Not my design, but this is truly revolutionary and makes you slap your head thinking "why didn't I think of that?!"
The designer is selling licenses to DIY plans, although I'm not sure if it would be legal or illegal for us to collectively DIY design our own, independent from his plans.
The design is KISS at it's core. An equilateral triangular prism "rod" with 3/4" faces is suspended in air from its two end points to where it can pivot in the horizontal plane. From what I can tell, a voice coil motor is hooked up to some sort of a linkage which mechanically transforms the motors linear action into a torsional (rotating) action. This obviously causes the entire rod to vibrate torsionally- creating positive air pressure along each face, creating sound. No enclosure, near- omnidirectional directivity in the horizontal plane, no cone resonances.. you get the point.
So what do you say guys? Is it time to get a full blown collective DIY project together?
It Works
Check out the FR...
http://www.planotspeaker.com/Planot/Freq_&_Phase.html
The designer is selling licenses to DIY plans, although I'm not sure if it would be legal or illegal for us to collectively DIY design our own, independent from his plans.
The design is KISS at it's core. An equilateral triangular prism "rod" with 3/4" faces is suspended in air from its two end points to where it can pivot in the horizontal plane. From what I can tell, a voice coil motor is hooked up to some sort of a linkage which mechanically transforms the motors linear action into a torsional (rotating) action. This obviously causes the entire rod to vibrate torsionally- creating positive air pressure along each face, creating sound. No enclosure, near- omnidirectional directivity in the horizontal plane, no cone resonances.. you get the point.
So what do you say guys? Is it time to get a full blown collective DIY project together?
It Works
Check out the FR...
http://www.planotspeaker.com/Planot/Freq_&_Phase.html
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Heh, sorry I missed that! Well, I guess the mods are free to delete this thread if they wish.
Reading the responses in the old posts, it seems that interest died due to the inventors crazed defenseive stance on profiting from the design by licensing to large corporations. I can understand that, but he would of been much better off creating a working product, then selling direct from manufacturer. Pretty much how Bose started.
A shame really, it's principles of operation are stupidly simple. It wouldn't take much experimenting with a large group to get a very good design.
Reading the responses in the old posts, it seems that interest died due to the inventors crazed defenseive stance on profiting from the design by licensing to large corporations. I can understand that, but he would of been much better off creating a working product, then selling direct from manufacturer. Pretty much how Bose started.
A shame really, it's principles of operation are stupidly simple. It wouldn't take much experimenting with a large group to get a very good design.
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It is news to me that it has been “disputed.”
My patented acoustic transducer works as described, and independently tested.
Auditioned and praised by audiophiles.
I realize there is a long thread with many posts but your characterization that it was disputed is wrong. People disputed my claims. That does not mean the same as being discredited.
Please visit my Web site for more information. I do sell plans together with parts lists from US based vendors.
The pricing on non-commercial licenses is significantly reducesed, from the posted price, for a short time. Contact me at info@planotspeaker.com for specific questions and inquiries. And yes I do actively defend my patent!
John
Let’s bust apart some dead hard drives and salvage the head voice coils. Add the aluminum square towel bar on a ball bearing pivot and you are set. I think a carbon fiber triangular radiator would be superior from low inertia for good transients. But I think foam core may actually work here. It is quite light and a triangle will be torsionally stiff. Hmm...
@planot: I wonder what the impulse response looks like? Perhaps a step response would be useful to see if it is a right triangle. It should look pretty good if it follows the flat frequency response. You might get more interest if you show some simple YouTube videos of it in action.
I don’t know if this is the first planar omni as MBL uses a round shape that flexes to expand in diameter, thus creating the omni wavefront.
Radialstrahler mbl 101 X-treme
Although it uses linear motors to flex the gore panels to expand them.
There have been some DIY MBL omni attempts.
@planot: I wonder what the impulse response looks like? Perhaps a step response would be useful to see if it is a right triangle. It should look pretty good if it follows the flat frequency response. You might get more interest if you show some simple YouTube videos of it in action.
I don’t know if this is the first planar omni as MBL uses a round shape that flexes to expand in diameter, thus creating the omni wavefront.
Radialstrahler mbl 101 X-treme
Although it uses linear motors to flex the gore panels to expand them.
There have been some DIY MBL omni attempts.
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The Planot license alone is on sale price for US1,000. No wonder nobody is building it, for DIY it's a dead duck at that price. The construction is not simple either since you need some special parts. And without some reviews from the usual places very few people will be willing to take the risk. The business approach has killed it.
If you want to try and rescue it, you need somebody to develop a low cost demonstrator kit, something desktop sized perhaps.
If you want to try and rescue it, you need somebody to develop a low cost demonstrator kit, something desktop sized perhaps.
I don’t think it’s that hard to build. It’s a hard disk voice coil motor and a triangular shaft. Any power amp can drive it directly. What I cannot seem to get my head around is the sensitivity in dB/W at 1m. I don’t think it can be high as the movement of prismatic cylinder just doesn’t have the same grab as flat diaphragm on a baffle.
I actually have some dead hard drives I have saved for last 20 years that I can tear apart for this project. Foam core triangle vane will have to do. Wooden frame with some pivots - maybe RC car ball bearings.
I actually have some dead hard drives I have saved for last 20 years that I can tear apart for this project. Foam core triangle vane will have to do. Wooden frame with some pivots - maybe RC car ball bearings.
I don’t need rescuing.
I could easy license the patent for that purpose. Do a kickstarter. The $1,000 fee can be significantly discounted “for the right people” but first you must contact me at info@planotspeaker.com. I have moved the license fee up to that level to insure the licensee has some skin in the game and is serious about building actual prototypes. (The entry level license is for x units for personal use only; units can not be resold.)
John
For your reading pleasure.
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/3e/e8/1db4004618c8ab/US7860265.pdf
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/82/3e/e8/1db4004618c8ab/US7860265.pdf
I want to like this project, but it's hard.
Let's face it, many people will buy a new set of speakers for the added looks it brings to their listening space, along, hopefully, with good sound.
This Planot has.... zero style points. Well, from the 3 small incomplete pictures we are allowed to see.
Ok, maybe the geekiest of mechanical engineer will go "oulala ", but that's about it.
So, visual presence in the room is nil.
Being a fan myself of OB, I like open sounds. But it usually needs some space to work. This Planot says it works inside cars as well... Hmmm.. Ok, maybe. But without measurements, without nothing I saw to back it up, or how to implement it, it's hard to see this as a possibility in my car.
Sound being 360, wouldn't it have major interactions with the room?
Room shape and lack of treatments would surely induce multiple peaks and nulls around the room.
And finally, yes, ... The price.
5,000 for a "kit" involving going to the cnc cutter, assembling and requiring a little more than just screwing a couple of boards together is the wrong niche market.
Most people that will buy a 5,000$ and up system will want something delivered, and placed in their living space that will enhance the style of the room, and again, hopefully the quality of the music.
If I could make a suggestion, it would be to make a "lite" version of the kit, using cheaper and readily available parts, something like a small desk system, that would be an oddity people could put on the desk of their office, let it be a conversation starter that people would talk about, and then, maybe some would be interested in the "big boy" version to try at home. Sell that lite version around $400 and you might have some interests.
Anyway, my ramblings....
Let's face it, many people will buy a new set of speakers for the added looks it brings to their listening space, along, hopefully, with good sound.
This Planot has.... zero style points. Well, from the 3 small incomplete pictures we are allowed to see.
Ok, maybe the geekiest of mechanical engineer will go "oulala ", but that's about it.
So, visual presence in the room is nil.
Being a fan myself of OB, I like open sounds. But it usually needs some space to work. This Planot says it works inside cars as well... Hmmm.. Ok, maybe. But without measurements, without nothing I saw to back it up, or how to implement it, it's hard to see this as a possibility in my car.
Sound being 360, wouldn't it have major interactions with the room?
Room shape and lack of treatments would surely induce multiple peaks and nulls around the room.
And finally, yes, ... The price.
5,000 for a "kit" involving going to the cnc cutter, assembling and requiring a little more than just screwing a couple of boards together is the wrong niche market.
Most people that will buy a 5,000$ and up system will want something delivered, and placed in their living space that will enhance the style of the room, and again, hopefully the quality of the music.
If I could make a suggestion, it would be to make a "lite" version of the kit, using cheaper and readily available parts, something like a small desk system, that would be an oddity people could put on the desk of their office, let it be a conversation starter that people would talk about, and then, maybe some would be interested in the "big boy" version to try at home. Sell that lite version around $400 and you might have some interests.
Anyway, my ramblings....
Very clever and I love the inventiveness.
But...
I assume the engine oscillates the vane by +/-90 degrees for example rather than rotating it through 360 degrees. This seems to imply that each of the 3 faces are alternatively creating a compression on one half and an equal rarefaction on the other. Seems to me that much of the SPL would therefore immediately cancel.
Then if I recall my high school fluid dynamics I can imagine more and more fluid escaping around the edges of the vane with decreasing oscillation frequency, creating more SPL loss.
Lastly, cast your memory back to the film "Crocodile Dundee" where he 'telephones' for help by both rotating and spinning a flat stick on the end of a string. As a kid we used to make and play with these toys by the way. The key observations were that the tone was lower with increasing width of the flat stick and the hum was louder with increasing rotational speed. Sort of implies that the various frequencies require their own vane?
But...
I assume the engine oscillates the vane by +/-90 degrees for example rather than rotating it through 360 degrees. This seems to imply that each of the 3 faces are alternatively creating a compression on one half and an equal rarefaction on the other. Seems to me that much of the SPL would therefore immediately cancel.
Then if I recall my high school fluid dynamics I can imagine more and more fluid escaping around the edges of the vane with decreasing oscillation frequency, creating more SPL loss.
Lastly, cast your memory back to the film "Crocodile Dundee" where he 'telephones' for help by both rotating and spinning a flat stick on the end of a string. As a kid we used to make and play with these toys by the way. The key observations were that the tone was lower with increasing width of the flat stick and the hum was louder with increasing rotational speed. Sort of implies that the various frequencies require their own vane?
I hear ya, Perceval. I want to like it too - but the paucity of the details to make it work or performance to be expected is really making it hard. A photograph or video would do wonders. A small desktop lite "computer" speaker version would be great to get the conversation going. I am a bit lazy to dig out my dead HD's and find appropriate Torx drivers to uncase them and strip out the pivot voice coil mechanism. The MBL "Hot Air Balloon" omni looks a lot more interesting with fact that I can strip apart any regular dynamic driver to get the axial voice coil.
Taken to an extreme, there is the rotary vane sub:
Eminent Technology TRW-17 Rotary Subwoofer | Sound & Vision
But larger blades do make lower frequencies.
“If I could make a suggestion, it would be to make a "lite" version of the kit, using cheaper and readily available parts, something like a small desk system, that would be an oddity people could put on the desk of their office, let it be a conversation starter that people would talk about, and then, maybe some would be interested in the "big boy" version to try at home. Sell that lite version around $400 and you might have some interests. If I could make a suggestion, it would be to make a "lite" version of the kit, using cheaper and readily available parts, something like a small desk system, that would be an oddity people could put on the desk of their office, let it be a conversation starter that people would talk about, and then, maybe some would be interested in the "big boy" version to try at home. Sell that lite version around $400 and you might have some interests.”
Excellent suggestion, but personally l don’t want to be a manufacturer. I want to stay in the background and license my patent. You start a kickstarter. I’ll license the patent to you or just about anybody. Speaker projects appear to have a higher rate of success than most any other category.
The most difficult component is the motor. If you read my patent, it only covers the diaphragm design, which is the critical component. You’re licensing my patent to build the diaphragm. You supply a motor; any motor. There are any number of possible designs and configurations. You can’t patent my motor as described in my patent because the patent “reveals” it.
John
Excellent suggestion, but personally l don’t want to be a manufacturer. I want to stay in the background and license my patent. You start a kickstarter. I’ll license the patent to you or just about anybody. Speaker projects appear to have a higher rate of success than most any other category.
The most difficult component is the motor. If you read my patent, it only covers the diaphragm design, which is the critical component. You’re licensing my patent to build the diaphragm. You supply a motor; any motor. There are any number of possible designs and configurations. You can’t patent my motor as described in my patent because the patent “reveals” it.
John
Video
Well there is a video posted on YouTube by a physicist. It is an incomplete implementation but a functioning prototype; several years old. The problem with a video is it’s dependence on the recording chain and the playback equipment limitations.
That said, I will be making one and posting it sometime in the near future.
John
Well there is a video posted on YouTube by a physicist. It is an incomplete implementation but a functioning prototype; several years old. The problem with a video is it’s dependence on the recording chain and the playback equipment limitations.
That said, I will be making one and posting it sometime in the near future.
John
Interesting observations. Therory and practice. Regardless of theorizing the Planot sounds great. I could tell you a long story about one of the top supercomputers in the US, at the time, and it’s failure to model the performance of the Planot. It wasn’t the failure of the compuer(s) but the fact that the software, Ansys FLUENT, could not model it, apparently because this special case was not within the world view of Fluent. The physicsist and engineer who were going to model it abandoned the project because, even though the engineer was fluent in Fluent, he could not see how to proceed.
John
Hello John,
I understand you love your baby, but... you'll need to support it a bit more if you want people to seriously consider it.
Starting a Kickstarter funding project to raise the money to get the license on a speaker I have no idea how it really looks or perform is really not on my list of things to do right now.
I have a project on my own, and I was not afraid to build the whole thing myself, measure and share the measurements.
Same goes with a lot of people here, X and his 10F model (or the mini-K, or the XKRi, or...), Wesayso and his twin towers, Bjorn and his TABAQ, P10 and his Frugal line, etc...
My take on audio (especially here at DIYAudio) is that we try stuff... and sometimes stumble onto something interesting. Most of us are happy to share the findings.
But, there's usually a process on how we got there. A trail of failures and successes, ultimately coming up to a design we feel is interesting.
Like I mentioned, I doubt many will try to get your license at $1,000 for a project that cost $5,000 on parts to build, ... and nothing to show for besides a couple of patent pictures.
If I may again, I'd suggest you give a bit more information, and, like you mentioned, a bit more exposure for the project.
Attending DIY meetings, or DIY audio shows and getting people to hear and review your design would go a long way into finding people who would be willing to take the plunge, if they felt it was worth it.
Thanks for that,
but why not the real thing instead of a "crude prototype"?
Watching that 20-second video taken near field with a crappy camera and mic, I can clearly hear tone changes as the camera moves horizontally and vertically. How it translates into the room, I have no idea.
Got anything to share from the real implementation of your patent?
but why not the real thing instead of a "crude prototype"?
Watching that 20-second video taken near field with a crappy camera and mic, I can clearly hear tone changes as the camera moves horizontally and vertically. How it translates into the room, I have no idea.
Got anything to share from the real implementation of your patent?
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