weather to come back so I can finish them up.  |
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Post by trevordj on May 27, 2020 4:47:00 GMT -5
I got the rest of the support structures cut and everything is glued with pl premium in the boxes. After the templates were made last night cutting the parts was easy, just rough cut on the band saw followed by flush trim on the router table.    I used a mallet to get everything lined up, pretty tight fit for a retrofit.    Lastly I drilled holes and epoxied threaded inserts in place for the speaker feet in the two completed boxes.  Now I am on to block sanding the last two subwoofer boxes and then I can finally get to painting. |
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Post by megash0n on May 27, 2020 6:41:13 GMT -5
I got the rest of the support structures cut and everything is glued with pl premium in the boxes. After the templates were made last night cutting the parts was easy, just rough cut on the band saw followed by flush trim on the router table. I used a mallet to get everything lined up, pretty tight fit for a retrofit. Lastly I drilled holes and epoxied threaded inserts in place for the speaker feet in the two completed boxes. Now I am on to block sanding the last two subwoofer boxes and then I can finally get to painting. Everytime I see your posts, I have to fight the urge to buy a CNC machine. |
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Post by mgbpuff on May 27, 2020 6:46:58 GMT -5
Tell me you didn't grow the trees for this wood in your yard!
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Post by trevordj on May 27, 2020 10:44:54 GMT -5
Everytime I see your posts, I have to fight the urge to buy a CNC machine. Do it! You can get into one pretty inexpensively, mine is a mostly printed CNC here: www.v1engineering.com/specifications/The fittings are 3D printed so the machine has limitations but it is perfect for cutting your teeth on basic CNC CAD/CAM. I actually am in the process of setting up a company that does custom milling for DIYers (a side gig, my main company is my medical practice), in the next month or so I am going to be purchasing this for that company: www.cncrouterparts.com/pro4896-4-x-8-cnc-router-kit-p-253.htmlIt should be a major upgrade but I am glad I learned how to build and troubleshoot on this smaller less expensive unit before going to something larger. |
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Post by megash0n on May 27, 2020 11:05:32 GMT -5
Everytime I see your posts, I have to fight the urge to buy a CNC machine. Do it! You can get into one pretty inexpensively, mine is a mostly printed CNC here: www.v1engineering.com/specifications/The fittings are 3D printed so the machine has limitations but it is perfect for cutting your teeth on basic CNC CAD/CAM. I actually am in the process of setting up a company that does custom milling for DIYers (a side gig, my main company is my medical practice), in the next month or so I am going to be purchasing this for that company: www.cncrouterparts.com/pro4896-4-x-8-cnc-router-kit-p-253.htmlIt should be a major upgrade but I am glad I learned how to build and troubleshoot on this smaller less expensive unit before going to something larger. I'll check it out. I actually bought a dozen nice servo motors years ago for the purpose of building one. I just never dug in. I have way too many hobbies and a garage full of stuff I never use. I would love to have a good CNC machine and one to do Mil Spec metal milling. 😉 Edit: I think I meant stepper motors... |
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Post by megash0n on May 27, 2020 11:53:23 GMT -5
I don't know why I took the bait. hahaha See, this is my problem. I LOVE hobbies, but rarely stick to them. I have a 1600+ sqft detached garage and think that I need to fill it up with tools and "man" things. Above the garage is floored, so technically I have twice that room. And now, you're making me want to get a CNC machine. I've wanted for years to get an air handler system to deal with the dust along with building proper wood working tables for saws and such. I would probably do more wood working if I were more organized and less messy. I love the concept of precision. I took many CADD classes in high school, so I understand most of the basic concepts with this. I'm just afraid it will be another investment that I rarely use. So, since I took the bait, is your unit from www.v1engineering.com/ ? I looked at the other site. That system looks awesome, but I'm not down to drop 5k. $250 - 500 seems like a nice amount to spend if I can accomplish the things you have shown here. I don't mind the thought of having to rough cut things down because you can only deal with a certain size. Although, throwing a 4 x 8 sheet down and letting the machine do all the work does sound nice. I'm interested for the right amount of money and functionality. I do have a project coming up where I need to build a custom entertainment center for my amps and processor to go inside. It needs to be a specific height as my center channel will sit on top. I have one design picked out that I will need to adjust measurements. Would be super cool to feed that into a free-ish CNC program and "cut" it loose. I also wouldn't mind rebuilding my sub boxes as they are about %75 too big. It may make more sense to just fill the inside of my existing with solid material to take up some of the airspace though. I'm not sure why I did it, but these subs call for around .65 cubic feet and they are sitting at 2.3. I think it had something to due with flatness and to play lower, but I'm sure they would punch much harder if I got them closer to the .65. I had intended to use these between 40 - 80 Hz and install my infinite baffle containing (4) 18s for everything below that. Seems like an awful lot of effort though to achieve tremendous SPL between 15 - 40 hz. Anyways, I'm way off topic here. Mainly just want to know if I could actually get a decent CNC setup to accomplish what you are doing for under $500. |
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Post by megash0n on May 27, 2020 12:09:53 GMT -5
I have (12) of these. I don't think they are strong enough though. Edit: I remember why I bought these years ago. I was planning to build automated window shades for my living room. That never happened. I realized that getting power to them would be a challenge. Attachments:
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Post by trevordj on May 27, 2020 13:36:26 GMT -5
I'll check it out. I actually bought a dozen nice servo motors years ago for the purpose of building one. I just never dug in. I have way too many hobbies and a garage full of stuff I never use. I would love to have a good CNC machine and one to do Mil Spec metal milling. 😉 Edit: I think I meant stepper motors... Those would be under powered compared to the ones that come in the MPCNC kit but that's not to say you couldn't use them and see if they worked. The biggest difficulty this would post is it would require a redesign of the stepper mounts for the kit. Not un-doable but it would take time and troubleshooting to get it right. When stepping into the CNC world the learning curve is steep so this would add to that learning curve with an additional variable. |
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Post by trevordj on May 27, 2020 13:43:38 GMT -5
I don't know why I took the bait. hahaha See, this is my problem. I LOVE hobbies, but rarely stick to them. I have a 1600+ sqft detached garage and think that I need to fill it up with tools and "man" things. Above the garage is floored, so technically I have twice that room. And now, you're making me want to get a CNC machine. I've wanted for years to get an air handler system to deal with the dust along with building proper wood working tables for saws and such. I would probably do more wood working if I were more organized and less messy. I love the concept of precision. I took many CADD classes in high school, so I understand most of the basic concepts with this. I'm just afraid it will be another investment that I rarely use. So, since I took the bait, is your unit from www.v1engineering.com/ ? I looked at the other site. That system looks awesome, but I'm not down to drop 5k. $250 - 500 seems like a nice amount to spend if I can accomplish the things you have shown here. I don't mind the thought of having to rough cut things down because you can only deal with a certain size. Although, throwing a 4 x 8 sheet down and letting the machine do all the work does sound nice. I'm interested for the right amount of money and functionality. I do have a project coming up where I need to build a custom entertainment center for my amps and processor to go inside. It needs to be a specific height as my center channel will sit on top. I have one design picked out that I will need to adjust measurements. Would be super cool to feed that into a free-ish CNC program and "cut" it loose. I also wouldn't mind rebuilding my sub boxes as they are about %75 too big. It may make more sense to just fill the inside of my existing with solid material to take up some of the airspace though. I'm not sure why I did it, but these subs call for around .65 cubic feet and they are sitting at 2.3. I think it had something to due with flatness and to play lower, but I'm sure they would punch much harder if I got them closer to the .65. I had intended to use these between 40 - 80 Hz and install my infinite baffle containing (4) 18s for everything below that. Seems like an awful lot of effort though to achieve tremendous SPL between 15 - 40 hz. Anyways, I'm way off topic here. Mainly just want to know if I could actually get a decent CNC setup to accomplish what you are doing for under $500. Oh man, I totally hear you there. I am very good at researching and acquiring parts to complete projects but then I lose focus and motivation and things end up sitting. My CNC parts sat for over a year before I finally dove in and figured it out. Yes, the unit I am using is from V1engineering and you could purchase everything for the MPCNC for about $500. For me the hard part was not getting the machine set up but figuring out the CAD and CAM workflow. You have a lot of experience with CAD already so that may not be as difficult for you. I hear you with regard to building bigger boxes than needed. The DIY forum over on AVS has almost normalized building subwoofers that are the size of refrigerators. I had to really think about what I need/want vs. the practicality of the room when I designed my subs. They are still big, sitting at about 6 cu ft after bracing and driver displacement but these are tame compared to some. The weird thing is that it seems many are building subs without modeling them, they are putting various drivers into pre-designed boxes. It is now almost viewed as being strange when someone wants to model/design their own setup or, god forbid, design a passive crossover network. Now I'm off topic  |
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Post by megash0n on May 27, 2020 14:34:00 GMT -5
I don't know why I took the bait. hahaha See, this is my problem. I LOVE hobbies, but rarely stick to them. I have a 1600+ sqft detached garage and think that I need to fill it up with tools and "man" things. Above the garage is floored, so technically I have twice that room. And now, you're making me want to get a CNC machine. I've wanted for years to get an air handler system to deal with the dust along with building proper wood working tables for saws and such. I would probably do more wood working if I were more organized and less messy. I love the concept of precision. I took many CADD classes in high school, so I understand most of the basic concepts with this. I'm just afraid it will be another investment that I rarely use. So, since I took the bait, is your unit from www.v1engineering.com/ ? I looked at the other site. That system looks awesome, but I'm not down to drop 5k. $250 - 500 seems like a nice amount to spend if I can accomplish the things you have shown here. I don't mind the thought of having to rough cut things down because you can only deal with a certain size. Although, throwing a 4 x 8 sheet down and letting the machine do all the work does sound nice. I'm interested for the right amount of money and functionality. I do have a project coming up where I need to build a custom entertainment center for my amps and processor to go inside. It needs to be a specific height as my center channel will sit on top. I have one design picked out that I will need to adjust measurements. Would be super cool to feed that into a free-ish CNC program and "cut" it loose. I also wouldn't mind rebuilding my sub boxes as they are about %75 too big. It may make more sense to just fill the inside of my existing with solid material to take up some of the airspace though. I'm not sure why I did it, but these subs call for around .65 cubic feet and they are sitting at 2.3. I think it had something to due with flatness and to play lower, but I'm sure they would punch much harder if I got them closer to the .65. I had intended to use these between 40 - 80 Hz and install my infinite baffle containing (4) 18s for everything below that. Seems like an awful lot of effort though to achieve tremendous SPL between 15 - 40 hz. Anyways, I'm way off topic here. Mainly just want to know if I could actually get a decent CNC setup to accomplish what you are doing for under $500. Oh man, I totally hear you there. I am very good at researching and acquiring parts to complete projects but then I lose focus and motivation and things end up sitting. My CNC parts sat for over a year before I finally dove in and figured it out. Yes, the unit I am using is from V1engineering and you could purchase everything for the MPCNC for about $500. For me the hard part was not getting the machine set up but figuring out the CAD and CAM workflow. You have a lot of experience with CAD already so that may not be as difficult for you. I hear you with regard to building bigger boxes than needed. The DIY forum over on AVS has almost normalized building subwoofers that are the size of refrigerators. I had to really think about what I need/want vs. the practicality of the room when I designed my subs. They are still big, sitting at about 6 cu ft after bracing and driver displacement but these are tame compared to some. The weird thing is that it seems many are building subs without modeling them, they are putting various drivers into pre-designed boxes. It is now almost viewed as being strange when someone wants to model/design their own setup or, god forbid, design a passive crossover network. Now I'm off topic You nailed it.. tons of research and money...then you lose focus. On to the next shiny thing. Where's my adderal? hahaha. I'll keep an eye out for that guys site for when everything comes back in stock. Maybe it will be an incentive for me to clean and organize my garage...again. |
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Post by trevordj on Jun 1, 2020 23:29:03 GMT -5
It’s a big day, after a lot of sanding I am finally getting some color on the cabinets. I feel like I have been block sanding for weeks now.  I am using house of kolor kd3000 primer. It is a hybrid epoxy primer and is awesome to work with. It is a high build primer but can be thinned as a surfaced. It sands really well after only a few hours.  Color is on and it’s late so I will let it cure overnight then, you guessed it, more block sanding.  Lots of junk got into the primer but I was able to pick most of it out as I went. It doesn’t really matter given these will be block sanded. When I actually put color and clear on these I will do them in the closed garage though.  |
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Post by trevordj on Jun 2, 2020 23:50:12 GMT -5
I didn’t get a lot of time with these today as I was busy working on my business. I did get to block sand the primer for about 5 minutes and these things are dead flat. It’s always a good sign when filler primer sanding goes quickly, that means the body work was done sufficiently. I also took this as an opportunity to see if my joint/edge treatments worked. There is a joint down this edge. A little bit of sanding the primer and the joint disappeared. That is a good sign. I hope trenching our the joint and filling it with body filler will keep this joint hidden forever   On another note I was able to source some Owens Corning 703 acoustic insulation. I also ordered some custom printed fabric. I will be making a bunch of acoustic panels for the room. Six of them will have movie posters, the other 20 or so will just be plain fabric, likely grey on the walls and black on the ceiling (to match the built in at most speakers). |
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Post by trevordj on Jun 4, 2020 23:20:02 GMT -5
I got in a lot of work over the past two days. By the time I have painted all 19 speaker cabinets (6 done, 7 in the works, 6 to still assemble), this will be the equivalent of painting a car in terms of surface area. After blocking the primer, I put another 4 coats on.   Then I sanded with 360 grit, nice and flat   2 coats of sealer primer  Then some color, house of kolor black pearl S2-PBC43. It’s hard to describe how awesome this color is. It is jet black with a fine metallic flake to it. Hopefully I can get some pictures in the sunlight to show just how awesome this color is.  Color coat on. As I learn to paint with automotive paint I have learned how important primer and block sanding is. If you get your primer and sealer close to your base color that base should go on really lightly, almost like it is misted on. It should never pool or be shiny.  |
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