In between real work I spent a few hours working on a new box. I wanted a little more low end, and a bit more output so I decided to go from 15 feet net to 18 feet net. Both boxes are at 36 Hz, but this new one is closer to the tailgate and should load nicely, with the actual tuning dropping a bit. Port area is 230 sq inches, though it's a removable port.
I wanted to do birch this time to shed a few pounds, I think the last box was in the 300lb+ range, where this one is bigger and shouldn't break 250 I hope.
My bro hauled me around in his beater instead of me using a trailer to pick up supplies. 4 sheets of 3/4" Birch.
Mobile work shop, I work in several locations so this stuff works great for me. Can you tell I like Rigid? lol.
45's cut, I'll be cutting them to size with a miter saw from here.
Cut out the small corner for the amp/battery.
I cut about a 1/8" ridge along the sides to tuck the vinyl.
1 side routered out.
You can get an idea of how the seam will fit.
Routed out the other side.
The port mocked up for size reference, it's 12x19.
I busted out the nailer and started assembly. I'm using screws about every 6 inches apart, but it's great to pop a nail in to hold while I line things up and drill/screw.
That ridge I routed out makes it appear that the box isn't lined up right in some shots- it's just the lighting.
First layer of the top put on.
The back side
Marked the port to cut.
This shot doesn't really do justice, it's got some size to it. Stored in the stash house till I can get back to work on it.
And damit if I didn't used to use that EXACT same table saw!!!! Until the height adjustment broke (heads up, clean and oil it). I built some sick chit w/ that saw. Very nice how it can fold up and roll into a corner.
Boss-man got a nice Delta after that, the gate is WAY nicer. Not mobile though...lol.
I also have that same Ridgid router. I use it for round-over and flush-trim bits, its a little monster. Got a little $80 craftsman I keep a down-spiral bit and jasper jig on at all time. My nailgun is a Ridgid also.
On a very very random side note... can we talk about how davidyurman.com is advertising on ecoustics now. Last time I went in that direction it was $700 for a bracelet.
Thanks guys, no normal size e-peen lol. The port isn't using the bottom as one of the walls this time, so it's a bit uncomfortable to get in/out of. Having crawled in the port last time to rewire the subs, I hope to never do that again.
I have an old Porter Cable router I do small work with, but with the 1/2" bits I can cut soo much faster without worrying about breaking a bit. It makes a hell of a mess, but I'm working outside at least! I really shop wherever is closest, but when I'm comparing several hundred dollar + tools I shop around first, and like Ridgid over everything else 90% of the time. Lowes is closest so I probably do 70% of my business there, but they have such a crap selection anymore I've been driving the extra distance more and more frequently.
Thanks Jake Papa, I never noticed the adds- I just ignore them as much as possible lol.
I'm using 1/2 and 1/4 inch stacked on top of one piece of 3/4" birch to do some custom stuff.
Mounting locations for the port:
I cut out the port and attached the walls. I did it a little different this time. Instead of cutting the hole to size and attaching the port to the back side of the port face, I cut the hole to drop the port in. It should help hold it snug that way, and allowed me to route out the ridge to glue the vinyl.
3/4 round over inside and out
I sprayed on a can of filler primer and some white paint. I'll be using wood filler to touch up the nail holes, this just helps me see them.
Also picked up the bracing. 1.25" threaded rod.
Test fitting the port. You can see the 3/4" dip still remaining for the top portion.
Adding the 1/2" piece, it will be covered so it wont matter that it's mdf instead of ply. It also has the .75" birch behind it so it should be pretty strong.
Eric, that made me laugh. I did the math and if you slapped a front and back on that port you would have 1.85 feet net.
M.S. you're right. I've purchased expensive vacs before, I like the Ridgid brand better than the shop-vac brand, especially the bigger models. The expensive vacs all had the lower portion crack, but for the price I bought two of these vacs and they do most small jobs OK.
We built a nice workship in MD a few years ago, 2 bay doors and about 1500sq feet but it was packed full of stuff to the point of being nothing but storage.
We poured a slab here in SC about 3 years ago for a 900ft shop, but a few months later my dad died and we just let that project sit. Maybe in the next year we'll set something up, I'm just not really motivated to do it. Maybe if we build it we'll look into some nicer stationary tools, but right now it's important that things are mobile.
It looks a bit bigger than it is, 12x19. I can still drop it around and conceal a 5 gallon bucket. The manager at a local place that keeps 2 inch + threaded rod and tons of other gave me a super deal. It was cheaper than the 1/2" at Lowes.
Bassman, unless you're doing something bigger next week I'm going to keep dragging it out from the look of things lol.
I got just a little work done, mainly working on brackets, doing paperwork, and having to shop around for things. I'm going to settle on a different color vinyl than I wanted, but I'd have to wait weeks to get another color in. Now I can't find a shop with padding in stock.
I cut some 45's on the miter saw. I didn't finish, just wanted to pop the few pieces in the bottom so I could start coating it at the end of the day, it'll be a couple day thing for all the coats to dry I believe.
I put some wood filler in some screw/nail holes. Mainly around the port opening so I can smooth it off and coat it, basically prepping it before vinyl.
Then I got some work done on that mdf section. I traced the lettering on the 1/4" piece.
You can see the gap where it will drop in. Once the 1/4" piece is in place you can see it sticks past the front of the box about 1/8" further than the port. This is because of the thickness of the gasket behind the port making it stick out about 1/8"- it should be flush when complete.
Tomorrow I'll finish the wood work I hope, but I may not get around to it. I'm dreading cutting out those letters by hand, I should have done it on a cnc machine. If these look like crap I will
The same to me. I like slot ports due to them being a little shorter and saving air space, but aside from that as long as it's the right size box/port I can't hear much difference.
With as nice as the lip sits just bolting it on us air tight, but I make a 1 inch weather strip gasket. I use a black rubber based type from Lowes that works nice.
Okay, the lettering looked like crap so I scrapped the idea of doing it the way I started. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get nice lettering on the box? I was considering embroidering it on, but I don't know anywhere that does that and I don't have a sewing machine. Also considering slapping on a vinyl sticker where I wanted it but that's just ghetto.
Another thought was having the panel cnc cut, painted the holes white and vinyling up do the lettering but I don't know that I like that either.
Yeah, let me know if it can be done and how much - just send me an email to tejcurrent@tejcurrent.com. If it's reasonable we can work something out for sure, but I really don't want to dump a ton of money into it.
Damn I need some better glue for around the port! I started vinyl on it and I'm pretty happy with everything but the seam at the port. The adhesive just doesn't have enough initial tack to hold to the wood until it sets, so I'll be buying some different glue today.
I got the sub holes cut out and the second baffle put on yesterday, hopefully I'll get the rest done. I'll still have to wait for the junk inside to dry a day before I put it in my car, but at least I can hopefully just have vinyl left to do tomorrow.
The website says the measurements are 19.25 cut out, 21.25 OD. I tried this last time and couldn't fit the sub in the hole, so this time I did .25 larger in the hopes I wont have to go back to it. I use a 1/2" bit in the router. It makes hellacious dust but is much faster and sturdier than a 1/8".
recessed mounting for the sub
I started on the bracing and finishing the 45's yesterday, but I didn't have much time. I need to grab my metal cutting miter saw to cut this threaded rod, though I wont install it until all the wood work and painting is done.
from what i could gather, the large printing machine that my girlfriend has access to charges to print by the meter. looking at what you needed she said it would probably run $50 or so. she didnt work yesterday so she didnt find out anything about the embroidering machine, but if you would still like her to she can tonight.
Its as thick as the last box, 1.5 inch though birch instead of mdf.
Also this box has better bracing and several coats of poly inside, as well as 45 bracing in all the corners. Better built too, I rushed and cut corners on the last box.
I almost finished today. Too bad I had to do some real work If I have a few hours tomorrow I'll have it playing, but I have a crazy schedule so I'm not sure I'll get to it.
Finished the 45's in all the corners.
And the beginning of the bracing.
I used a 1.25" spade bit for the inside layer (3 total). The outer 2 layers of wood allow the nut on the end of the rod to be recessed.
Then a 2.5" hole saw for the outer two layers.
Just cupping my nuts
Then I cut the rod to fit. Normally it's quick work but it took a few minutes, then I used an angle grinder to clean the cut.
Test fit a sub to make sure the holes were good. There's a tad bit of play, but that'll be taken up by vinyl.
2 layers of poly inside the box. I'm going to sand the inside smooth tomorrow and hit it with a bit more paint. Then all I have to do is vinyl, wire, and slap the box in.
I'm outside with nothing but concrete around- other than a few wood scraps and that dust. I cleaned it up after the cutting today, I just can't see sweeping to come back and make more dust a few seconds later. Really though I'm not worried about a fire- even if there was one it wouldn't hurt anything. Seriously lol - looking back at the 2nd pics it's like I'm using the wood as a back-splash for the sparks
Thanks. Honestly I feel like a poon lifting these subs. They can't weigh more than 60lbs or so, but prying it up with your fingers all hunched over is so awkward lol.
I was soo close to finishing but had too much real work to do. I only got in an hour or two at the end of the day. I'm trying to set aside a few hours in the morning to uninstall the old box, bolt this one in and wire things up, but I ran out of adhesive and paint which will eat at least an hour out of my morning to go pick up. If I can get things finished in 2 hours and the old stuff out in an hour or so I'll have this up and running by lunch time, otherwise it may be next week before I have time to install.
I started out by sanding the inside down with 220, then hitting it with another coat of satin white.
Threaded rod installed, I used silicone around the rod and then around the nut.
Then I started wrapping.
And here's the point where I ran out of adhesive. The port looks like crap around the opening where the normal stuff just didn't have enough tack to fight against the foam. Nothing a trip to the hardware store wont fix.
I can say I've tried a ton of different bracing styles, but that one piece of threaded rod has that baffle solid
I got the box in, it looks better than the old one but I'm not happy with it. That padding makes it sit too close to the tail gate- it's choking. I may chop 3 inches off the back side and see if that helps.
Output is not as loud as the other box. It gets much lower, but it just doesn't have the output I want. The subs also seem to have more trouble with the power I'm giving them (which is the same).
If this doesn't work out I'll be back to the drawing board.
Wiring up the subs
The port opening needs cleaned up some, but I wanted to test before putting more work in it.
with thinner or no padding this would've looked good but I don't like the end result.
and a short video is uploading now- a little bottle-float trick.
"I wanted to do birch this time to shed a few pounds, I think the last box was in the 300lb+ range, where this one is bigger and shouldn't break 250 I hope."
theres my answer I was going to say maybe thats why it cant handle the power the same the box is too big
Yes, I think it's too big for the power. Strange though because I had a 18" btl take 4kw in 8ft net no sweat. These things still aren't moving like I know they can.
I really don't like the screws around the port, they just looked ugly.
The box is 3 feet bigger than before. I'm thinking I'll chop it down to about 1 foot bigger than the old box and see how that does.
And wow... Goggles AND earplugs? Talk about doing everything right the first time...
I know it's lame, but major props on the safety, I almost lost an eye(s) dremeling without goggles once... I got lucky and I will never dremel without them again...
I got the windows tinted the month I got it, layer of 20 + 5% all around except the windshield. It was this afternoon - plenty sunny- but inside vids of the back always look aweful.
I wont have time to work on this box more for a while, so in the mean time I'll probably just drop the old box back in since it's louder for the time being.
andrizzle thanks! I've been made fun of for plugs and goggles but I've had some close calls, especially with metal work. I plan on living to be old and I don't want to be blind or need hearing aids lol.
My voltage fluctuates between 14.6-14.8, and while it may drop to 14v for a second it always comes back up. I'm so happy with my charging system, it's great not worrying about voltage and knowing my amp is doing what it should. I measure .5 ohms nominal, which means .25 per board.
I wouldn't feel safe like that if my voltage dropped much. Thanks, guys I'll definitely get better vids down the road.
And yes I came close to losing an eye dremeling away a sway bar bushing on my car... It pretty much freaked me out as to how close I was to fkn myself over all because I didn't wear goggles.
Flying molten metal is never something to mess around with!
Man that sucks, after a few close calls I've learned to wear safety gear- at least when working with metal.
Thanks, I'm really happy with my voltage but I'm looking to weld up a rack and add another 2 d3100s- getting all my batts out of the car to make more room.
It almost hurt stripping the vinyl today- I'm going to chop 3 inches off tomorrow which should land me around 16.5 ft net, and 37Hz tuning- though it will still drop down around to 34hz tuning from what I figure.
eh it's too much of a pain to take in and out- it's still smaller than the 4 btl box, but the padding is so thick it actually takes up more room. If I had dropped it in w/out vinyl it would have fit pretty well
Anyway, if all I do is cut it to the same size as my old box and slap a new face on it I'll be better off. I'm going to try the 16ft first- I'm not sure when I'll have time though.
It may not have ended up sounding the way you were hoping for, but it sure did end up looking fantastic. The vinyl wrap really makes the enclosure look clean and almost part of the interior itself.
Thanks, it sure makes me feel good that the extra work didn't go unnoticed
Not for the time being Dustin, but I will need the cnc work soon. Right now I'm focusing on work too much to even fix this box, I'm riding around with the port off till I have time to chop it down.
I want several panels made in the future though, and I'll hit you up for them when the time comes. I know it's doing 152+ @32Hz, but I really want more. I don't feel comfortable doubling my power until I double the subs though, so I'm thinking I'll run 4 18s in my old box @ 2 ohms until I can pick up a 2nd amp. I may just have you design me a new box all together. I just don't know if it's worth going with Wardens over BTLs being that they'll probably never see more than what I'm giving them now- and the BTLs handled the power pretty well and cost a lot less. I have a bit of time to work it out.
