Homemade Super-Neo Woofer: THE CHEVELLE RESTORATION IS DONE, dampener recommendations??

[Dwn4BassAlan]

(But some people said they didn't have any advice, but were tuned in for the build so I figured I'd make a log for those interested in a neat DIY subwoofer build project for fun or whatever)

 

~~~~~~~~p.69/70/71 FINAL ASSEMBLY PICS!!!!!~~~~~~~~~

 

So our physics teacher is having us build something for our magnetics chapter as our final test/project. He knows I'm into audio so he suggested I build a speaker. I figured I'll just build an all out subwoofer instead of just a plain speaker. I didn't really know what I was doing until I had my dad explain it all to me, he's an engineer and (sometimes annoyingly) seems to know everything. So over the past 2 days I've been gathering and planning/calculating the build.

FOR THE NEW VERSION 2 SUPER-WOOFER:

For the Driver: Huge amounts of neodymium, over $1,100 worth, and over 3000lbs of pull force. 3"X4" pole, and [6] 2" thick x 2.5" tall poles for the outer magnets. Had custom ordered machines steel plates shipped from NJ to me for the motor top and bottom plates.

The Voicecoil: 3" flat wire aluminum 4 layer dual 1 ohm voice coil on aluminum former, special design from sundown, as thick as an 8 layer.

The Spider/Suspension: 5 stacked 3"x8" linear nomex spiders and a 3"x9" spider with quad-sewn leads.

The Cone: 18" super-wide roll surround cone from sundown.

The Basket: Ordering a 18" 6-spoke metal basket that you see on most 18" DC's, sundowns, ect...

The Power: DC audio 3.5k

The Electrical: DC Power 320a alternator, and 2 XS D1200's, all SHCA OFC wiring, 2 runs of 0/1awg OFC from front to back battery, amp and ground wires should be <3ft max. And SCHA OFC 8 gauge power wire direct leads to the woofer!

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THIS IS FOR VERSION ONE:

(Note, this is NOT a high quality woofer, just a fun project, it's full of mechanical flaws presumably, as building a great subwoofer requires a crapload of technology, precise engineering and calculations, all I had was google and my 67 year old engineer father.)

The material I will be using will be:

For the Driver: 3 cylinder neodymium magnets 2"(diameter) x1"(thick) with a combined pull force of 750lbs (originally $135, but my teacher gets 75% discount by ordering via the school. So it was only $34)

The Voicecoil: This part was the most difficult part because it had to fit my magnets exactly and work.....So after hours of explanation and research, I finally figured out the best way(that I could come up with) to build it. For the bobbin I used a thin sheet of anodized aluminum, which I learned creates a shorted turn unless you cut straight down one side. I got it from home depot in the housing section, it's meant to be wrapped around a water tank and drilled into the wall to hold it in place, I use it at work a lot. So it had pre-cut holes in it but it should work fine.

For The coil, I decided to make the extra effort and try my hand at a DVC dual 4-ohm just to make the wiring option more flexible. For the wire I used 0.150mm enameled copper wire, after destroying my brain I figured out the length to get the right impedance and it ended up being a 1.2" wind height. I was fighting to decide which adhesive to use, but after looking at the home depot prices I just went with the epoxy, it was the easiest to apply and gave me enough to to wind the coil "manually" (meaning with a drill, fed by the hand)

The Spider/Suspension: Ended up with rubber bands

The Cone: I bought a heat 10&1/2" inch heatlamp (talk about ingenious ideas) and I'm going to use that for the cone. At first I was really concerned about the weight, but it's really thin and light already, and I'm going to trim it down to a slightly smaller size.

The Rubber Surround: Simple really, just gonna take a bike tire inner-tube and cut it in half, then glue one side to the basket, one side to the cone, easy breezy.

The Basket: Today I bought some 1/4" MDF, and a new RIGID jigsaw, So I'm gonna measure, outline, and cut all day tomorrow and get this basket all cut out, then hot glue/superglue all the pieces together to create a strong, bass worthy basket. Sturdy enough to handle some neodymium magnet power.

(P.S: I'm open to any and all ideas, but keep it cheap.)

[Dwn4BassAlan]

The Magnets came in the mail, finally. From Magnets4less.com. Warning these magnets are badass, they will crush your fingers and break bones.

[Dwn4BassAlan]

Let me just point out, combining these magnets to line up PERFECTLY, is literally the most physically difficult thing I have EVER done. I had to find a thin piece of glass, then set each one on opposing sides, then slide them over each other and then slowly work them off the edge of the glass, and combine them to line up perfectly. The magnetic force and power here is mind-boggling. Separating them was tough enough with the plastic blocks between them, but now that they are all 3 directly connected, there is almost NO possible way for the to come apart without damaging them, one of them seemed to be slightly-slightly-slightly un-aligned, and I almost gave myself a hernia trying to push it to perfection, but no luck. They're set............for good. (KEEP IN MIND THAT EVEN A 1.5mm EDGE WOULD BLOCK THE VOICECOIL, SO THEY HAD TO BE PERFECT)

But after a good hour, I finally got them all put together, without losing a single finger.

DAT ALIGNMENT!!!!:

DAT CLEARANCE!!!!:

SLIDES PERFECTLY!!!!!!!!

[Dwn4BassAlan]

Reality check: Neodymium is a compressed bunching of materials, not a solid piece of metal. So it's brittle AF.

Here's what happens when a DENSE-ASS HAMMER sitting 6" inches away on the counter collides with a BRITTLE-ASS magnet which is capable of sticking to a surface with 750lbs of force.

seriously, be careful whenever you handle magnets of this size and power, you could easily lose an entire finger.

[CleanSierra]

Watching

[Purplehaze]

Watching

X2

[Babyjuice]

That's pretty cool to see. Definitely tuned in for the outcome.

[Integra_boomer]

This takes alot of skillset and modivation. Much props and respect man. Tuned in

[bassfreake]

tuned in this sounds like it will be pretty cool

[Raptorman]

Tuned in.