Popular Post Chestnut Posted February 16, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 16, 2016 A few people seemed interested in the bookshelf speakers that i made in my other project journal so here they are proper. I'll start out with a materials list the post some pictures along the way. I wasn't taking pictures the whole way so there are some details that will be missed. I'm doing this late at night as well because i can't sleep for what ever reason. DAYTON AUDIO DC160-8 6-1/2" CLASSIC WOOFER $20 DAYTON AUDIO XO2W-3K 2-WAY SPEAKER CROSSOVER 3,000 HZ $25 VISATON SC5-8 SHIELDED 1/2" POLYCARBONATE TWEETER 8 OHM $10 Speaker Terminal Plates 1" Port 6 BF Jatoba Some Walnut and some Maple Obviously 2 of each of those, one for each speaker, i could have went cheaper but i wanted to get a decent cross over. Matching tweeters crossovers and woofers is pretty easy. Make sure that the woofer and tweeter are the same impedance and try and have the frequency range over lap some. The woofers above are 40hz - 4khz tweeters are 4khz to 22khz I then chose a crossover that would cross the frequencies over between the two. Pretty simple right? I'm by no means an expert at this, so don't take what i say as 100% fact. I got all the parts from Parts-Express they basically sell speaker components similar to what sony, bose, kilspch would put in their speakers except to everyone. Parts express lists all the technical specs of the dayton audio speakers on their website and their customer service is hands down Lie Nielson style top notch. I left a 3 star review on an item and was contacted by customer service with an RMA for a return i didn't know i needed. First i cut down the Jatoba into 4" widths for resawing, each side of the speaker was going to be the board width ripped in half with maple and walnut wedged in the middle. After resawing the nearly 1" thick Jatoba i glued it with the maple and walnut and then ran the .4" planks through the planer to smooth everything out. Sizing, speaker boxes are .34 Cu Ft based on ported volume. I googled a port calculator and figured out I'd need ~1.6" of a 1" port. To get .34 cu ft i made them 13.5" x 8" x 8" ( i think i honestly forgot). I sized slightly over .34 cu ft to account for the crossover inside. I also had to account for the thickness of the wood taking up volume. The front and back ended up being 3/4" thick with the sides being a hair over 3/8". After gluing the 3 woods together i realized i goofed on the dimensions and made the boards too wide.I took this opportunity to offset the maple and walnut towards the front to add a bit of depth to the design. I REALLY didn't want to do box joints or dovetails to make the boxes but with thin material and wood movement to be concerned about i felt like i had no choice. I wanted these things to be air tight as well as durable. Sorry hand tool lovers, i cut the box joints with my router and the PC 4200 dovetail jig took me maybe 30 min to set up and knock out both boxes. When i set up the joints i made sure each box had continuous grain all the way around with the one odd corner being on the bottom. This holds true for the maple and walnut. For the front of the speaker i wanted to add another small detail. I wanted the front panel to float inside the surround. I did this by mounting a thin piece of jatoba to some 1/2" plywood. I made the Jatoba 1/8" smaller in each direction to leave a 1/16" gap around the outside. I tried as best i could to get things centered and all in all i thought i did ok. Some of the gap is off on the speakers but you'd need to take a ruler to it to see for sure. I took the soldering iron to the internal components to connect them all together. If someone wanted to do this and didn't have the skill to run a soldering iron for electronics you could use spade connectors and a crimp tool. I have the soldering stuff and didn't have spade connectors so my choice was pretty easy. After i got things connected it was as simple as making a jig for the router to cut a circle for the speaker, hole saw for the tweeter, and 5-7 coats of brushing lacquer. After they dried i let the lacquer dry/cure for about a week then i rubbed out the finish to a semi-gloss. I had fun using some polishing compound i bought for sharpening and my 1/4 sheet sander with some bluejeans to get the finish to it's final state. At this point all was left was to mount the speakers and enjoy some tunes. Sorry for the 1 post journal, it didn't feel right for a showcase beings that i already did that. I hope it isn't too long, if it is you won't make it to this apology i guess. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 16, 2016 Report Share Posted February 16, 2016 Thanks for posting, Chestnut. Useful information, throughout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneymack Posted February 16, 2016 Report Share Posted February 16, 2016 Looks great ! How do they sound ? Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2016 They sound great. With them being ported the bass is nice and even and everything hold nice and steady all the way up. The Jatoba is SUPER dense and each speaker weighs more than you'd expect and this is good because it stops them from vibrating. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janello Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Really nice work CN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-MattK- Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Wow - those look great! Only bummer is you've now added another "gotta do" project to my list! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 For that you can either do false space or expand to a 3way or 4way. Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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