I have seen many ways of making Stators... Being new at this, and I am on a limited budget, what is the most effective design. I am willing to pay for performance; I just don’t want to pay for Crap.
So if anyone out there has any ideas or suggestions on stators, I would appreciate the feedback.
Thank you very much!
So if anyone out there has any ideas or suggestions on stators, I would appreciate the feedback.
Thank you very much!
There are several ways to go.
Perforated sheet metal is generally the easiest to work with, but not the cheapest. You can wind your own wire type stators, if you have the time and the mechanical ability to make the frames. You can glue some window screen to some sort of rigid frame (fluorescent lamp grids are common and cheap). You can use PCB material, drilled full of holes. In a pinch you could glue some aluminum foil to cardboard and make it work.
The metal doesn't have to be thick. In fact, it doesn't have to be anything but rigid enough to hold its shape (usually flat) or in the case of wire or window screen stators, the frame needs to be rigid enough to keep the stator flat.
Use your imagination. Think flat, rigid, and perforated. That's all you need.
I_F
Perforated sheet metal is generally the easiest to work with, but not the cheapest. You can wind your own wire type stators, if you have the time and the mechanical ability to make the frames. You can glue some window screen to some sort of rigid frame (fluorescent lamp grids are common and cheap). You can use PCB material, drilled full of holes. In a pinch you could glue some aluminum foil to cardboard and make it work.
The metal doesn't have to be thick. In fact, it doesn't have to be anything but rigid enough to hold its shape (usually flat) or in the case of wire or window screen stators, the frame needs to be rigid enough to keep the stator flat.
Use your imagination. Think flat, rigid, and perforated. That's all you need.
I_F
If you can't find any scrap perf, try using some some aluminum flashing and making the perforations yourself. It's a lot of work but you can get the flashing cheap (around $20) at the Home Depot or any building supply stores. I had a small (1' x 1') peice of perforated aluminum i used as stencil to drill my perforations into the flashing. Worked like a charm!
No and no.
The hole size has one major effect and one minor effect.
The major effect is to reduce the sensitivity of the driver. If the holes are large there is less mechanical force on the diaphragm, for any given stator to diaphragm spacing.
The minor effect has to do with resonance of the holes. Bigger holes will have lower resonance, but it won't matter- you'll never hear it, unless your stators are VERY thick.
Ah yes, one more effect- larger holes will make the drivers more optically transparent.
I_F
The hole size has one major effect and one minor effect.
The major effect is to reduce the sensitivity of the driver. If the holes are large there is less mechanical force on the diaphragm, for any given stator to diaphragm spacing.
The minor effect has to do with resonance of the holes. Bigger holes will have lower resonance, but it won't matter- you'll never hear it, unless your stators are VERY thick.
Ah yes, one more effect- larger holes will make the drivers more optically transparent.
I_F
I know of no sonic benefits of wire stators over perforated sheet metal.
I suspect the mechanical force on the diaphragm, hence the speaker sensitivity, will be higher in a typical perforated sheet metal stator type speaker than in a typical wire stator type because of the much greater percentage of area covered by the sheet metal. One could make a wire stator with a similar percentage of coverage, but it would be a huge amount of work and would require a huge amount of wire.
But, wire is cheap, and if you've got the time, or you are clever enough to figure out a quick way to make a wire stator, why not?
I think that a sheet metal stator is more likely to give uniform electric field strength simply because it is inherently flat, mechanically speaking. Wire comes off a spool and has to be tensioned to make it flat, and keeping it that way is not so easy. But does a uniform field really matter? I have my doubts...
One thing is for sure, it is a LOT more work to make a wire stator than to make a perforated sheet metal stator.
I_F
I suspect the mechanical force on the diaphragm, hence the speaker sensitivity, will be higher in a typical perforated sheet metal stator type speaker than in a typical wire stator type because of the much greater percentage of area covered by the sheet metal. One could make a wire stator with a similar percentage of coverage, but it would be a huge amount of work and would require a huge amount of wire.
But, wire is cheap, and if you've got the time, or you are clever enough to figure out a quick way to make a wire stator, why not?
I think that a sheet metal stator is more likely to give uniform electric field strength simply because it is inherently flat, mechanically speaking. Wire comes off a spool and has to be tensioned to make it flat, and keeping it that way is not so easy. But does a uniform field really matter? I have my doubts...
One thing is for sure, it is a LOT more work to make a wire stator than to make a perforated sheet metal stator.
I_F
Just my point of view:
Wire stators are/were quite popular in the Netherlands.
I think the reason for this is the perfect insulation properties of the PVC-wire. With a perforated sheet of metal you have to remove the sharp edges with hydrochloric acid first, than you have to apply several layers of paint. The dutch ESL book recommends about 6 layers of paint. The weakest point (where you put too little paint) will set the limit. Getting it powder coated by a company is really expensive. So a metal sheet maybe a simple and quick way to do it at first sight, but I think there are real insulation penalties and doing it right will cost you probably more time than a wire stator.
Difficult to say if the wire stator sounds better cause you need A/B comparison to judge (I hope to make an A/B comparison in near future, but I haven't finished yet).
Wire stators are/were quite popular in the Netherlands.
I think the reason for this is the perfect insulation properties of the PVC-wire. With a perforated sheet of metal you have to remove the sharp edges with hydrochloric acid first, than you have to apply several layers of paint. The dutch ESL book recommends about 6 layers of paint. The weakest point (where you put too little paint) will set the limit. Getting it powder coated by a company is really expensive. So a metal sheet maybe a simple and quick way to do it at first sight, but I think there are real insulation penalties and doing it right will cost you probably more time than a wire stator.
Difficult to say if the wire stator sounds better cause you need A/B comparison to judge (I hope to make an A/B comparison in near future, but I haven't finished yet).
Type 302/304 stainless steel tempered music Wire— 1- and 2-ft. straight lengths in the McMaster-Carr catalog pg 3459I_Forgot said:
http://www.mcmaster.com/
No tensioning required to make these flat. Hard spring tempering makes these very stiff to start with. You also have to consider that the higher percentage of metal coverage will mean less percent of open space for the sound to go through.
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