altoncustomtech

Another small update. Got started cutting the holes out for the plexi windows. Just as I had planned (and really hoped) for they line up perfectly from the double baffle layer to the enclosure layer which really takes a lot off my worries about the enclosure turning out right. So far so good! Onto a few pics. Got the holes cut out. I hate using a jigsaw for anything, but I couldn't figure out a good way to do it with a router or anything else that would make a better cut. I doubt you can see a difference in the pictures but this is the holes in the panels after sanding them smooth. Whether it can be seen or not it has them nice and smooth and ready for the round over bit. Here's the first hole cut out of the enclosure for the plexi. Still need to cut the other two and sand them smooth. Alright, that's all I have for today.

It's as much box dependent as it is power dependent. I don't recall a post on what enclosure the sub is/was in, but as I did post before the amp has no SSF (sub sonic filter) so if you have it in a ported enclosure tuned to say the upper 30hz region for example and were playing tones or music below that frequency it wouldn't take much power to drive the sub beyond it's mechanical limits and cause this kind of damage. Even if it were in a sealed box, if the sealed enclosure was way too large or if it had some leaks the same issue can occur. It all depends on the suspension on a given speaker, but I've had some 6" speakers that you could easily destroy mechanically (ramming the voice coil into the back plate, running the coil completely out of the gap and hanging it on the top plate, tearing the surround or spiders, things of that nature) on only a few watts of power at those kinds of low frequencies in free air. When you play music, tones, etc. on a sub in a ported enclosure below the frequency it's tuned to the enclosure is no longer helping to control the cones movement. Far enough below tuning and it's pretty much the same as free air and it sure doesn't take too much for some drivers to destroy themselves mechanically. Now, given it's lasted a year in these conditions, the suspension has held up and it obviously has enough room in the motor to keep from smacking the voice coil into the back plate. The problem is running it like that, making it pull on the tinsels where they attach over and over again, like taking a piece of solid wire and bending it back and forth for awhile, eventually it will break. What are the specifications of the enclosure it was in? Give us every measurement and we can run those measurements and verify what the volume and tuning of the enclosure is. My money is on the enclosure being tuned high and with no SSF the sub was unloading in the enclosure and finally gave in to the stress. As far as the fix, it should be reconed to repair it properly. I've gotten lucky over the years and repaired a few drivers by resoldering the lead back onto the voice coil wire but that's few and far between.

The tinsel leads are broke loose from the voice coil leads. Often times an issue with running the sub well beyond it's mechanical limits.

Here's the entire thing completed. These drawings have the matching panel names from the cutsheet on them to help orient yourself to the layout and where each panel belongs. They also have some of the spacing dimensions too to help with where they go when building it. Here's a few of it completed, just for looks. Finally, here's the cutsheet. If there's anything you need help with just let me know.

Great, I'll get all the rest of the drawings and the cutsheet done and posted up for you.

LOL, that's just too kewl. She looked like she was having fun with that!

Thanks man, Alton is a great guy, talented for sure. I try, lol. It's taking awhile to get the cutsheet down. Trying to decide the best way to describe the dimensions, lol.

Thanks! It's coming along a bit at a time.

Okay, got a bit more done on the enclosure. It's crunch time now, the cuts for the plexi inserts are ready to be made. They're critical cuts cuz there's no going back if something screws up. Once those three holes are cut I'll take the 3/8" rabbeting bit and cut a 3/8" deep x 3/8" wide shelf in the hole and on the plexi. Once that's done I'll seal the plexi to the wood with silicone and sandwich the plexi in under the double baffle panels, gluing those in place at the same time. Then it will be time for the sub/PR cutouts to be done with the router after trimming the edges up with my flush trim bit. Yay, that was exciting, lol. Onto a few pictures. Here I've drawn on the cutout for the plexi window that's on the front center. I've gotten the front double baffle screwed onto the front of the enclosure, everything is set and will be centered up and in good alignment at this point thanks to holes I drilled as reference points through the double baffles into the body of the enclosure. The holes are drilled through parts/areas that will be removed by the cutouts so there's no worry about sealing them up later. Notice the double baffle panels removed in the upper right corner? Back down to the body of the enclosure now. Getting ready to draw on the cutouts for the plexi panels using the holes I drilled for reference. Here I've gotten the first one drawn on, everything lined up perfectly. All three done and the alignment has turned out as close to perfect as I could hope for. Well, that's where it stands when I left it today. I'm praying I'll get some time this weekend to cutout the plexi holes. If I can get past this point and get the sub cutouts made it's all downhill from there as it will just come down to filler, lots of sanding and applying the bedliner to get the enclosure finished.

Once I get my box done for my Jimmy I have a similar project for the wife's Rancher. Four 6.5" Bravox marine speakers powered by a Clarion marine stereo with Bluetooth capability so her phone never has to leave the safety of the watertight compartment on the quad. I'll be using left over materials from the build in the Jimmy, sealing it with resin and covering it with Bedliner. Yours turned out pretty sweet looking.

Not a problem, I'm glad I could help. As for the sub's dimensions for the cutout diameter and the outside diameter, they're on the website, but the cutout is 11.125" (11 1/8") and the OD of the sub is listed as 12.5" but that is one that wouldn't hurt to add a little wiggle room to I would imagine.

Thanks! BTW, how's that Sundown 1200 treating you?

Certainly.

Please ignore the one line that says "PORT" side. I have a spreadsheet that's all formatted for doing this stuff and forgot to edit that line, lol.

Awesome. I wanted the width and height to match so that it looks like your current setup when the trunk opens. You really did a nice job on that, fits like a glove. Now, since it's just a sealed enclosure and there's not much to it I didn't go all crazy with angles and views like I usually do with the ported enclosures. With the ported enclosures I think it helps get a good visual for how it all goes together and such but with the sealed, well, it just seemed a bit superfluous to do. Of course, if you have any questions at all please don't hesitate to ask. Here's the cutsheet. Here's just a quick rendering of about what it will look like finished, for the fun of it.

Thank you brother! I'm really looking forward to getting it done. Hopefully in time to make it to Slamology. Thanks and there's only one XCON, the other two are passive radiators. They're built to look exactly like the XCON, with BIG thanks to Aaron and Mark for giving the build house permission to do that for me!! Thank you sir. Hopefully it turns out as good as I've drawn it up to look like. Only time will tell.

Take a look at this and see what you think. It's pretty straightforward though since it's a sealed enclosure. 1.25cuft NET measuring 12.5" H x 11.75" D x 25" W with a double baffle (ignore the little crown in the picture, that's just how Sketchup did the flush since the top isn't drawn on yet) and a little 45 bracing in the back corners.

It certainly does, and of course, no problem at all.

Then I think the solution would simply be to build the sealed enclosure. Then after spending some time with it, if you didn't get the response you want or output then we can look at a ported enclosure again.

Bracing causing an issue with output? Interesting. I would love to read up on that and get a good explanation as to why a 45 degree angle in the corner of the enclosure would have any effect whatsoever on output over any other form of bracing, or for that matter, shape of the enclosure. Also, if the enclosure isn't being built to chase numbers, is the detrimental effect of the 45's really so much that it would be audible for daily listening? I would find that very hard to believe. I'm sure as hell no expert though, that's why I'd love to read up on it. As for the 4th port wall area, the area that I was referring to was the small space between the 4th port wall and the 2nd port wall. The small 2.25" piece I referred to on the cut sheet as the volume correcting panel was just that. The port had to turn at that point to get the correct port length and with it's close proximity to the port opening that small space would have been useless anyway. I put that 2.25" piece there to get the perfect volume inside the enclosure and block off that small space, that's all it was there for.

Here's the preliminary drawing. See what you think.

Is it too much trouble to try both? I don't know how much material you have left over, but if it were me I would build both, measure the pros and cons of each and go with the one I liked the most. It shouldn't be hard to sell the enclosures you don't use on craigslist to a local.

Awesome. I'd love to be able to give it more port area, but it just doesn't gain enough to be worthwhile without going over 20" deep, but I think this will do you really well. Let me get a few preliminary drawings made up and you can see what you think.

WinISD can model the response of each driver in each alignment, though it does take a little time to input all the T/S parameters. It's not so much "should" as "could". Since speakers are dumb and only do what we tell them to do in the environment we choose to make them do it in, it's still going to work and do it's job. Given all the conditions are right it CAN perform better in the optimum enclosure size than in something smaller, all those conditions dictate what that difference is. For example, in a trunk as small as yours the gains from running the sub in an optimum sized enclosure could be negligible compared to the 1.75cuft enclosure, or it could make a bigger difference than it would in the back of a Suburban per say. I'm no acoustic engineer and quite frankly, while I have seen, read and somewhat understand the way to figure for all that I'm really not capable of doing it. WinISD will give the response of each of those drivers and alignments but only for a given set of conditions and one thing I can tell you now is that those conditions do not match that of the trunk and cabin of your car, or mine, or anyone elses. Vehicles have what it called cabin gain on the lower frequencies due to how the air pressurizes in the small environment. WinISD doesn't account for any of that and what you see on the graphs will in most all cases not match what it really does in real life in a given vehicle. Which like many others is where I find myself, just trying to figure for the most of what I can and hope for the best. It sounds bad, but how many people really figure for EVERY variable, or even can? As for the PR's, they take the place of the port. The passive radiator is basically another sub but without a motor or voice coil. When the active sub moves the pressure changes in the enclosure move the cone of the passive radiator. By adding weight to the cone you can tune the frequency the PR resonates at and therefore tune the enclosure much like you would that of a ported enclosure. The pros are that the enclosure is smaller than a standard ported enclosure as it only needs to be as large as the NET volume is required to be and you get the same response as a ported enclosure. The cons are that it's not a BIG savings in space in most cases, it can be difficult to find space on the faces of the enclosure for the PR(s), and they're more expensive since you have to purchase the PR(s) as well as the active sub. The power doesn't really change anything as far as the enclosure is concerned.

I mean, the 12" ICON could be used in the enclosure I mentioned, but it sure won't be running at it's optimum performance capabilities. The 10" ICON could definitely get to it's optimum performance. The 12" ICON sealed may really surprise you. There's been plenty of SSA customers who've used the ICON's sealed and had no complaints on the output. Another, more costly option, would be to go with a passive radiator for the 12. Though I'm not sure how much good a PR setup does with only one PR matching the driver's size, but it would be another possible option I would think. I'm currently working on one for a 10" XCON for my Jimmy. I'm just listing the other options because I'd hate for you to get the ICON and not enjoy it.