3-way (tweet, 5-1/4, 8") components install

[Poseur]

Okay, so I got ahold of a sweet sounding Kicker SS component set at the beginning of the summer, and somehow managed to be toobusy screwing around with other thigns to get rolling on them. I'd initially just had my infinity 5x7's in the door running midbass and the 5's on the floor with crude baffles and a couple tshirts. I got tired of the ghettoness, but was still kinda lazy last week, so i tucked the 5's into my doors with the spiffy little baffles kicker included.

And now I miss how nice things sounded and realize how much better it can and hopefully WILL be. Imaging is now blah, speakers sound muted, and I'm getting very little left channel information at the driver's seat (I'd assume the same holds true for right channel in the pass side) Hence the decision to get on my kickpod creation route, and then theother thing, a 5-1/4 just doens't have the surface area to keeup with the nice crossover points I'd gotten accustomed to (70ish hz LP front, upper 50's HP sub) SO... I'm going to try and stuff their intended, matched bigger brothers, a pair of SSMB8's in the doors. Yup I'm midbass crazy, but also I really think that running an 8 instead of a 6 will allow me a bit more efficency and an ability to get more midbass out of less power (atleast fornow) I intend to run the components with their passive crossover off of the front 2channels of my 120wx4 claimed avionixx amp, and the 8's will be getting the other 2x120w. now note that everything is actually 3ohms so I'll be getting a bit more juice (hopefully) but still I'd prefer something beefier for the midbass,say somewhere in the 200w range, which depending on how this all worksout I'll likely work into my upcomig amp switcharound plans.

So I guess this'll hopefully be kind of a worklog, MAYBE I'll actually make some progress on this one.. Fornow I'm just kind of getting an idea for how exactly these things are gonna fit. Fortunately they're very slim so window clearance isn't an issue, but getting them to physically fit in the area I've got to work with might be. It is my intent to keep the doorpanel intact and stock-looking, and be able to go back to some form of coax atleast, wothout toomuch trouble, because these ARE speakers that I do, indeed wish to keep for awhile. Sofar it seems as though that with just a bit of rounding at the top of the stock oval, I should be able to make a baffle for the speaker and fit everythign in with relatively little issue.

Of course that's SHOULD be able to and not WILL.. it's tight, REALLY tight. I've got very little room to spare before I hit the doorpanel as well, but it DOES seem to fint. (barely)

I'm pretymuch accepting right now that I may, indeed be cutting into some fairly serious sheetmetal in my doors if my current idea doesn't workout, and I'm prepared to be mostly okay with that. but just incase I'm not I happen to have some SSMB6's sitting around as well. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes..




P.S. These things are BIG.

 

[FrigginGLI]

Dam 8 inch, you must make them fit!

 

[chuyler1]

That is a very compact basket assembly. My Eclipse 6.5"s are beefier than that with their cast aluminum baskets.

I still think its overkill to have 8"s up front but if you're willing to put the effort in, more power to yah. By the time you are done it better sound good. I usually loose interest about half way through so I would never complete something like that unless I was getting paid to do it.

 

[Poseur]

My only real motiovation on this one is the fact that I think I can indeed get away with it without messing anything up too much. Also having access to all kinds of neat-o lathes and mills etc at school to play with (machinist training) helps. Alot of things that I once thought either impossible or difficult are now relatively simple. If anything I've just got way more patience anymore I guess.

8's are quite possibly overkill and I know this, but since when has that ever stopped anyone? Extra headroom is fine, and being able to go without a sub or at least play my fornt stage down to 40hz would always be nice... and I'm already working on bracing inside my doors to kill vibrations.

 

[chuyler1]

Did you see that movie "The Machinist" with Christian Bale? If you thought Linsay Lohan lost weight then think again.

 

[got wake?]

My only real motiovation on this one is the fact that I think I can indeed get away with it without messing anything up too much. Also having access to all kinds of neat-o lathes and mills etc at school to play with (machinist training) helps. Alot of things that I once thought either impossible or difficult are now relatively simple. If anything I've just got way more patience anymore I guess.

8's are quite possibly overkill and I know this, but since when has that ever stopped anyone? Extra headroom is fine, and being able to go without a sub or at least play my fornt stage down to 40hz would always be nice... and I'm already working on bracing inside my doors to kill vibrations.

a good machinist never says something is impossible, but rather looks at different approaches to get the desired results. needless to say, i like having a CNC and some bridgeports at my disposal. course when the horizontal machining center is delivered in december, then i'll really be able to make some cool stuff(headbang)


do the 8's hit the plastic door panel when you play low notes?

 

[tsunami]

Did you see that movie "The Machinist" with Christian Bale? If you thought Linsay Lohan lost weight then think again.

holy **** that was crazy... a man shouldn't do that for a movie, he should have won some awards or something...

back on subject... 8's in your door is pretty tight... hope you can cross brace your doors and deaden you plastic panels enough to get some nice sound instead of muddling....

 

[Poseur]

Time for kicks

Okay, so Getting started on my kicks while I wait til tomorrow (ore today I guess) to see if I can find some decent plastic in the scrap bin at school to make rings for the 8's from. With the kicks, I'm forunate enough to have a coaxial mounting option to the speakers, and due to space restraints have decided that this is the best way to mount things. I do nothav ethe tweeter mounted in these pics as I was mostly using the speaker for assuring clearance and dimensions.

I managed to come across a guy stripping out an msp for a racecar, so I snagged up a spare set of kickpanels They were a bit scratched, but you can see how much that really matters. I freely hacked them up. This makes life easy because I can use them as a basic "frame" for my kick pods as well as clear baskets without sticking out too far. Oh, also I turned a couple of mdf mounting rings on the lathe. Not that I needed that kind of accuracy, but hey I was bored, and had the machines to play with.

Next, propped inplace with an old shirt and aimed (I've been playing with aiming for awhile, so I had my spot prettymuch pre-determined) I then hot-glued some thin pieces of dowling into place to get my mounting angle squared away.

After carefully removing the speaker soasto not disturb the positioning, I added alot more bracing and then pulled the panel out so i can "fleece" (not doing this tonight but later)

I also did the otherside, but seeing as there's a steering wheel in the way and I already took pics of the other side, I opted to jsut let you use your imagination, but here's both frames ready to be wrapped and glassedup.

 

[Dexter]

you crazy ******

 

[niv]

lolz.. agreed.

 

[chuyler1]

Keep taking pictures of your kickpanel buildup...I'll be doing the same thing pretty soon for my 4" DLS midranges.

 

[keleko]

pretty close to what i'm doing, keep teh pics coming

well, similar anyway

5 1/4's in the kicks, 6 3/4's in the door and 8's in the rear doors

 

[Poseur]

'Kaysolike I've mentined school and big toys before... Today I was SERIOUSLY bored at school. I figure now's as good a time as any to make myself some rings since whenever I'm at my friends' Garage lately it's been way toolate to be cutting. I also figured that wit my tight clearances, wood will likely crumble. So manged to talk my instructer into letting me use a couple of chunks of plastic usually used for making softjaws for the vice. I also managed to dig a spiffy aluminum hub thing out of the scrap bin.. hmm.....

Okay, so after a bit of measuring I decide I should be able to mount the plastic to the hub and clear my ring alright. (it will make sense in a bit)

Here's the big toy part.... Is a 10,000# 12" lathe necessary for cutting out plastic speaker mounting rings? heckno... but it WILL do the job quite nicely..

Turning the outside Diameter.

Turning the inside diameter/trimming the ring out of a disc.

Finished product. adding 1/2" of lift to the speaker. I've decided this is the best compromise in leaving some room for forward excursion as well as not having to trimout toomuch of my doors.

Like I said before, these things are big... this gives a good idea of dimension. This is the rough position I'm hoping to be able to mount my speakers in eventually. I'd jsut slap it up in there right now, but cutting into metal at 11pm in the driveway is likely not the best of ideas if one wishes to maintain any kind of friendly relations with one's neighbors.

 

[got wake?]

nice work. i can't wait to get a CNC lathe or a turning center. keep up on the good work.

you guys don't use digital instruments? we have regular mics and calipers, but those are backups for if the batteries die in the digi ones

 

[Poseur]

nice work. i can't wait to get a CNC lathe or a turning center. keep up on the good work.

you guys don't use digital instruments? we have regular mics and calipers, but those are backups for if the batteries die in the digi ones

ah, they're kinda sloppy, mostly just 'cause i wanted to get it in and out of the lathe before anyone needed it. 'sides leaving a finish on that stuff is weird, it's a bit rubbery...

asfor measuring tools. *shrug* I actually prefer dial calipers. could go either way on the mics, but it doesn't slow me down either way, and it keeps ppl from trying to borrow my stuff. I've actually got some cheapie digitals if I'm going for close enough with metric. I'll get some nice digital calipers atleast eventually, butyea.

 

[got wake?]

ah, they're kinda sloppy, mostly just 'cause i wanted to get it in and out of the lathe before anyone needed it. 'sides leaving a finish on that stuff is weird, it's a bit rubbery...

asfor measuring tools. *shrug* I actually prefer dial calipers. could go either way on the mics, but it doesn't slow me down either way, and it keeps ppl from trying to borrow my stuff. I've actually got some cheapie digitals if I'm going for close enough with metric. I'll get some nice digital calipers atleast eventually, butyea.

what material is that anyways? i understand how different materials machine differently. i've had to prototype some plastic inserts, and certain plastics just machine nicer.

most of the parts i check have a healthy tolerance of 3-5 thou, so digital calipers are the easiest to use. course it'll be nice having the renishaw probe system on the mori horizontal machining center. no more checking parts for me(thumb)

 

[Poseur]

So I don't know why tin snips didn't occur to me before. they go quite nicely with my latenight mannarisms. Okay,so cover your eyes, I'm about to mangle my doors a bit...

okay, see didn't hure TOOmuch did it? I actually figure that should I decide to switch back I can simply fold the metal back, and throw some dynomat over it. Alright, so here's the deal. I just sorta dove in. went with my gut. from my initial figurings and such I 20sided taped my ring into the right general place. looked good. test-fit my doorpanel and it CLEARED!

Woohoo! so now, slap the speaker in, test fit again, clears fine with a bit of room to spare (you cna kind of see by looking down through the window switch panel hole)

After being sure that was fine, I went ahead and grabbed the weatherstripping. I'll likely do a better job of this eventually, but the point of thsi would be to try to help isolate the front wave of the speaker to the stock speaker opening, also to help keep my doorpanels form becoming butterflys.

and, umm, prettymuch that's it! I HAVE an 8 IN MY DOOR!!! it was WAY easy. I was expecting more of a battle, butI spose I already did my calculations and planning well enough that thigns workedout alright. (just did the pass side tonight. I'llhave to get to my driver's side later) I'd have taken a pic, but if you go and look at your door, that's whatit looks like...

Honestly I'm truely amazed with how easy tonight's chunk of this went.

 

[keleko]

now you just need to put an 8 in each rear door and take pics of that too

 

[chuyler1]

The door panel fits back on without any interference right? Its prolly just the angle of the picture but it looks like the bottom of the speaker goes below the edge where the panel mounts. Just looking at those pictures I would guess that the panel would fit over but the surround would be touching the inside of the panel on the bottom.

 

[Poseur]

now you just need to put an 8 in each rear door and take pics of that too

Umm, I would, but that would be just plain retarded for SOOOmany reasons.

Chuyler> clears the panel just fine. it's snug, but the overhang is intentional. There's actually about an extra inchof room below the lower edge of the speaker mount to the bottom of the panel. Mostly, though, mount it too high and the doorpanel starts dipping back up. There's literalyl about 1/8" of room to move any which way.