Frostedflakejake

The last black and white one has great contrast man. Good work.

I've succumbed to post-processing. This and the last image have both been edited using Lightroom.

ha, why not

LOVE Port Austin. Ride up there for lunch every now and again in the Summer when I'm feeling bold.

HOW DARE YOU BE FROM MICHIGAN!!

I don't believe so...

Some progress pics. Keeping a more detailed build log here: http://www.homeaudioforum.net/topic/664-jl-15w0v3-and-bash-500w-plate-amplifier/

So I found out today that the version of WinIsd I had been using became obsolete ages ago Trying to model a JL Audio 15w0v3 and I'm skeptical of the cone excursion graph it's showing. Considering I modeled the thing in a 15 ft3 box tuned to 15hz I was expected cone excursion to at least get higher than 1.5mm on 500 watts. I feel like I've done something wrong but for the life of me I can't figure it out! I'm confident all the driver parameters I entered were correct.. Any insight as to what foolish thing I'm doing wrong? Thanks!

I would wait until black Friday sales roll around and pick up a 15" DCON if SSA does another sale. They're pretty darn impressive

They're all pretty much the same. Which is one of the reasons people often recommend monoprice.

You should be able to find a head unit with all those capabilites. Back when I was shopping five years ago I found a few that could connect to steering wheel controls.

The spammers have been hitting the board HARD lately

yup. Help a buddy do a 15" Icon build who lives in Troy. Got stolen out of his car in a few months... what a shame :/ Also a fellow michigander! I go to Michigan Tech, but bum off my family near Royal Oak when schools out.

Hell, it's close enough to Easter!

I wouldn't mind helping also, but I think Sean will do a more proper job. Do you mind me asking where you got 8" flared ports?

As far as I understand it, the only reason anyone would need more port area is to lessen the port velocity of their enclosure. As you already noted, there are general guidelines to follow, but these are very general. The misconception lies in the idea that there is a ratio between port velocity and box displacement that is universal; regardless of what goes into the box. The speakers used, power supplied, tuning of the box, and box dimensions all play a role. Modeling software like WinISD can give at least give you an idea of what type of numbers to expect. From what I've found searching on the web, you don't want to exceed 20m/s for port velocity.

Holy cow, it's been a month. So I finally started this today! My space is a little more limited than I would like and my tuning is a little higher than I would like, but I'm interested to see how it performs regardless. I won't be living in this home for too much longer anyways! Net volume will be around 13 cubes and tuning will about 16hz. I tried to be proactive and get the local lumber supply to do one of my cuts for me. Boy was that a mistake! I can do a better job with my jigsaw than they did with their planar saw; and i'm not very skilled even. So that will unfortunately slow me down. With two six inch round ports WinIsd gives me a maximum port velocity of 9 m/s which seems low to me, but I'm happy to oblige! A slot port would kill my net volume anyway. Now just to figure out this MiniDSP stuff...

If you're experiencing a voltage drop a capacitor will not fix your issue; at least not a practical amount of them. You would likely need 100's if not 1000's. This is just one of those things where if anyone has one or is telling you to get one they are either flat out wrong or just trying to get you to buy their product. A larger/second battery MAY fix your issue. How everything is grounded and the general conductivity of your electrical system may also be a factor.

I know way more people who have died from street riding than dirt riding. The point of starting on the dirt is to learn the controls and feel of a motorcycle on friendlier terrain and a more forgiving machine. It also doesn't suck as much when you drop the bike numerous times because you're new. That way when you jump onto the street you have less to worry about in the form of stop/start and other basic maneuvers.

Just a Lee turret press. Works fine for me!

That sounds a little high. Looked up the price of bullets, instantly became jealous. But it makes sense seeing that there is less lead than a 30 cal. I'm getting about $15 for 100 bullets at cheaper than dirt, so there's $.15 per round. Good luck shopping around for this. I've found prices to be pretty fixed. 1000 CCI 400 (small rifle) primers are $40 at cabelas so there's $.04 per round. You can try shopping around, but really at most you'll bring your price per round down a penny if you do so. And most of the common powders used to reload that round are about $25 per pound. It looks like 60 grain bullets are in the middle for .223 bullet weights. Within those it looks like ~23 grains is your average load. There are 7000 grains in a pound of powder so that's 304 bullets per pound or $0.08 per round. So without brass i'm at 28 cents per round. The most you should ever pay for used brass is 10 cents per cartridge. You should be able to reload most cases 5 times or more. So factor that in and your price for brass is really 2 cents per cartridge at most (assuming used brass). Some cases you'll be able to reload 20 times, other's you'll only be able to reload 2. It depends on the loads, your gun, the quality of the brass and how it's handled. Shop around for brass and you can bring that price down. Final cost per round: ~30 cents .223 rounds can be had for 50 cents a piece so you'll be reloading for %60 the cost of new rounds. I wasn't lying earlier when I said most of the rounds I make are %60 the price of pre-made rounds. As long as you aren't buying super expensive components and spend a few minutes shopping around you should be able to consistently see those savings. This is also assuming you get all this stuff locally and don't have to eat shipping/haz-mat fee's. Cabela's in Dundee is hit n'miss for primers and bullets. I always call them before I go since it's a bit of a trip. They have a horrid powder selection at that store; even when they have everything in stock. Hope that helps.

DNR ranges would be your best bet. There's one in Waterford, but that's a heck of a drive just for some brass. Check their website for locations. Private ranges are there to make money; good luck getting anything from them for free. Either way, if you're serious about doing it you should know that finding primers has been spotty for ever. They are always in demand and if you buy them online you have to eat a $27.50 haz-mat shipping fee. I couldn't reload for 5 months when I ran out of my large-pistol primers because It took me that long to find some. Start looking at presses and dye's and prices of powders, primers, bullets, and casings. It'll give you a good idea of what you're diving into.

Buying things in bulk always keeps the prices down. Buying 5lb containers of powder vs 1lb and primers in bricks of 5000 instead of 1000 usually saves 10-20%. I would imagine he is mostly talking about brass since the price for "once-fired brass" fluctuates enormously. The best thing to do would be to establish a relationship with a steady supplier of brass, or try to buy thousands at a discounted price. Armslist has some good deals every now and again, but in my experience if you need something soon, you're just going to have to bite the bullet and pay for it. If you have time to shop around you can find some good prices for brass. You probably won't get brass from Kensington. I'm 90% sure they have a guy they give/sell to and have been doing so for years. Worth a call though.

I am amazed that you can find a range that doesn't sell its brass. They nearly all do