Hello everyone
Has been a long time since I have posted here, but been super busy away from here working and improving on what I can do from a driver design perspective. Today I want to share with you all Tenacious 7 as it is getting closer to completion.
Tenacious 7 is a 50.2cm2 full range driver, placing it at the same size as the Mark Audio Alpair/Pluvia 7 series, along with stuff like the Visaton FR 10. I still have work to do, especially on the high frequency response, but lets start with the T&S Data:
This is specifically Tenacious 7 PW and running my strongest motor design that it supports. Tenacious 7 CF is slightly heavier and so is likely low 85/ high 84dB region. Testing was done in my own TL design which was originally for the Mark Audio Alpair 7.2 some 10 years ago. This was used simply because I still use them and it isn't far of the suited design for these or the Pluvia 7.
Next is a look at the upper frequency response of Tenacious 7 CF against Pluvia 7 Gen 1. Results where indoors gated to 3ms @ 1M distance, but I am in a overcrowded housing situation so some noise is possibly present:
White is Tenacious 7 CF
Red/Pink is Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1
You can see mine is a big rough and the top end rolls off to quickly. I have some ideas on fixing this, so this is where most of the final work will be focused on.
Finally is some data done at various volume levels but not calibrated, so is simply -20dB and -10dB. I can confirm that -10dB was pushing the excursion limits to around the 4mm Xmax of the Mark Audio drivers. My own Tenacious 7 CF is +/- 2.7mm to 82% BL, and +/- 3.5mm to 70% BL, so not quite as far. These measurements where taken nearfield.
^^^ Tenacious 7 CF @ -20dB
^^^ Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1 @ -20dB
^^^ Tenacious 7 CF @ -10dB
^^^ Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1
I could be wrong, but I can't seem to find any other 3D printed speaker drivers which are this close at competing with off the shelf drivers?
For clarity, the speaker cone, surround, spider, chassis and front fascia are all 3D printed components and designed by myself. The magnet motor is also my own design, not borrowing from any other design. In fact, the motor is removeable and can be reused for other designs and driver sizes.
Any questions / critiques etc, please fire away. I have been working on this 6 years now and I am doing what I can to improve my work
Thanks for checking out this long post!
Paul - Polymate3D
Has been a long time since I have posted here, but been super busy away from here working and improving on what I can do from a driver design perspective. Today I want to share with you all Tenacious 7 as it is getting closer to completion.
Tenacious 7 is a 50.2cm2 full range driver, placing it at the same size as the Mark Audio Alpair/Pluvia 7 series, along with stuff like the Visaton FR 10. I still have work to do, especially on the high frequency response, but lets start with the T&S Data:
This is specifically Tenacious 7 PW and running my strongest motor design that it supports. Tenacious 7 CF is slightly heavier and so is likely low 85/ high 84dB region. Testing was done in my own TL design which was originally for the Mark Audio Alpair 7.2 some 10 years ago. This was used simply because I still use them and it isn't far of the suited design for these or the Pluvia 7.
Next is a look at the upper frequency response of Tenacious 7 CF against Pluvia 7 Gen 1. Results where indoors gated to 3ms @ 1M distance, but I am in a overcrowded housing situation so some noise is possibly present:
White is Tenacious 7 CF
Red/Pink is Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1
You can see mine is a big rough and the top end rolls off to quickly. I have some ideas on fixing this, so this is where most of the final work will be focused on.
Finally is some data done at various volume levels but not calibrated, so is simply -20dB and -10dB. I can confirm that -10dB was pushing the excursion limits to around the 4mm Xmax of the Mark Audio drivers. My own Tenacious 7 CF is +/- 2.7mm to 82% BL, and +/- 3.5mm to 70% BL, so not quite as far. These measurements where taken nearfield.
^^^ Tenacious 7 CF @ -20dB
^^^ Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1 @ -20dB
^^^ Tenacious 7 CF @ -10dB
^^^ Mark Audio Pluvia 7 Gen 1
I could be wrong, but I can't seem to find any other 3D printed speaker drivers which are this close at competing with off the shelf drivers?
For clarity, the speaker cone, surround, spider, chassis and front fascia are all 3D printed components and designed by myself. The magnet motor is also my own design, not borrowing from any other design. In fact, the motor is removeable and can be reused for other designs and driver sizes.
Any questions / critiques etc, please fire away. I have been working on this 6 years now and I am doing what I can to improve my work
Thanks for checking out this long post!
Paul - Polymate3D
We’ll done. What a long road but, your almost done.👍👏. So from a personal perspective . It’s a dream to design and build your owe stuff. Then to see it work not only on paper but, In real life is a great achievement. Tweaking and adjusting and Remeasuring over and over for coutlntless hours and months to years. I know your on the right track. I just met another diyer on this forum who just printed his first diy horn. You can build and design anything with a 3d printer. Now about your drivers? So noticed your driver has no dust cap? Do you plan to use one? or are you going to print a phase plug? I would buy a paper dust cap and glue it on and see if this helps your high roll off problem? Also what are the drivers printed from? plastic?In the pictures it looks like paper? A diyer who did a dust cap Comparison test noticed that the paper dust cap Produce a crisper higher Frequency dispersion in the upper regions. I encourage you to keep going. I hope this helps. Jeff
Hey Jeff
Thanks for the kind words. It is my dream to be able to be a driver designer and possibly sell on my own drivers in kit form! It has been a long journey for sure. My measurements has a basic straight circular plug for this test. I plan to stick to a plug and have many designs to try so I can see the effects.
As for a dust cap, I have done this in the past and found little difference, but this was early on. The design could support one, so I may add this in for capturing data against the phase plugs. More data can't be worse in this case.
Yes the drivers are printed from plastic. In the case of Tenacious 7 CF, the cone and former is a PETG with small carbon fibres for stiffness. The surround and spider are made with a foamed TPU as this reduces shore hardness down to around 65<70A. The foamed nature also helps reduce weight. The chassis is made of a standard PETG currently. I may look at variances with different materials for the chassis, but so far had no issues with just standard PETG.
- Paul
No problem. Sounds like your on the right track. You know you’re design and the ins and outs? That would be awesome to have a kit forum sold with your drivers. To be honest sign me up. Am game. Just let me know and I send the money. I would Rather support a diyer then a big company. Hay I forgot to ask? have you tried different wire types for your voice coil Windings. Silver cable from Supra might be the ticket or maybe you have already gone down this road? Keep us posted. Good luck. Jeff
I have learnt as I have gone along, reading what bits I can and focusing on key areas at different stages. The most recent being the motor side of things. I do kits for magnets but I haven't released the latest one for hifi side as I am still experimenting with it.
My wiring would probably kill most people. There currently a underhung design and have a indent which is only 50% filled. This allows for unclean winding but makes it easy for people to do by hand. My magnetic gap width is also abnormally wide at 2.5mm to allow for this, along with tolerance of printed components and threaded design for the magnet motor to screw in with. Silver would be better from a conduction side but I imagine the cost would be a lot higher? Maybe something to consider if I got the driver in a super good place!
Next stages are lowering inductance to help improve the top end. Also possibly adjusting the cone profile to attempt to calm the 2 spikes going on in the high frequencies. All small tweaks now though which is nice.
Paul