Bass Shelter, subwoofers and two cats

Rather than feeling dejected and negative, why not post results of your "first task" in the real development work?
Something came up. Fried food can be bad for wellbeing!

Has been a bit difficult since the weekend

Dont open the attached if squeamish
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It's been difficult to do much other than what can be done with a hand on the mouse

I prefer to keep it all together in one thread so l I am requesting to the admin team to move Bass Shelter to the Everything Else category

Updates
It really is impossible to physically work with much at the moment, but the inactivity is already driving me insane, so I have been able to ignore the pain with will power, dub and stuff and pick up some very loose fitting linen slacks from Kmart (don't ask which department 😀) to keep dust off the dressings and I feel I can silent scream my way through some project progress in a day or so more. I really don't want to fall behind, as pretty much all the items from my BOM for the various subprojects are here now and taking up a lot of space in a very small villa. I really need to start the fit out and get some living space back

First dilemma - test leads and hook up wire
I have all my test and monitoring gear here now, but I am missing something important and haven't been able to figure this out yet. The problem is temp hooking up things for testing reasons and such. I picked up a pack of alligator leads from Jaycar, but these feel pathetic. I don't know it these will make for good tests. Prolly not enough capacity for the currents involved in the project too

In my parts bins, I do have some good tinned wire in all sorts of sizes and configs

What would be some good hookup terminations? I can see some attraction in grub screw backed alligators in a few different sizes but would solder joints be better?

A lot of the gear has cable I/O with plug terminations with the phase wires for the BLDCs as an example. Is there an easier way then fitting a corresponding connector to the 3 phase rectifier just to see how much DC they can gen?

The racer sub has spade lugs. I don't want to solder to this yet. Need recommendations for very good female spade connectors to keep in various sizes for messing with such drivers. The ones available in the local shops are again either very low quality or I just don't know what to look for in good ones

Any recommendations for probe upgrades for my economy true RMS multimeter, clamp meter and DATSv3?

I was moving my workshop area to where the Heaving Bed is installed together with the Roland studio gear into a new desk when I had the accident. I had finished the base for this desk using a 3x3 cube storage module, but need to cut a three tiered top for it. The top tier is to be narrow for the main monitor screen and nearfield desktop speakers. The middle tier is for the digital mixers and FL Studio controller, the Akai Fire. The lowest tier will be the working desktop and slide out. The whole thing will be on castors and live in a corner. This is to contain all the fishing gear in a triangular storage unit behind it away from the kids and open active circuit boards and such on top of that storage unit

To keep the price down, I had picked up some melamine seconds from Bunnings for $2 a piece. Will be covering these with cork to form the tops after cutting out. The slacks should keep the dust off the burn dressings. Fabric brushing on the bandages is excruciating! Hence, the extra soft slacks 😀

The Heaving Bed can fall into this thread too, it has been great as the recovery bed. The armrests have been awesome for keeping the legs elevated and contact free. I do have to sit up to type but extended time in sitting position swells up my legs like an inflatable toy! Working on this project at any level is helping keep sanity

I want to post a vid of the racer sub working, so will try to get the new webcam installed and set up a temporary temp work surface if I can manage to drag an old cabinet into position with the gyals help
 
I picked up a pack of alligator leads from Jaycar, but these feel pathetic. I don't know it these will make for good tests. Prolly not enough capacity for the currents involved in the project too
Alligator clip leads often don't have enough closing force to cut through the oxidation layer on tinned wire to make a low resistance connection, even if the wire is up to the ampacity required.
In my parts bins, I do have some good tinned wire in all sorts of sizes and configs

What would be some good hookup terminations? I can see some attraction in grub screw backed alligators in a few different sizes but would solder joints be better?
For short term testing, Wago or screw terminal block connectors can be convenient and have enough "bite" to cut resistance.
Solder, properly done, can eliminate oxidation of the connection, but it's migration can make screw connections on tinned leads unreliable over time.
Reliable electrical connections near sea water require considerably more expensive solutions than fresh water.
You might spend some of your down time figuring how to reduce as many points of failure as possible.
A lot of the gear has cable I/O with plug terminations with the phase wires for the BLDCs as an example. Is there an easier way then fitting a corresponding connector to the 3 phase rectifier just to see how much DC they can gen?
I can't think of anything easier than fitting corresponding connectors.

Best of luck with the (slow) burn recovery!
 
The burns came while still not being fully healed from the accident of the previous year. Been taking it easy, following the recommendations of keeping infection at bay or risk losing a leg. Fortunately I do heal well and have new skin over all the burns and again looks like new skin instead of scar tissue. The new skin is still very fragile and still quite painful. But enough for me to carry forward somewhat

My projects are more about bass then subs and maybe should be moved to everything else category as I have a lot of electronic stuff coming up and that really would be off-topic here

Racer Subwoofer Driver
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This is the racer driver. It is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for a branded boombox that touts a solid performance down to 40hz. It is a bit smaller than the SBA racer PR. The VC area looks unusual to me. It has a long stroke and is fairly supple compared to other subs that I have here with such excursion. No specs are given with the driver. It has very useful proportions and I hope this one performs well

The name brand boombox is a known item on our beach and is actually not unwelcome there. Enough to be heard well without being overbearing and sounds clean with the usual top 40 stuff that folks often play. Such levels of performance would be ideal for the E-trike

It is 130mm wide on the narrow side and has the potential to form the lower unit in a 2-way with a FR driver in a slim but bassy cab

Let's try to figure out how to get the best from it. I was going to run it in already, but when I went to try, I decided not too until the set of spades and alligators arrived. Didn't like the idea of shoddy connections affecting results. Now we get to properly check it before and after breaking in to learn most about it

Ok guys, this is the first of many that I have stockpiled to be put through the paces. Also, first time doing this for me too. Please assist with recommendations of first steps with it. There is an NIB Datsv3 in that stockpile too and now quite a bit of other test and support gear
 
How to keep everything in topic? The number of subprojects is fairly high and some like the racer sub are better worked on separately or already have an existing thread, such as my Volcano subwoofer work

Let's try a thread that contains all the off-topic non audio stuff, starting with the active subproject, the e-trike and a dedicated thread fully exploring this racer sub as a candidate to install on the e-trike and revive the cub sandwich cab if the driver turns out to be promising
 
Thank you FreeCAD. Version 1.0 came out quietly and looks like they are finally trying for a comprehensive package. Hopefully this will mean good things for the projects. Creating moving parts should be easier now
Release notes

I didn't update the thread, but I have parked the adult size e-trike project, as the beach would be the only place that I could use it. Since the kids size chassis is already done, that will get finished off. Instead, in my downtime, I am messing with the marine go-kart. Making 3D models of its systems and bringing together the drivetrain will be match practice for the larger work projects. The go-kart is toy level but will still try for a decent powertrain. Regardless, the craft is more about trying out different systems and will mostly be a test mule

The Racer 8 sub will be fitted to the kid's e-trike, and I am still open to the subs for the go-kart. This one will need to be very compact and light. The Racer 8 might serve here too
 
Usually, car audio bassheads will deem anything that isn't built for high output as "SQ" without actually knowing what a true SQ subwoofer is.
Our scene must have been very different from yours. SQ means sound quality here. To me, it means beautifully rendered bass notes. The driver is in line to be used to develop a very small box, bit pointless to judge it without any listens and same goes for the one that you made. Open-minded and supportive can bring up many together 😉
 
SQ means the same thing everywhere
Usually, car audio bassheads will deem anything that isn't built for high output as "SQ" without actually knowing what a true SQ subwoofer is

So not the same thing everywhere as you imply that in your usual circumstances, car audio bass heads deem anything not HO as SQ. Our magazines feature many builds detailing very high SQ when featuring comp wining and enthusiast cars

I still fail to see your point. Honestly, until I run it through its paces myself, I must regard any speculation such as yours as irrelevance causing muddle causing irrelevance!!! This one has a good chance of wiping the floors with anything other drivers touting a clean and loud performance out of a small box
 
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