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Bill F.

Bill F.

Member
2001-11-15 5:25 pm
SW MI
  • #1
    I've been coming here (mostly lurking) long enough, I guess I should step out from the shadows.

    Let's start with what I'm not:

    I'm not an engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, or any other priestly order of scientist. In my base ignorance and apathy, I am unconcerned with the subtleties resistors or power cords. Though I admire and derive inspiration from many, I do not practice veneration of any one brand, topology, or way of combing hair. I may begin doing that someday, but not yet. Oh, yeah, I'm not rich, either, though I'd like to be.

    There's probably other things I am not or don't care for, but I can't think of them now.

    What I am:

    I am an engineer who, in my freshman year, ran *kablam!* right into the brick wall of calculus and decided to get my English degree instead. Today, I am a writer and magazine editor. In my free time, I fanticise about being an engineer.

    Actually, I would describe myself as an intuitive engineer, that is, without a lick of formal training, but I think I can get my mind around stuff anyway.

    I admire simplicity and the spirituality of pure function. I am facinated by the impossible challenge of bottleing a slice of musical time and space and then uncorking it at will. Being destitute, I DIY everything I listen to.

    I am enthralled by the wealth of knowlege on this forum, and I toast the internet for bringing it to me. I ask alot of questions because I'm excited to learn from y'all.

    Since I am neither very knowledgeable nor details oriented, I tend to use the ideas I glean on this forum as jumping-off points, usually to extremes. For example, my current to-do list includes building a low-power amp that can comfortably drive 1/4-1/2 ohm. No real reason, just cuz. And I'd also like to see if I can build a full-range transducer with a 1Kohm voice coil for an OTL amp.

    Yes, I am into transducer design, the undiscovered country of DIY audio. I mean, good grief folks, the transducer is the most important (and usually the weakest) part of the mystical musical reproduction chain. Are you gonna choke on a gnat of resistor capacitance while you swallow a camel of poorly designed transducer?

    C'mon everybody! let's roll our own transducers!

    Hello? Silence.

    Bill
     
    D

    Digi

    Member
    2002-02-02 5:37 pm
    USA
  • #2
    Bill,

    Nice to see that you decided to spread your wings.

    Rolling tansducers sounds like fun. Do you cast your own frames? What about the spider and surround?

    Maybe to pique my interests, as well as others, you should post a newbie transducer thread wtih some links and design notes. I have read about DIY ribbons and stats. Resources for DIY electrodynamic drivers seems pretty scarce. Suggestions?

    When I discovered this forum I was a amazed at the civility and knowledge contained within. I try to refrain from asking questions, and do the research on my own. It's difficult to get application knowledge from a book though.

    Kind Regards,

    Digi
     
    Bill F.

    Bill F.

    Member
    2001-11-15 5:25 pm
    SW MI
  • #3
    Hello Digi,

    Pretty scarce? I'd say DIY dynamic drivers are virtually nonexistant. Which is baffling to me, seeing the extent to which ambitious DIYers will go to tweek every other little this-n-that. Going over everything else with a microscope of skepticism, they seem to skip right over the point where the rubber meets the road.

    The dirty little secret is that driver distortion doesn't effect T/S parameters and rarely plays a real role in marketing. Manufacturers are mostly on their honor to design a magnetic circuit for true linearity over a broad dynamic range. When doing so requires additional production steps, tighter tolerences, and higher materials cost, guess what corners get cut.

    However, we Audio fiends have all the time in the world to obsess over every detail and the ambition to get it right!

    I guess one of the troubles is that drive units aren't made to be pulled apart and put back together easily. Doing it well requires ingenuity and craftsmanship, but It's not out of reach for most. You can start by cannibalizing production drivers for parts like spiders, VCs, cones, and frames. From there, the sky's the limit.

    I've only been designing off and on for a few months, but I've got a couple ideas I think are pretty good. The first (and my favorite) is under wraps for now until I can get a prototype together, and maybe some patent applications. If you want to sign a nondisclosure agreement, I'd consider emailing it to you directly. I'd love to spread it around and get a bunch of feedback, but that would undermine my ability to patent.

    But I'm happy to share just about everything else. I drew up something last weekend, but I don't have a website to host the images. Can someone out there help? Also, I mentioned another idea I have here http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2984

    Bill
     
    D

    dice45

    Member
    2002-01-19 10:21 pm
    Munich, Bavaria
  • #5
    Bill,

    welcome on board. I like your unbiased, open-minded attitude. :)
    I'm not an engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, or any other priestly order of scientist. In my base ignorance and apathy, ... I am an engineer who, in my freshman year, ran *kablam!* right into the brick wall of calculus and decided to get my English degree instead. Today, I am a writer and magazine editor. In my free time, I fanticise about being an engineer.

    Actually, I would describe myself as an intuitive engineer, that is, without a lick of formal training, but I think I can get my mind around stuff anyway.
    Click to expand...

    the last i sense with you would be apathy :)

    me too crashed into engineering calculus when trying to study electrical engineering in 1983. Hardly having survived maths at higher school, i was confronted with spacial, closed triple-fold integrals as daily bread. I fled. Later i became brewer and tried to become brewery engineer and failed. At this moment, i decided i would be REALLY interested in in real engineering, signal engineering (Feinwerktechnik) in this case as i wanted to have the tool set to built decent tonearms and turntables. This time they failed to frighten me away, i was too interested in the matter, i even tackled the math with ease.

    This may happen to you too, later in your life, you may slowly have become dissatisfied with what you are doing and decide you now want this formal knowledge and this degree to be able to work in this profession. Don't be surprised then, you have been warned. :)

    I admire simplicity and the spirituality of pure function. I am facinated by the impossible challenge of bottleing a slice of musical time and space and then uncorking it at will. Being destitute, I DIY everything I listen to.
    Click to expand...
    So do i. In any respect.
    One exception: there are some, but not all, phono cartridges i use without modding or re-building.
    I will not lay any hands on a well-working Ortofon Rohmann or Koetsu.

    I like tackling topology improvements, not tweaking around with components :)
    To your transducer:
    Followed your thread, found nothing to contribute, stayed mute so far.

    There is an elder guy in France who, filled with experineces as a designer of professional drivers, decided to get on his own feet and manufacture a 1st class fullrange driver, 8"cone, small whizzer cone, field coil motor. His driver looks way more like a conventional FR driver than your driver does, but its sonics are so stunning that i am not complaining about its conventional look and feel. I know what i am talking about, i own a pair.
    The guy calls himself Michel Fertin and the driver i am talking about is the FLB20EX.

    The driver is built in a very modular way; the basket is a lathed ring with spokes of bent sheetmetal glued to the ring. The basket's spokes are screwed with allen screwsto the pole piece. Outer suspension (positive half roll, solid rubber) is glued to the basket ring, centering suspension is a circular leaf spring with a very high Q, not airtight at all, hence unusable for backloaded horns. I will use them in an open baffle.

    After i listened to similar drivers with FC, AlNiCo, ferrite magnet, my sonic preferences are in that very order. Would i be into DIY drivers, i would go for field coil or atleast slaughter an old AlNiCo driver (OTOH, after i listened for a while to an Altec 414-8C just sitting on my floor, i simpy could not slaughter it, no way. I would have to find a damaged pair). No ferrite. Wasted time.

    After i listened to speaker in open baffle vs. enclosured speaker, my preference again is clear in favour to open baffle.
    I do not intend to waste any further second to a speaker enclosure.

    Bill, please search the web for field coil drivers, there was a guy around DIY-designeing his own huge FC woofer; he used a basket of plywood, his own homebrew cone and a self-built FC motor. Unfortunately he seems to have lost or redirected enthusiasm; his project somehow vanished in the DIY speaker realm, but traces of it still may be on the web.

    Patenting:
    Don't be a fool, don't get bankrupt on it.
    To effectively protect an idea, you have to do a very thorough patenting of all possible variants in order not to leave any back orifices open. And you cannot combine too many vaiants in one patent, you will pay a lot of patent fees. Adviseable if you are a company and want to protect yourself from a competitor patenting your ideas away in front of you. Very experienced design engineer speaking here, should you ever consider to make money of your ideas, simply be quicker than your competitors.
    You will have so many intuitively gained secrets than even if you answer frankly to all asked questions and do not hold back any secrets consciously, the other person will skip to ask what is completely obvious, evident to you, so evident that you do not think of mentioning it. And he will fail in copying your work.

    And while he is figuring out how to do it (and how to outdo it, possibly not foreseeing major flaws of this mod, you did not recommend it, you did not mention it, you already know this is a dead end :) )
    your thinking progresses further, improvements happen but are not on the web tomorrow, he will never have a chance to catch up with you (provided you are on the bounce).

    And another protection mechanism: human pride, male pride, inventor's pride, not-invented-here syndrome. The other guy will never admit to you and to himself you could have had the better idea. He will know how to do it better, to outwit you (see paragraph above, already pointing to this). In a hard case, he will be so damned proud of the ******** his brain is farting out that he will never copy another moron's ideas (intentionally using disrespectful language here, painting moods, attitudes :) )

    So why patenting?
    Bill, i am not going to talk you into sharing your ideas with us more than you want, but i tell what i do: i keep nothing secret, even if i intend to put an idea to market. I do believe in what i said above, i do believe into free flow of knowledge and a common knowledge pool, i do not intend to pay license fees for wheel, wedge, fire. I am aware that all my "new" ideas consist of >90% already-exisiting knowledge, SOTA so-to-speak. I want to make my spirtual childs, my ideas, available to others and feel fine, not guilty or depted, in accepting and using ideas from others (and honouring the idea and the originator). I feel as the cup an idea is filling and not at the idea's owner. Ideas do not tend to fill proud cups, they prefer the modest ones.

    Try it out, ask me, you won't get the feeling i am holding back something.

    Another thing (me writing this only to complete the topic), a person not honouring my contribution will not even get informed about the inner diameter of a standard washer next time. And will find himself accused publicly of stealing ideas next occasion i can do it graciously and with ease and no effort and maximum effect. Misuse of the common-pool-of-knowledge concept as any spiritual parasitism IMO should earn being tarred and feathered and chased thru the streets.
     
    D

    dice45

    Member
    2002-01-19 10:21 pm
    Munich, Bavaria
  • #9
    Bill,
    I've noticed you make a point to welcome the new arrivals in the forum, and I think well of you for it!
    Click to expand...
    Thank you :) .... hmmh, not always making a point of welcoming, but always a point of observing who is coming :) ... and what about all the other newcomers i did not welcome ...

    Thanx for posting the link, after having had a virus infection last Xmas and having changed to Linux due of that, i lost many linx and other valuable info.

    BTW, i myself wish to listen to the Fertins, still drowing in getting together what i consider a basic workshop. I expect 1st own Fertin expriences within2 or 3 weeks.
    The Fertin is not that easy to mount, needs a stand for the motor (and a decent baffle). Basket would break very soon otherwise. Needs some carpentering around.
     
    H

    HarryHaller

    Banned
    2002-02-01 5:07 pm
    Dallas,Texas
  • #10
    Hi There

    My name is Jocko and I build audio equipment....
     

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