need help building a wildlife caller

[roonie]

my friend has a $1000 wildife caller (wildlife technologies brand) which i cannot afford so i am going to attempt to build one. I found out the tweeter on his $1k caller is nothing more than a st200 selenium super tweeter along with what looks like a regular 4 or 5 inch speaker. I have gone ahead and ordered the selenium super tweeter. i have a radio shack power horn that i was hoping would work in conjunction with the super tweeter above. The RS power horn is 8 ohms 25w rms 50w max.

here are the specs on the selenium st200 super tweeter
Specifications: • Power handling: 70 watts RMS/140 watts program (above 5,000 Hz) • Dispersion: 40° H x 40° V • VCdia: 1.75" • Impedance: 8 ohms • Frequency response: 2,000-20,000 Hz • SPL: 105 dB 1W/1m • Magnet weight: 7.72 oz. • Dimensions: 4.88" H x 4.53" W x 2.4" D. • Baffle cutout diameter (front mount): 4" • Weight: 1.65 lbs.

I bought two used car amps ...none of which worked so i am needing someone to advise me on a good quality lower watt car amp(100 amp) unless someone has a better idea for major sound. It would be great if this caller of mine would be used remote but i can live without remote too. Hoping to fit all of this in a smaller insulated cooler. Hoping to either use this unit along with an ipod player or i also have an old walkman cd player. Dont have an iphone. I will need advice on power supply as well. i do have a 12v alarm type battery but need advice on how long this battery will last. As you can tell., im on here because i need help...lol I have hooked up a few car systems back in the day...now im old...lol. Any help would be great. im in Canada thanks

 

[Gnobuddy]

...a good quality lower watt car amp(100 amp) unless someone has a better idea...

A thought: your tweeter is capable of an ear-shattering 105 dB SPL with just one watt of power driving it; just 15 watts of power will raise that to 117 dB, which is so loud that hearing damage occurs virtually instantaneously. Do you really need 100 watts? 😱

Given that you have 12 volts available to power the amp, the solution I'd suggest is to use one of the many cheap modern class-D power amplifier boards available on Amazon or Ebay. They can put out roughly 6 watts RMS into an 8 ohm speaker, which is enough to produce 113 dB from your tweeter. That is dangerously loud, do not point it at yourself, otherwise it will damage your hearing.

Here is one example of a suitable class-D board: https://www.amazon.ca/TPA3116D2-Cov...&s=gateway&sprefix=class+D+boa,aps,219&sr=8-3

(Please ignore the claimed "2x50W" output power. What you'll actually get with a 12V battery powering the board is about 6 watts RMS into an 8 ohm speaker.)

This is a stereo board, which might come in handy if you want to wire your tweeter to one channel and your woofer to the other, making a bi-amplified system. (If you need a crossover to keep the tweeter safe, this is the way to go: it's very much easier to make a crossover for a bi-amplified system.)

I do have a 12v alarm type battery but need advice on how long this battery will last.

Look for any lettering or identification number / model number on the battery. To answer your question, we need to know the capacity (in ampere-hours or Ah) of the battery. This may be written on the battery itself, or if not, once you have the make, model, and number, a Google search will probably find it.

By the way: if you find you're not happy with 6 watts output power, you can put two 12 volt batteries in series to get 24 volts. The amplifier board I suggested is rated for 24V according to the Amazon ad. You should get about 30 watts output power in this case. Obviously, the amp won't run as long on a single battery charge, since you now have five times as much output power, but only two times as much battery charge.

I hope that helped!


-Gnobuddy

 

[roonie]

great info Gnobuddy. I wish i knew as much as you. My battery is 12v 4Ahr. I need to be able to plug in an ipod to hold and play the animal sounds. is this board you advised capable of plugging in either an ipod or older sony walkman cd player? On my walkman, would i just use the headphone jack into the amp? I know...im really not that swift with this stuff. How long would this battery i have last if i make a stand of one hr. of calling sounds both morning and again in the evening? thanks

 

[Gnobuddy]

...battery is 12v 4Ahr...

Okay! That means the battery stores (12V x 4 A) of energy, or 48 watt-hours. You can use about half of that each time you discharge it - more than that, and the battery won't live as long. So you can use up to roughly 24 watt-hours of energy.

What that means, more or less, is that if your bird-caller used, say, 8 watts average, it will be able to run for roughly three hours on a charge.

I don't know much about bird-calls, but it seems to me that there is a lot of silence between the notes birds sing. That probably means the average power drawn by the amplifier will be much, much smaller than the maximum power it's putting out. In other words, I suspect (but this is only a guess) that you'll find that amp will run for maybe six or eight or ten hours on a full charge.

...is this board you advised capable of plugging in either an ipod or older sony walkman cd player?

Yes. According to the ad copy, it has a 1/8" stereo input jack. Your iPod or Walkman will have a similar 1/8" stereo output jack. All you need to connect the two is a 1/8" male to 1/8" male stereo cable. Such as this one: https://www.amazon.ca/AmazonBasics-3-5mm-Stereo-Audio-Cable/dp/B00NO73MUQ/ref=sr_1_9?

You will also need to connect the battery, and the speakers. As you can see in the pictures on the Amazon web page, the board has screw terminals for these connections. No soldering needed at the amplifier. But you might need to solder the speaker wires onto the speakers.

On my walkman, would i just use the headphone jack into the amp?

Yes! Via the 1/8" male to 1/8" male stereo cable we just talked about.

Have you thought about the crossover network you need for the tweeter? The specification sheet on the Parts Express website says you need a second-order, 12 dB/octave high pass filter to block low frequencies from the tweeter. Without this, the tweeter will be damaged.

Is there anyone near you who knows some electronics, and might be able to help you with this project?


-Gnobuddy

 

[roonie]

Thanks for the quick reply. I really need to get going on this. No...there is no person i know that can help me
I am very good with my hands...pretty much fix anything. Im just not good with elec. but learning...lol
I could probably do the tweeter filter myself if someone told me what goes where. Im pretty good with soldering plumbing pipes. I have a good understanding of how solder works as i have my welding ticket and a welder but due to health, i dont weld as employment.
ok...i will go ahead and order this very soon. I was thinking of installing the two speakers into a smaller cooler.....i just wonder about vibration? Is there a better project box than a cooler?
Can i get this tweeter filter somewhere in Canada? I will check youtube to see if there is an instruc. vid. on how to do this. Thanks again so much for your help thus far. Greatly appreciated

 

[roonie]

......to add to the above....after learning about crossover filters, i see they can be expensive. Do i really need a crossover if im using a Radio Shack power horn with the tweeter. It seems a crossover filter is used when a woofer is employed. Would the RS power horn be considered a woofer? Could i just omit the RS horn and just use the super tweeter by itself?

 

[benb]

......to add to the above....after learning about crossover filters, i see they can be expensive. Do i really need a crossover if im using a Radio Shack power horn with the tweeter. It seems a crossover filter is used when a woofer is employed. Would the RS power horn be considered a woofer? Could i just omit the RS horn and just use the super tweeter by itself?

What is the range of frequencies of your bird calls? I see in your original post the tweeter's lower end response is to 2kHz. If that's the lower end of your bird call, that's all you need, though it would be good to have a (properly chosen) capacitor between the amp and speaker, which would protect against any DC offset as well as any unintended lower frequencies there might be.

 

[Gnobuddy]

Could i just omit the RS horn and just use the super tweeter by itself?

I was about to suggest you try the opposite - just the RS horn.

It's the tweeter that's vulnerable without a crossover - it can be damaged if frequencies below 2 kHz are fed to it. But Benb is absolutely right, if the wildlife sounds you're going to be playing only contain frequencies above 2 kHz, you can probably get away without one.

A single capacitor in series with the tweeter is a halfway-in-between solution. Not as good as a proper network, better than nothing at all. You'd want about a 4.7 uF capacitor, a bipolar one that can handle AC voltage.


-Gnobuddy

 

[wg_ski]

The super tweeter is really only good above 5 kHz. It will play down to 2, but even a couple of watts down there will cause overexcusrion which will fracture the lead-in wires. IOW, it will work for a while and die. What you want for lower frequencies is a phenolic diaphragm mid range horn with a 2 inch voice coil. A 1” exit screw on unit is fine and lower-tier brands are cheap. They will play down to 800 Hz safely. Cross the super tweeter at 5k, 2nd (or 3rd) order, and that’s about where the mid range units naturallly drop off. The RS horn may be similar, but with a 1” VC, and less power handling. Even 25 watts is optimistic.

 

[roonie]

you see in this website, Wildlife Technologies Products | Wildlife Caller ,that they use the selenium st200 super tweeter. and the bottom speaker at least looks like my Radio Shack power horn...lol. This is why i ordered the super tweeter. All this stuff you guys talk is greek to me...im more confused than before....hehe. Back when i was young i dont recall any of this with our car audio systems...lol
Im going to just order this mini amp that Gnobody suggested and throw it together. Whatever happens happens i guess. Not really interested in spending any more $ on this.

 

[benb]

All this stuff you guys talk is greek to me...im more confused than before....hehe. Back when i was young i dont recall any of this with our car audio systems...lol

About all I remember from car audio was the "Jensen triaxial" that of course, like all car audio speakers at the time, had the crossover (probably what little there was to it) built in.

 

[roonie]

i will try talking my friend into popping the back off of his wildlife caller that has the selenium speaker and another speaker mounted below the selenium, just to see what protection it has....keep ya posted

 

[Gnobuddy]

i will try talking my friend into popping the back off of his wildlife caller that has the selenium speaker and another speaker mounted below the selenium, just to see what protection it has....keep ya posted

Keeping it simple, just use a single capacitor like this one: https://www.amazon.ca/Dovewill-Speaker-Crossover-Capacitor-Frequency/dp/B0785NXZ4H/ref=sr_1_11?

The capacitor goes in series with the tweeter. That means:

1) Wire one tweeter terminal to the amp.

2) Wire the second tweeter terminal to one of these capacitors.

3) Wire the free end of the capacitor to the other terminal of the amp. Done.

There are better ways to do this job, but they are more complicated, so I suggest this method.


-Gnobuddy

 

[Gnobuddy]

I just spotted this on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Lepy-LP-V9S-s...WFAW82SYK70&psc=1&refRID=CMSYRD4YAWFAW82SYK70

The good: it includes an MP3 player (pop your wildlife calls on a USB thumb drive or SD card), it resumes playback when powered back on, and it has an endless repeat mode. You don't even have to hook up your iPod, just wire up your two speakers, pop in your wildlife recording, and you're done.

The neutral: It comes with a remote, but it probably won't work outdoors in sunlight. It's designed for indoor use, like a TV remote.

The bad: you can power it with one 12V battery, but NOT with two 12V batteries in series; it's only rated up to 14 volts DC, which means ONE "12V" lead-acid battery.

You'll still need the capacitor in between the tweeter and amp, by the way.


-Gnobuddy

 

[roonie]

nice...thank you...i was looking at those but with my limited knowledge i wasnt 100 percent sure.
lets say i have 5 DIFFERENT sounds i want to play....would there be a way to choose those sounds or would it be one sound im stuck with?

this is one guys review...so should i worry about enough volume? ......15 watts per channel is not an whole lot of power. It is sufficient to drive most sub-$100 speakers, but if you have a larger room or more sensitive speakers it may not get loud enough in your application. As I said before, it will still be a noticeable improvement over almost any flat panel's built-in speaker, but there are certainly more powerful amps on the market. You will, of course, pay for the added powe

 

[Gnobuddy]

lets say i have 5 DIFFERENT sounds i want to play....would there be a way to choose those sounds or would it be one sound im stuck with?

There's not much information in the ad, but it seems to be a standard MP3 player, which plays (in sequence) all the tracks on the USB thumb-drive or SD card.

I don't know exactly what you need, or exactly how that player behaves, but there are always work-arounds: if you put five MP3 tracks on the thumb-drive, each track a recording of one of your five sounds, then the player should play all five in sequence. (Of course you can also put 50 tracks on there, ten copies of each of your five sounds, in whatever order you want them to be played.)

I can't find out what the repeat button on the Lepy amp does, but most likely it repeats the entire contents of the thumb-drive. If so, pushing it should then endlessly play all five of your sounds, in sequence, over and over.

It is possible that the repeat button actually repeats one single track over and over - I don't know, and so far, I can't find that information via Google.

The other work-around (if you want one call repeating all day long, but a different call on a different day) is to have five cheap small thumb-drives, each containing one MP3 of one of your five sounds. Plug in the one you want, press repeat, and you'll get that one sound over and over.

There is a remote control, which may have additional functions, but probably won't work outdoors in sunlight...

...should i worry about enough volume? 15 watts per channel is not an whole lot of power.

You will not get 15 watts of power. Using an 8 ohm speaker, you will only get about 6 watts of power (as I mentioned in post #2).

Unfortunately, the advertised power on all these small class D boards and amplifiers is invariably utter nonsense. Just ignore it.

Will six watts through your very sensitive (very loud) speakers be loud enough? I have no idea how loud a wildlife caller should be. But you are using a horn speaker: for the same power, it will be *much* louder than a home Hi-Fi speaker. Your tweeter is also very efficient, 105 dB for a single watt of power, which means it will put out 113 dB with 6 watts of input power.

113 dB is intolerably loud for normal listening to music, so loud that it damages your hearing quickly. But outdoors, sound dies away rapidly with distance. So, once again, I have no idea if it will be loud enough for you.

One thing you can do: find out what sort of battery your friend's wildlife caller uses. If it's also a single 12 volt battery, there is a very good chance the super-expensive caller also only has six watts of power going to each speaker.

If six watts is not enough for you, you have to go back to plan A, which I outlined in post #2. You have to buy a second 12V battery, and wire them in series for 24 volts. You cannot use the little Lepy amp (it will fry if you apply more than 12 volts), so you have to buy the amp board I suggested in post #2 instead, and the 1/8" stereo male-to-male cable I recommended. You will get about 30 watts of power delivered to your 8 ohm speaker(s).

This is a another possible amp board - the ad says it will tolerate two 12V batteries in series, and it includes the same MP3 playing abilities (USB thumb-drive or SD card): https://www.amazon.ca/Class-D-Ampli...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=D37N636P5TCEGY6WTQ66

So the question is, do you want the additional cost, bulk, and weight of the second 12 V battery, and the headache of having to charge both of them up?

(I do suggest you check your friends wildlife caller to see what battery is in it. If only 12 V, then that caller is almost certainly also putting out only 6 watts, though the advertising copy probably says 500 watts or some other nonsense.)


-Gnobuddy

 

[roonie]

im pretty sure my friends wildlife caller uses 8 or 10 AA batteries. I know for a fact that they are AA.
You know what would be nice, is to have the ipod up in the tree...a cord down to the speakers and amp so that i can control it that way. I really dont want to be deafened via the speakers and its always better to have the animal NOT focus on the person up in the tree but rather on the sound so as to distract the animal until the gigs up. When the gigs up..so is the animal. I will check with my friend tonight as he has already committed to opening the back of the unit for me. I will try getting a pic.

can i plug a ipod into the second amp you found?

i thought one day i seen a booster for remote?

What my friend did say is that he wishes he could install his own animal sounds on his caller as he is tied to using the sounds on the card that came with the unit. You see an elk in AZ sounds somewhat different than an elk in Canada. his wildlife caller cannot do sounds that we wish it could. I think there are only two elk calls on the caller. Ive heard elk in the wild do at least 20 different sounds and probably more like 30...and then there is the cow elk. Thanks for you help thus far ..greatly appreciated

 

[Gnobuddy]

im pretty sure my friends wildlife caller uses 8 or 10 AA batteries.

Okay! Eight AA batteries equals 12 volts (8 x 1.5 volts). Ten AA batteries equals 15 volts (10 x 1.5V).

If it is 8 batteries (12 volts), his caller puts out about 6 watts RMS. If it is ten (15 volts), then about 10 watts RMS.

...ipod up in the tree...a cord down to the speakers and amp so that i can control it that way...

That should work. The trick will be finding a long enough 1/8" male to 1/8" male stereo cable. You can make your own, but 1/8" plug contact are tiny, soldering them is very delicate work, and it is easy to end up with shorted contacts inside the plug. So I wouldn't recommend DIY unless there is no alternative.

can i plug a ipod into the second amp you found?

Yes, see attached image taken from the Amazon ad (I assume you are referring to the "Lepy LP-V9S").

But the point of that particular amp was that it can play MP3 files. You don't need that ability if you're going to use your iPod, so, your choice, you can get a slightly cheaper Lepy LP-2020A instead: Lepy LP-2020A Hi-Fi Stereo Power Amplifier: Amazon.ca: Electronics

i thought one day i seen a booster for remote?

The remote that comes with the Lepy amp uses infrared light to communicate with the amplifier. This is a good thing indoors - the light is blocked by the walls of your house, so you don't accidentally turn on your neighbours TV every time you turn on your Lepy amplifier!

But outdoors, there is a lot of infrared light from the sun, and I think this will wash out the faint infrared light from the remote. I don't think it will work, booster or not. (But I can't swear to it, as I don't own this amp and haven't tried using its remote outdoors.)

...he is tied to using the sounds on the card that came with the unit.

Has he ever put that card in his computer and looked to see what sort of files contain the sound? If they are standard WAV or MP3 audio files, I'll bet you an elk-burger he can put new sound files on the card (or better, a different card so he doesn't risk any damage to the original one.)

...an elk in AZ sounds somewhat different than an elk in Canada.

Of course, the Candian elk says "eh", eh? 😀

Funny thing, I've encountered elk in California - but not yet in Canada, because I live in the concrete jungle here. On a trip up to the Bay Area of California many years ago, an elk popped its head up from behind a bush quite close to me at the Point Reyes National Seashore area there, apparently as surprised to see me as I was surprised to see it.

-Gnobuddy

 

[roonie]

ok..im pulling the trigger on the lepy.
what i mean by elk sounding different is that in summer the bull elk all hang out in a bachelor group...then when they loose their velvet off their antlers, their sex hormones change and once that happens, they head to the bar to pick up chicks...all that buddy buddy bachelor group is now kick *** time...once male buddies, now they hate each other and will even fight to the death. I honestly believe they know their buddies calls and voices so for me as a bow hunter, i need to know these different sounds and play them. I think once i get an elk in closer than , lets say, 100 yds. i will be using my manual handheld cow sounds to get him that extra few yards for bow range. If the bull stays interested in the sounds he soon forgets about that blob he seen up in the tree. The whole idea of being above is both for scent control and ungulates seldom look up unless they are educated from an area where many hunters hunt. So far, where i live in Saskatchewan , Canada, we havnt reached that point of over hunting like say Michigan...when it gets like that ...i will walk and live on the dreams of yesterday. I would never hunt with a rifle...the way i hunt elk , it wouldnt be a challenge at all. As much as i love the meat, i love the animal equally. It hurts me to kill one but lets face it, the meat is way leaner and no hormones or antibiotics etc. just clean clean clean.....see, we are both learning now...well maybe you knew this from some tv documentary. If you send me via PM, your email address i will forward a pic of his 1K wildlife caller as he will be popping the back off tonight and sending me pics. Im anxious to see if there are filters etc. for speakers

 

[Gnobuddy]

...I honestly believe they know their buddies calls and voices...

I know nothing about elk, but I believe it's quite possible. Even my mom's chickens when I was a boy had a language with many different "words" in it; for instance, there was one alarm call which I only ever heard them use when a hawk flew overhead, so it meant "danger from the air", and all the chicks would scramble to hide under something.

A different call meant "I found some food, come and get it". Mother hens would use this on their chicks, who would immediately rush to her and look for the food. To my surprise, the rooster would use this same call now and then, and adult hens would rush over to eat the food he'd found for them. Romance and chivalry from a rooster, who knew!

The alarm call for a predator on the ground (dog, cat) was quite different from the alarm call for a predator in the air, and produced a different response: instead of hiding under something, the chickens would look around for the predator, then run or fly away from it.

Of course everybody knows the special call that means "I just laid an egg!" And another one I remember was a sort of soft repeated single chirp that was only used by a mother hen with chicks - it seemed to be a signal to say "here I am, stick with me, follow me". The chicks would cluster around her and walk around with her as long as she kept making that particular call.

I could tell my mom's handful of hens apart by voice, too, so they could probably recognize each others voices as well. Certainly the chicks knew who mommy was, and never clustered around any other hen.

So if even chickens (everybody thinks they're particularly stupid birds) have a language, why not elk?

...ungulates seldom look up unless they are educated...

We had two dogs when I was a boy. The male was athletic and handsome, but dumb as a post. The female was not as athletic or good-looking, but she was much smarter.

I used to climb trees for fun as a boy (a lost concept now, when four-year-olds poke at their iPads and iPhones all day), and I tried calling one or both dogs while up in a tree. The female ran up to a spot below me, looked all around for me, then looked straight up at me and wagged her tail.

When I tried the same experiment on the male, he ran over to a spot below me, looked all around, and wagged his tail confusedly, but didn't think to look up. This went on for a little while, until the female showed up and looked up at me. Then, the male followed her gaze and wagged his tail.

...i will walk and live on the dreams of yesterday...

A whole lot of what we knew is already nothing more than dreams. I remember grasshoppers shooting out of the grass at my feet every time I walked outdoors - no longer. (98% of known insect species have disappeared over the last 35 years in the protected Costa Rican forest; how bad is it in unprotected areas?)

It's the same story with a lot of other wildlife. When I was a boy, there were always toads hiding under rocks in the garden, garden lizards hiding under the vines on the wall or sunning themselves on rocks and walls and tree-trunks, squirrels in every tree, birds calling everywhere, butterflies and dragonflies flitting about every spring and summer. Now there are no toads, no lizards, no butterflies, no dragonflies, a few birds, and very rarely, a squirrel.

The official statistic is that 60% of monitored Canadian wildlife species have disappeared over the last 50 years. That's bad enough. But reality is worse - what of all the thousands and thousands of unmonitored species?


-Gnobuddy