Wavecor Ardent Journal - the first Builds

[benthe8track]

This I would expect. Then, one also has to consider material dimensional stability with regards to temperature and humidity- wood products are in a different class there than aluminum, for example!

That's the crux of it. This is sort of uncharted territory for me and maybe I haven't looked hard enough but I can't find a machinist handbook for BB, bamboo or MDF . The model is constrained in such a way that it's easy to change dimensions after we cut a few test pieces so the little things should work themselves out. The main thing I was concerned about was if gap between baffle and driver had any sort of impact on sound.

[wkhanna]

Cutting the diameters 1/32 over allows for 1/64 (.016") gap between the baffle & the driver frame.
This is what I have used on my solid poplar Natalie Portman baffles & I feel the fit is at least as good as any high-end commercial cabinet I have seen.

JMHO

Material wise, bamboo has about the same density as hickory.
But I would not get too worried about dimensional stability.

again, JMHO

[benthe8track]

Right on, thanks for the input. Were you using a shopbot?

[wkhanna]

No. I made mine the old fashion way using a DeWalt DW616PK and a Jasper jig.

Does the ShopBot allow for input of specific tool diameter in the programming?
We often use regrind (re-sharpened) endmills that are a few thousandths undersize from OEM.
The actual tool diameter is then entered in the canned program.

[dar47]

I ran a cute little program, MAXCUT to get panel layouts for 4 sets of cabs and I ended up with,

1. 6 sheets 1/2" MDF laminated to 18mm BB for the Backs, sides and top.

2. 2 sheets 3/4" Bamboo 1 sheet will have the 1/8" hardboard laminated for the outer baffle.

3. 8 sheets 18mm BB for all other parts.

This was over sizing parts a bit to facilitate not cutting off edges, using a 3/8" bit (curf) and allowing easy layout for programing CNC paths. the program spits out dxf's so maybe Ben can import the sheets to program the tool path. Early materials estimate $230 per set.

[JonMarsh]

I ran a cute little program, MAXCUT to get panel layouts for 4 sets of cabs and I ended up with,

1. 6 sheets 1/2" MDF laminated to 18mm BB for the Backs, sides and top.

2. 2 sheets 3/4" Bamboo 1 sheet will have the 1/8" hardboard laminated for the outer baffle.

3. 8 sheets 18mm BB for all other parts.

This was over sizing parts a bit to facilitate not cutting off edges, using a 3/8" bit (curf) and allowing easy layout for programing CNC paths. the program spits out dxf's so maybe Ben can import the sheets to program the tool path. Early materials estimate $230 per set.

Cool work! :T

[benthe8track]

Got the removable bottom sorted. This will give easy access to the x-over.





Started the tool path programing and just finishing up the grill.

Going to order some carbide tools from these guys on Monday.
https://www.centuriontools.com/route...uter-bits.html I can't find a better deal.

[JonMarsh]

Great detail work- much appreciated! :T

[dar47]

Jon,

Binding posts, do you buy extra long? 2 or 4 of them? I usually hog out the inside of the back leaving 3/4" of material, place 4" from the bottom with with 1 1/2" spacing on center from the center line. We can mill these as well. If you have a preferred post and location let us know.

[wkhanna]

Sorry, I can not resist badgering in your thread........

Just want to make sure everyone is aware of these Cardas Terminals

[JonMarsh]

Jon,

Binding posts, do you buy extra long? 2 or 4 of them? I usually hog out the inside of the back leaving 3/4" of material, place 4" from the bottom with with 1 1/2" spacing on center from the center line. We can mill these as well. If you have a preferred post and location let us know.

This really comes down to whether you want to use 3/4" spaced conventional binding posts, retaining the ability to run with 3/4" aligned dual banana plugs, or if you are mostly into spade type connectors. I've used both, but on the Isiris and Ardent I used BFBP which are super for spade lugs, having rather large handles, and not needing to use wrenches.



BUT, the size of the handles is such that you can't use 3/4" spacing- you need to put them wider apart. In the Isiris I used these spaced 2" apart.

For me, I have both normal length and long length Cardas; for speakers with 3/4" binding post centers, I normally use the latter (Cardas GCR-L ) and the full depth of the panel. I realize these are pricey for a lot of folks; Note they're about double the BFBP price!





And a similar set of Vampires



are almost as pricey ($72 for a set of two)

The Vampire or Cardas stuff can be had from Parts Connexion in Canada.

[JonMarsh]

BTW, I have also used the Dayton BPFI-G binding posts and their anodized aluminum plates for cabinet inputs; the main drawbacks are the non 3/4" spacing, and designed to work only with spades, but don't handle larger spades well. Still, for more budget oriented projects, they aren't a bad choice at all. I've used them on my own Modula MTM and NatalieP builds, and some other projects.

[dar47]

BTW, I have also used the Dayton BPFI-G binding posts and their anodized aluminum plates for cabinet inputs; the main drawbacks are the non 3/4" spacing, and designed to work only with spades, but don't handle larger spades well. Still, for more budget oriented projects, they aren't a bad choice at all. I've used them on my own Modula MTM and NatalieP builds, and some other projects.

Thanks,

Let us know which posts you want to use and we can pre-drill or we can leave your pair and let you handle it.

Price on the SW223BD01's is $258.06 for our little group buy, not bad $50 off. I told them 2 will be going to California so you can tell them your part of Darrell Welwood's (Winnipeg) buy any time your ready to order. We will order this week. They quoted me $423.25 for some 6640's, $25. less then Madisound if you need some more.

[JonMarsh]

OK, that sounds great! I'll place my order shortly... or longly...

At the customer site again, but have a few minutes now and then to check up on things here.... :W

For now, I'd suggest you just leave my back panels blank; I can deal with that easily, several options. Thanks for all the care and consideration! :T

[JonMarsh]

Will be ordering two more tomorrow, assuming I can get a little time free to get on the phone- stuff is crazy where I'm working now. Rather, the customer location I'm working at.

[benthe8track]

Two more wavecors?

[JonMarsh]

To combine with the first two I already have- haven't had time to order based on the group buy, yet. It's a bit of a problem at work, likely working this weekend at customer site, too. I've been told to expect to cancel my vacation and holiday plans on Thanksgiving week... :evil: GF not very happy, either.

[benthe8track]

No worries I'm in a similar boat. Probably won't be able to start cutting until mid December. I haven' even had time to finish the grill design yet, at least everything else is done and I got a decent start on the programing.

At least it will be a nice Christmas present.

[knowledgebass]

I think my dad touched on most of it. In that model the grill is in contact with the baffle. I am looking at some thin felt from mcmaster.com to surround the edge of the hardboard frame where it will come in contact with the baffle. I need to open the grill up a bit so the thicker felt can rest inside. I have an idea how I'll support it but haven't drawn it yet. I've seen lots of great grills made by hand, no need for a CNC
Please post up more info about those magnets I'm curious.

Finally got a post up in the Ansonica thread describing the magnet configuration I'm using. The 1/4" magnet will be attached to the grill and pass ~1/2" into the baffle to mate with the 1/2" ring magnet embedded in the baffle.

[JonMarsh]

No worries I'm in a similar boat. Probably won't be able to start cutting until mid December. I haven' even had time to finish the grill design yet, at least everything else is done and I got a decent start on the programing.

At least it will be a nice Christmas present.

Well, slow work takes time! And the less spare time we have, the longer! :W

[JonMarsh]

Finally got a post up in the Ansonica thread describing the magnet configuration I'm using. The 1/4" magnet will be attached to the grill and pass ~1/2" into the baffle to mate with the 1/2" ring magnet embedded in the baffle.

Thanks for the heads up! Appreciated! :T

[benthe8track]

A little update, the bamboo and BB are ordered and we're picking them up tomorrow.
Looking forward to getting going but not looking forward to cutting in -30.

[JonMarsh]

A little update, the bamboo and BB are ordered and we're picking them up tomorrow.
Looking forward to getting going but not looking forward to cutting in -30.

:T great news! I've been sick all weekend and since, seems to be a flu bug, but starting to get better. At least it didn't kick in a week later!

[benthe8track]

Finally an actual update!
Got all of the bracing cut and half of the Baltic baffle parts. Still waiting on the compression bits before we can cut the bamboo. It was a good learning experience and such a time saver. We could cut a full sheet of Baltic in about 15 minutes conservatively.

Here is the machine:



All the bracing:



Today's results:

[JonMarsh]

Damn, now that's the way to cut speaker parts out! :T :T (that's two thumbs up!)

What's the bed size on that baby?

[dar47]

Ya, it makes me feel a little disheartened with all the hand work I've done making speaks. it can take a 4'x8' sheet and make parts in 15 min.

The vacuum bed is cool, it sucks the panel down right through a 1/2" MDF. You can leave a thou. and pick the parts out like those old bolsa wood toy plane parts sheets. We going to tighten the tolerances to 1/32" on the rest of the dados, it's cutting very accurate. One of my little tests was to Stack 6 baffles from different sheets on top of each other and see how they line up, again a little disheartening machine wins again. So far it's more fun then a barrow of monkey's .

[JonMarsh]

Ya, it makes me feel a little disheartened with all the hand work I've done making speaks. it can take a 4'x8' sheet and make parts in 15 min.

The vacuum bed is cool, it sucks the panel down right through a 1/2" MDF. You can leave a thou. and pick the parts out like those old bolsa wood toy plane parts sheets. We going to tighten the tolerances to 1/32" on the rest of the dados, it's cutting very accurate. One of my little tests was to Stack 6 baffles from different sheets on top of each other and see how they line up, again a little disheartening machine wins again. So far it's more fun then a barrow of monkey's .

Definitely a new age of progress!

[benthe8track]

Our carbide compression bits came in today. Now we can cut the bamboo and the rest of the plywood parts with out worrying about tear out.

[JonMarsh]

Nice! Just in time for Christmas! I love nice new carbide bits!

[benthe8track]

We put a long 8 hours in today. Got all of the Baltic parts cut and started on the Baltic/MDF side panels. They warped a wee bit from the .5" MDF glued on them (works the same as veneer I guess) so we couldn't use the vacuum table. Made a spoil board and screwed it down to there. The carbide only ate one screw head too haha. Speaking of carbide one of the brace panels came off the table and broke one of the nice carbide bits we waited so patiently for.

Learning lots though and having a ton of fun. Hoping to get back to it tomorrow and cut the bamboo (fingers crossed).



Test fit the bracing, fits great.

[TEK]

Impressiv!
I see that there were some talk about the grille earlier on. I will attemt a new approach for the grill on my sub, one that I have not seen mentioned on this forum before.
Today, 3D-printing has become available a lot of places and it seems to be quite resonable prices. So my plan is to get the grill 3D-printed by a supplier I have found.
My supplier can print pices up to 1 m3, he also said that you can make interlocks so yhat you can create stuff at any size.

Have any of you tried that?

[benthe8track]

Impressiv!
I see that there were some talk about the grille earlier on. I will attemt a new approach for the grill on my sub, one that I have not seen mentioned on this forum before.
Today, 3D-printing has become available a lot of places and it seems to be quite resonable prices. So my plan is to get the grill 3D-printed by a supplier I have found.
My supplier can print pices up to 1 m3, he also said that you can make interlocks so yhat you can create stuff at any size.

Have any of you tried that?

The place we are using the CNC router actually has digitizers and rapid prototyping equipment as well. I haven't looked at it in a while but I think their equipment may not have a sufficient envelope. I've dealt with these guys somewhat for other projects and they were pretty reasonable.

Are you just considering printing the frame and using cloth over top?

[JonMarsh]

We put a long 8 hours in today. Got all of the Baltic parts cut and started on the Baltic/MDF side panels. They warped a wee bit from the .5" MDF glued on them (works the same as veneer I guess) so we couldn't use the vacuum table. Made a spoil board and screwed it down to there. The carbide only ate one screw head too haha. Speaking of carbide one of the brace panels came off the table and broke one of the nice carbide bits we waited so patiently for.

Learning lots though and having a ton of fun. Hoping to get back to it tomorrow and cut the bamboo (fingers crossed).



Test fit the bracing, fits great.

Lots done and lessons learned, eh? This is filling me with considerable anticipation, needless to say! Veneering and finishing a project like this will give us a good excuse for putting up the storage building/workshop, and setting up the sprayer I bought earlier this year.

Looking very good! :T

[TEK]

Are you just considering printing the frame and using cloth over top?

Yes, that was the idea. I'll report back on how it went when I have tested it.

[benthe8track]

Yes, that was the idea. I'll report back on how it went when I have tested it.

Looking forward to it!

Lots done and lessons learned, eh? This is filling me with considerable anticipation, needless to say! Veneering and finishing a project like this will give us a good excuse for putting up the storage building/workshop, and setting up the sprayer I bought earlier this year.

Looking very good! :T

What are you thinking for veneer? I'm debating rolling the dice on some raw walnut burl. I'm jealous you'll be able to spray, I may find a body shop to spray mine.
Lots of lessons for sure. The baltic was a great learning experience so by the time we got to the bamboo this evening it was a breeze. We took 3 little test cuts (mostly because there was hardly any material to spare) and they were mostly to verify the z-axis.
You can see we didn't waste any space:





The bamboo turned out great we ended up ditching the hardboard on the front so the pockets were adjusted to compensate:





I still need to get the material and cut the grills but essentially now the part where my dad takes over (aka actual woodworking) to add the 10 degree cuts and start gluing things up. Excited for the next bits.

[JonMarsh]

Excited for the next bits.

No kidding! You and me both! :T

[meb46]

Love this stage... its the most fun part Keep up the great work!!!!

[dar47]

Thanks, it's been a torrid pace the last 4 days. We have all the parts except a few bottoms Ben forgot ops: Just kidding he has done a great job managing the machining and he even sourced us some epoxy after going to the only place in town, a boat supply store and seeing a sign on the door that said back January 29!. I guess it make sense, who works on boats in -30 C weather?

Things should slow a bit as we only have 15 clamps to epoxy the baffles, never enough clamps Best part is getting to spend a lot of time with my son and seeing him obsess with the project. Ben is going to try and CNC a facet with a blank to see if it's worth while option.

[JonMarsh]

You're having a somewhat unique experience there, I'd say- my daughter and I built one speaker system together, for her, back about 15 years ago- she still remembers that and was talking about it with my GF at our holiday dinner this year. She was pretty young then, just 13, but she even learned how to solder and soldered her own crossovers.

It was an interesting story to my GF, but then she's a retired IBM systems engineer- the story goes that her dad always wanted to have a son that grew up to be an engineer- no such luck (out of three sons and two daughters), but he did have a daughter who grew up to be one...

[benthe8track]

Started gluing up the baffles. Using epoxy from these guys:
http://www.entropyresins.com/home


I always thought West Systems was nice for indoor use but this stuff blows it away. It kind of smells like pumpkin

[JonMarsh]

I bookmarked the site- which formulation are you using?

Pumpkin.... Mmmm. :W

Looks like you've got some serious productivity going...

I've been working on the new midrange crossover build for Isiris- slightly tweaked electrical design, and re packaged for internal mounting. I should finish that wiring today...

[benthe8track]

I bookmarked the site- which formulation are you using?

Pumpkin.... Mmmm. :W

Looks like you've got some serious productivity going...

I've been working on the new midrange crossover build for Isiris- slightly tweaked electrical design, and re packaged for internal mounting. I should finish that wiring today...

Nice! Looking forward to updates on the Isiris.
We got the super SAP CLR. We bought it off a guy who uses the same space that builds snowboards and swears by it. My only gripe is he sold us the 6 hour hardener which has limited us to only 2 layups/long day.

Productivity has been great since we are both on holidays. We've been doing pretty solid 8 hour delays.

Got the first 3 baffles glued up:



Since I couldn't find a boring bit that fit the collets for the machine we have to drill the speaker mounting holes by hand so I had a buddy make us up some drill guides. Was going to go all out and add drill bushings but they were 7 bucks a pop so just went with 1/8" mild. The fit made me a little less worried that we would build these things and the drivers wouldn't fit (since we don't have them yet).



Also made a guide for drilling the bottom cleats for the threaded inserts. Well send this one with your stuff Jon.



I'm going to build a fixture and test cutting the facets today on the router. If the surface finish is acceptable that's the way well go, if not I'll have to make the tooling so we can get a local cabinet maker to cut them on his panel saw.

[JonMarsh]

Nice! Looking forward to updates on the Isiris.
We got the super SAP CLR. We bought it off a guy who uses the same space that builds snowboards and swears by it. My only gripe is he sold us the 6 hour hardener which has limited us to only 2 layups/long day.

Productivity has been great since we are both on holidays. We've been doing pretty solid 8 hour delays.

Got the first 3 baffles glued up:



Since I couldn't find a boring bit that fit the collets for the machine we have to drill the speaker mounting holes by hand so I had a buddy make us up some drill guides. Was going to go all out and add drill bushings but they were 7 bucks a pop so just went with 1/8" mild. The fit made me a little less worried that we would build these things and the drivers wouldn't fit (since we don't have them yet).



Also made a guide for drilling the bottom cleats for the threaded inserts. Well send this one with your stuff Jon.



I'm going to build a fixture and test cutting the facets today on the router. If the surface finish is acceptable that's the way well go, if not I'll have to make the tooling so we can get a local cabinet maker to cut them on his panel saw.

Looking very encouraging- appreciate the guide for drilling the bottom cleats for threaded inserts. Yes, the fit you have there for your drill guides and the rebates is A-1! :T

[JonMarsh]

Saw I was starting to run a bit low on my spool of Alpha AWG 12 bus wire, and ordered some more today- for crossover construction. Yikes! Now I see why people are stripping abandoned buildings of copper wiring and selling it! When I get the crossovers designed for these, I'll send you guys the new spool- it should have a lot left and cover the bus wiring I hope.

[cjd]

Saw I was starting to run a bit low on my spool of Alpha AWG 12 bus wire, and ordered some more today- for crossover construction. Yikes! Now I see why people are stripping abandoned buildings of copper wiring and selling it! When I get the crossovers designed for these, I'll send you guys the new spool- it should have a lot left and cover the bus wiring I hope.

The mil spec teflon insulated silver plated stuff at ApexJr remains reasonably priced all said and done.