Build One Planar Speaker - sourcing parts

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Fellas, remember, this budget experiment is for guitar, not Hi-Fi, so there is plenty of leeway in tolerances of all parameters.

What is another readily available (preferably reuse) material for a membrane besides Mylar? Parchment baking paper perhaps? For my purposes, sensitivity is desirable, as is LF near 100Hz. Above 3k is not important (though that may be the easiest range for the driver to reproduce).

I am reading and re-reading all of your input! Thank you!

CHAD
 
I think that Monokote might be the easiest material to work with for such project as it is readily available.

I used it for my very first small ESL's of 3.25" x 9.75" until I got my construction technique down well enough to not worry about wasting my precious hard to find .25mil mylar.

The iron-on heat adhesive works great and holds very well to the frame.
You should be able to just iron on the aluminium voice coil strips as well or just use a tape type or some kind of glue just the same.

I had only about 5/8" wide frames, But I would go as much as a 1" wide area to bond to if you are building a larger size.

The tension can get quite high so be sure that your frames are of adequate strength!!

Monokote may not be exactly cheap but you will have an ample amount for many many tries of a small sized panel.

The stuff is very very durable, just in case if you have never worked with it before.

The regular stuff is quite thick at about 1.25mil or so after it has been heat treated.
But will still work just fine up into the higher end of the midrange if not more.

I have some even thinner stuff that I used and it was called UltraKote (I think).
It had a thickness of about .6mil to .75mil after it had been heat shrunk.

I liked this material a lot as it seem to be a bit softer and spongier than regular MonoKote.

For experimentation this stuff works great!!!

Especially if you are not concerned with super fine detail and a response up to and above 20khz.
But getting to 10Khz or 15Khz won't be any problem with it either.

I once did a test to see how well the adhesive worked and I heat shrunk the diaphragm to a point that it snapped the plexiglass frames that I used to mount it to!!!

Parchment Paper my give you troubles with noise and I think you will be hard pressed to get enough tension on it before it will snap and tear!!
Even if you did get it properly tensioned I don't think that it will last very long and the stuff will eventually stretch or tear as well.

I have thought about using some shrink wrap material but again it may just wear out and loose its tension.
They kind that is used to wrap pallets and food trays in the supermarket, I have a roll of it to try but I haven't used it yet.

I just stick with the Mylar that I have for now.

This is the reason that Mylar is the best choice, and for many years.
I use it for my ESL's and I have never had any crinkly sounds from it.

The only reason I can figure that one would get such results is maybe a lack of enough tension or maybe it wasn't really Mylar that was used but sold as Mylar.

There are different types too, you want the stuff that has been tensilized (pre stretched).
If it is not you will have a difficult time getting it to hold its tension until it finally stops stretching.
I have had this happen on occasion.

FWIW

jer :)
 
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Fellas, remember, this budget experiment is for guitar, not Hi-Fi, so there is plenty of leeway in tolerances of all parameters.
What is another readily available (preferably reuse) material for a membrane besides Mylar?

Many of my early ESL panels were made with 1mil heat shrink window film made by FrostKing.
It is cheap and readily available from most any big-box hardware store.
$5 gets you 3 sheets (42" x 62") and plenty of double sided tape.

I don't have data on the long tern tension stability, but for quick/cheap experiments it worked great.
 

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