How do I use carbon fiber + MDF wood + glass fiber to make speaker?

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Which material is the best for diy speaker?

I saw some speaker manufacturer use carbon fiber + MDF wood + glass fiber to make speaker. e.g : Rockport hyperion

Any benifit of this treatment?

If I want to diy a speaker cabinet use carbon fiber + MDF wood + glass fiber to make speaker

How do I do?
Any information?

How do I mixture this material?
 
I'm not entirely sure how to go about using carbon fibre for speaker building, but a hybrid MDF + GRP enclosure is an interesting idea.

I would get a GRP fabricator (there are a surprising number of them all over the world) to build spherical shells of appropriate volume for your drivers to sit in. I would then build a wooden enclosure around those shells and line the gap with heavy sound deadening material.
Aside from the obvious problem of needing big spheres for certain driver alignments, I can't think of too many disadvantages, and the lack of internal standing waves and reduced radiation from the sides of the speaker would be a big advantage.
 
Carbon fibre is easy to work with really and a hybrid could easily be made. As far as I can imagine, you would create a MDF carcas for the speaker and then cover the carcas in carbon fibre.

You can buy carbon fibre easily enough but its quite expensive. You would then buy the epoxy and place the carbon fibre in it so it gets completely saturated with epoxy then simply lay it on the carcas, in a similar way you have a plastercast put on your foot made out of plaster of paris encrusted fabric.

On the other hand you could make a wire frame out of rigid chicken wire and layer carbon fibre on top of this to make odd shaped loudspeakers. The only problem I can think is the front baffle. You would need a good few layers of CF though maybe 10 at a minimum, you would also need bracing.
 
5th element said:
Carbon fibre is easy to work with really and a hybrid could easily be made. As far as I can imagine, you would create a MDF carcas for the speaker and then cover the carcas in carbon fibre.

You can buy carbon fibre easily enough but its quite expensive. You would then buy the epoxy and place the carbon fibre in it so it gets completely saturated with epoxy then simply lay it on the carcas, in a similar way you have a plastercast put on your foot made out of plaster of paris encrusted fabric.

On the other hand you could make a wire frame out of rigid chicken wire and layer carbon fibre on top of this to make odd shaped loudspeakers. The only problem I can think is the front baffle. You would need a good few layers of CF though maybe 10 at a minimum, you would also need bracing.
I think it would be more useful to brace CF than to increase its thickness. Its strength is already high enough, but it likes to flex, IIRC.
 
454Casull said:

I think it would be more useful to brace CF than to increase its thickness. Its strength is already high enough, but it likes to flex, IIRC.

I agree thats why I mentioned bracing it:D

The CF that we have at home however would probably produce a 15mm thick enclosure if done up to 10 layers. If I was going to put in the effort to make a CF enclosure, id sure as hell want to make it well.
 
I'm sure a speaker would benefit more from mounting the drivers on a carbon fiber body than having carbon fiber wrapped around the body. Carbon fiber is extreemly rigid, yet it also takes ALOT of the vibration out of things. This is ideal for a speaker enclosure, or at least a front baffle. For a more tangible explaination, go to your local bike shop, ride a Al. bike, then ride a carbon fiber bike, you will notice a huge difference in ride smoothness, yet it will still have all the stiffness of the Al bike.
 
Chris8sirhC said:
I'm sure a speaker would benefit more from mounting the drivers on a carbon fiber body than having carbon fiber wrapped around the body. Carbon fiber is extreemly rigid, yet it also takes ALOT of the vibration out of things. This is ideal for a speaker enclosure, or at least a front baffle. For a more tangible explaination, go to your local bike shop, ride a Al. bike, then ride a carbon fiber bike, you will notice a huge difference in ride smoothness, yet it will still have all the stiffness of the Al bike.
Hmmm, never ridden a carbon bike, but from the description steel frames would be even more the other end of the spectrum to carbon. I quite like the springiness of steel frames though.
Maybe laying up carbon for a baffle with the weave in random directions would be a good idea?
Steve
 
Chris8sirhC said:
I'm sure a speaker would benefit more from mounting the drivers on a carbon fiber body than having carbon fiber wrapped around the body. Carbon fiber is extreemly rigid, yet it also takes ALOT of the vibration out of things. This is ideal for a speaker enclosure, or at least a front baffle. For a more tangible explaination, go to your local bike shop, ride a Al. bike, then ride a carbon fiber bike, you will notice a huge difference in ride smoothness, yet it will still have all the stiffness of the Al bike.

This is indeed true my dad does time trials and races etc on a regular basis and has recently bought a set of carbon fibre front forks to improce the ride.

Hmm what about a dipole panel making that really stiff etc

I was going to make mine finally out of MDF but with goves cut out and trus rods (the things used in guitars to stop the neck breaking under steel strings) placed in the groves. However a carbon fibre panel could easily be made.
 
Actually steel provides a smoother ride that Al. Al is usually considered the most harsh, but lighter than steel. Steel and Ti are both considered to be smoother and less harsh, but the Ti bikes are usually as light or lighter than Al ones but much more expensive. And carbon bikes are the smoothest and usually more expensive, but not quite as expensive as Ti. I guess a drawback (depending on who your asking) of Carbon bikes is you can't "feel" the road under you like you can with other bikes.
this is what i race on, except i have the black version

That carbon bi-pole idea sounds great, i would just add some mass to it since carbon fiber is so light weight.
 
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