Laminate or ferrite core for bass driver ?

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B

buganna

Member
Joined 2009
#1
Greetings....

I need a 5mh inductor for the woofer Xover

Ferrite or steel laminate ?

Which is best ? I was thinking laminated ....but ;

An online search shows ONLY TWO U.K. suppliers of laminated cores ?

Only 2 ? In the whole of U.K ?

And one of these, only sold < 2mh

Does anyone know where to purchase laminate steel inductors?
 
#4
Guess you found Willy’s and Hificollective...
I’d check the brands Mundorf, Jantzen and Intertechnik or even Bennic (what else...). Most of them have reps or do offer delivery by mail. The laminated steel I-cores seem the most value for money to me.
 
#5
Parts express = USA
mundorf = Germany

I am in the United Kingdom

I found IPL acoustics and blue arian* ( * don't sell >2mh )

Willy's ...thanks will take a look now

Hi fi collective likewise

So there are only THREE UK suppliers ?

Not even RS component or CPC farnell sell them.....

What is going on?!
 
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#6
Update: hifi collective - only supply upon request ( they order in from mundorf Germany .18 days delivery )

So that's now only TWO UK suppliers of 5mh l-steel inductor s!

2 !! FFS ... That's crazy

And both these suppliers are tiny private 'firms'
 
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#9
You could try a polite email to IPL and ask him about the value you require. In the past he has wound me four larger inductors. They were using steel core laminations and it was less than 18 days to make and deliver. I though his costs were reasonable as well.

I guess what you have discovered that there is not enough demand here in the UK for the small quantities needed by the speaker building community. Even Hifi collective cannot afford to have stocks of large inductors costing forty pounds or more.

Definitely worth a look are Soundimports in Holland, TLHP and Audiophonics in France. Its a good job we managed a Brexit deal isn't it.
I have known soundimports deliver within three days if the order goes in at the beginning of a normal working week, thats quicker than most other UK speaker supply companies.
SoundImports: DIY audio components and accessories - SoundImports
Audiophonics - Hi-Fi Audio, Electronic and DIY Products - Audiophonics
Bobines et selfs pour les filtres passifs d'enceintes
 
#14
Chiming in to suggest about the same.
Maybe you could consider going the DIY route?

I prefer E (transformer type) laminated cores (stack of E shaped silicon steel, typically 0.35mm or 0.5mm punched metal thickness), if anything because I wind transformers and have various sizes around, but you might recycle 2 small "junk parts bin" ones.

Search for YT videos but basic procedure is to heat steel cores with a torch (or kitchen flame) to soften inevitable varnish holding them together, hammer them a little to loose laminations and pull them one by one.

Afterwards you use just the Es, all stacked the same way.

There are online calculators for such coils, or you may simply wind 100 turns and measure Inductance or Impedance at , say, 400Hz or 1kHz.

You can calculate needed turns from those measured values.
 
#16
All the inductors in your inductance range at Falcon are Ferrite core, which means powdered (solid) core.

There are air cores too, I just wouldn't use those for bass drivers. Hificollective has a range of Jantzen C-cores, suitable for your application. You can check erseaudio for steel laminate inductors, they seem to have a geo-relevant site.

IQ Steel Core Coils | ERSE
 
#20
+1 for Falcon acoustics, they're a great bunch of chaps. make sure you have a good LCR meter and order higher than you need so you can unwind to a matched pair.

Avoid hifi collective like the plague. Nothing ever in stock but they won't tell you that until after you order, in a nonchalant 'well what did you expect' kind of way. Ordered two pairs of mundorf supreme caps and a few inductors from them and was phoning them for months. Utter waste of time.
 
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