The Fairchild Ghost. Subwoofer project.

ALXAndy said:
The drill stop Cenedd made for me was too small inside. This was clearly my fault
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I don't mean to add insult to injury but, yeah, it is.
Cenedd said (by email): "9.85mm is that the size of the shaft or does that already include some tolerance?"
What you probably needed at that point was a 10mm reamer to sort that out "properly". Sharp one for preference (in aluminium) and that usually rules out the import flavours. Dead useful for sizing holes you've CNC'd or 3D printed too.
 
Problem is due to the arthritis in my hands they get a bit numb. As such I over egg things a bit. Thankfully I bought a set of bits that go from 1mm to 14mm in .5 increments so once I had my grips it wasn't too hard.

Edit. That was with tolerance lol. Like I said, I tend to squeeze the caliper too hard which gives out a false undersized reading.
 
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Then what you need, my friend, is a micrometer with a ratchet thimble (most common type). Like a C-clamp a scale. The ratchet stops you from cranking it down too hard so you don't under-read. There's 3 distinct types (like calipers): cheap digital, expensive digital and analogue. Cheap will be a pain with batteries and having to be re-zeroed. Expensive will set you back at least a kidney. Analogue will irritate you with reading it....but they can be had fairly cheap and the batteries NEVER wear out! :D
You can get them that read to two decimal places (like a caliper) or to three - which technically is what MAKES it a micrometer...but what do I know?! Two's cheaper and probably a little easier to read as it ditches the Vernier scale.
 
I think the best way to explain it is that the stepper motors in my hands are knackered. So things like grip are more on off than detailed :D

Having a day off. Feels good 'cause I'm cream crackers. I am going to fire up the plotter to make some masking dots for the threadserts so they dont get mucked up with paint.

Bought myself an epic toy too. Nothing related to this but very exciting :D
 
Not sure what Cenedd is laughing at he ****** bought them for me :D :D

OK. So basically... Sand, chisel off excess epoxy on bolt threadserts, sand more, fit magnets**, sand more, file threadserts level.

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**. The second magnet.. I put far too much glue in and it would not seat. I got frustrated and smacked it with a hammer. Silly thing to do. It shattered. I ended up having to dig it all out with a screwdriver and get rid of all of the small pieces before using the appropriate amount of glue.

Once all of the threadserts were filed down I checked the threads were clean. They were, so now I need to cut lots of small vinyl dots with my plotter to stop them getting filled with paint.

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You can see there where one of them pushed out the edge of the wood. So, I filled it with epoxy, let it set for 24 hrs then filed it clean. Grille back in place.

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I need to spend tomorrow putting tools in the loft. Like, most of them. All that is left now is sanding and painting really.
 
New machine arrived. It's stupid heavy.

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It's now all built and working. Sadly the spoil board bolts I have are far too long, so I have not used it yet. I am going to make a new one any way.

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OK so these are even more things on it that are different..

All of the clamps that run on the rails are metal. They were plastic on the other one. The clamp parts that hold the threaded rail in are about 5x bigger than the last one. It's just absolutely nuts.

They only do one better than this and the difference is the end rails for the lower part. They are twice as thick, hence the extra holes. However, I am going to use the two 10mm rails that will be left over to stiffen each side.

Meh I can't wait to use it now. I sent the dimensions over to my pal so he is going to make the new rails for me. Again, cheers to Cenedd for telling me what they were !

That will pretty much wrap it up now. I am leaving on Sat, so tomorrow is tidy/clean/make good day.

Just took off the plastic side panels. I would never use the machine without them. They are a bit manky. They were also a bit too small, as they were for the 3018. So I got two A4 5mm sheets of this and will make new ones.

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Cant wait to hear your thoughts on how it sounds :D Im currently shopping for a sub to complement my Dali Epicon 2 and thinking of perhaps building one
 
SamyBoy13 said:
Cant wait to hear your thoughts on how it sounds :D Im currently shopping for a sub to complement my Dali Epicon 2 and thinking of perhaps building one
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If you want a loud sub you are much better off making your own. When I did my last one I was all in at around £550 or so. When I compared that? well the cheapest 15" powered sub that was inferior in every way was over a grand. And brand names like Dali or any of those high end subs are just add on more and more.

It's quite easy to find seriously beefy plate amps now (like a kilowatt plus) for a reasonable price.

Lewis - yeah it has. Far more work that I thought it would be. However, I am now at the paint stage. So as soon as I return next Friday I will go at it. There was no point in starting with only one day left.

Edit. Oh also, talking of paint. I really hated painting on that Dulux. It was impossible to feather out as it dried stupidly fast. As such I did some research and apparently a company called Bedec make the best paint. At £22 for 750ml I hoped it would be ! but then my brother came over today and said yeah, it's the business.
 
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Right. Like I said, I am off home tomorrow. Gary (my pal) has done my new CNC rails, though.

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He did mess up, but has made a spacer. Must be hard having to convert everything into imperial. Good news is when I get back I can get the thing running again after making a new spoil board. I want to redo the acrylic and carbon badge. More carbon needed I reckon !
 
ALXAndy said:
If you want a loud sub you are much better off making your own. When I did my last one I was all in at around £550 or so. When I compared that? well the cheapest 15" powered sub that was inferior in every way was over a grand. And brand names like Dali or any of those high end subs are just add on more and more.

It's quite easy to find seriously beefy plate amps now (like a kilowatt plus) for a reasonable price.

Lewis - yeah it has. Far more work that I thought it would be. However, I am now at the paint stage. So as soon as I return next Friday I will go at it. There was no point in starting with only one day left.

Edit. Oh also, talking of paint. I really hated painting on that Dulux. It was impossible to feather out as it dried stupidly fast. As such I did some research and apparently a company called Bedec make the best paint. At £22 for 750ml I hoped it would be ! but then my brother came over today and said yeah, it's the business.
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Have you built a sealed 12 inch sub? OR perhaps would recommend parts? I think perhap 15 inch sub might be too big for my room 3x4m? Im quiet handy with DYI after whole house renovation finally done :cry:
 
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Step one is find a woofer you like. You'll then use the data sheet from it (TS parameters) to design a box.

I assume you want SQ (sound quality) over SPL? (Sound pressure).
 
ALXAndy said:
Gary (my pal) has done my new CNC rails, though.
He did mess up, but has made a spacer. Must be hard having to convert everything into imperial.
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That's what 1mm off for about 0.3% error.
Those are some 1/2 metre Verniers too! Even non-digital*, you're looking at north of £130 for a pair.

*Cheap digital about the same but not worth even thinking about if you want to retain your sanity! Mitutoyu digital, you can multiply by 5 and still be slightly shy!
 
I'm assuming he was shooting for 450mm. Could be parallax error from the photo angle but otherwise, he's a whole human hair too long! Scandalous! :eek: ;)
 
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Well calculated. Aye, they're 45cm so you get 40 iirc.

Not back till Saturday. Came home and took on too much so I won't be done till Friday.

Back at it this weekend all being well :)
 
What a two day willy pain. So I got over yesterday about 1. The rails were here waiting. However, when I went to fit them I noticed a big ****** problem. The old rails were counter sunk into the front and rear panels. Meaning my new rails I just spent £25 on were too short. I then had the genius idea to flip? inverse? mirror? then front and end. This led to a 5 hour fight. In the end I assembled it with the rails loose, intending to get my mate to make some spacers.

Then it dawned on me that it was possible but because I had forgotten to flip inverse etc the limit switches it seemed like the bed was on wrong. So I then got back up and spent another two hours putting it back together. Just the bed. It took around 8 hours fgs.

Got up today and put on a F ton of sound deadening. You will also note there is a new spoilboard I made. I also had to extend (add in cable) the limit switches as one was getting tangled in the bed, and one was just not long enough. So after another 6 hours today......

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You will note there is no plastic on this machine apart from the sides I made today.

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So how is it? incredible. It now machines twice as fast without snapping bits, whilst making hardly any noise above the sound of the motor.

Oh also. You will note the bed is quite a fair bit wider. That's because it is. You don't lose 15mm each side out of your 300mm any more. You can machine the entire 300mm. You can also see where I put the old rails too, as the Pro Ultra comes with thicker side metal things.
 
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