Fan Subwoofer

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Hara said:
Hmm isn't the derivative of a sine function a cosine function?


Yep, derivative of cos(x) is -sin(x). If you graph them together and look think of them as input signal and blade pitch you can see what I'm getting at. OTOH, nobody seems to have mentioned this before, so I may be totally off my rocker.

So I'm expecting a phase shift with the fan sub when compared to its pistonic counter part.

I don't think it would be a phase shift. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it, but it's kind of an inversion of what a speaker usually does. Your voltage/current source description may be apt.
 
Also, I finally took the time to read completely through this thread and the one over on AVSForum where Bruce posts and I didn't have any great insights. Bruce posted some interesting comments, but nothing earthshattering from a construction perspective. I'll quote the comment I thought was the most interesting, but if you haven't already read it the thread has a few good parts:

brucet[/]A rotary woofers output sums and behaves much like a cone woofer. Adding
a second unit increases output by 6dB. Another interesting aspect is
horsepower. The current model is 1/3 horsepower. We have proved that upping
the power 10 times to 3 horsepower increases the output by 10dB. This
behavior is similar to a conventional loudspeaker. For the rotary woofer, given
enough horsepower, the acoustic output limit is very high but is difficult to
realize without sacrificing signal to noise ratio. In other words as you rotate the
blades faster, the maximum SPL limit goes up, but the generated noise also
goes up.
In terms of "slippage", it is the cone that slips at lower frequencies where the
cone velocity is very low relative to the velocity of sound. Pressure does not
want to build up in front of the cone, it simply slips aside.
We find very little compression in operation until the blades stall, at that point
the output dies quickly which is a ugly form of distortion. In an installation you
run the blades as slow as possible for the best signal to noise ratio with an
acceptable maximum SPL without stalling. The maximum is usually between
115 and 122dB between 1-20 Hz in most rooms. The 19 inch rotor is spinning
between 680 and 750 rpm. We try to pitch the blades to about plus or minus 45
degrees at the maximum.
Depending on blade geometry and blade chord relative to the pitch axis we
can expand or compress the audio signal. There are many nonlinearities, in the
speed range we run pressure is roughly proportional to the square of rpm so
the output goes up quickly is the rotational speed increases. Note that the
torque load also goes up and you run out of horsepower before the blades stall.
You are correct that a round opening would be best into a room, it is just not
practical to construct a round manifold in most installations. We want the
manifold to have the smallest pressure drop yet absorb the high frequency
random noise which is a product of the rotation of the blades
 
Just a quick update. I was curious about the idea of using computer hard disk internals as an option for control of blade pitch. I took apart an old drive (80Mb Western Digital) stripped out the platters and left the spindle stepper and the voice coil head mechanism.

To get an idea of how quickly it can move I feed it a 60Hz sine signal with 12v peaks. With this input signal the heads move a distance of about a quarter inch, or around 8 degrees of a circle. Unloaded it consumes around 200mA. I haven't measured the static force it generates, but it is considerable (attempting to hold it still by hand is mostly futile).

I didn't have time to set up a signal generator to try other frequencies or to hook it to an audio amp, but I'll give that a try later. I'd also like to measure the impedance to see how it looks for connecting them directly to an audio amp.

I think that this idea has some merit, the voice coil assemblies are small and strong, easily available, and could be affixed directly to the blade axles, avoiding any mechanical linkages. They could either be provided with a centering mechanism (spring) to work like a speaker, or they could be servo controlled by a microcontroller (possibly useful if mis-matched assemblies are to be used).

It might also be possible to increase the magnetic flux across the voice coil by stacking additional magnets into the gap, thereby increasing the available torque .

The primary drawback is the rotational distance that the motor assembly provides, which isn't very large, nowhere near the 90 degrees used by Bruce. Possibly multiple ways to address that.
 
I'm coming back

My access to a machine shop last year didn't work out, so I've been putting off the project. But I'm getting back into it. Here's a teaser pic for ya'll.

100_6738.jpg


I will post more hopefully tomorrow.
 
"heard it Post #28

P.S. - What did they play that you heard this thing with? I'm still baffled (pun intended) about recorded information at those frequencies - it must be artificially created and digitally pumped into the CD/DVD etc. - there's no music I know of at those levels, and what recording devices would capture it even if it were there naturally?

If you have a free air speaker under light power with a guitar and you wiggle the string, even on a cheap instrument it will pick up the lowest you can wiggle the string, as demonstrated by the driver movement, and why wouldn't it?

Also, the infrasound may add an extra airiness and almost a wave of sorts for the rest of the information to be carried on, which already happens to a degree. With the nature of "real" infrasound, however, I do not believe any sound technology piece has ever really created it, becuase it would travel for blocks if not miles and make some people sick, quesy, etc, and I just don't see that happening. Niagara's Fury at Niagara Falls has six (6) rotary woofers installed as part of a 4 dimensional show that even includes water being sprayed on you. I've never been to it.
 
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If you have a free air speaker under light power with a guitar and you wiggle the string, even on a cheap instrument it will pick up the lowest you can wiggle the string, as demonstrated by the driver movement, and why wouldn't it?

Also, the infrasound may add an extra airiness and almost a wave of sorts for the rest of the information to be carried on, which already happens to a degree. With the nature of "real" infrasound, however, I do not believe any sound technology piece has ever really created it, becuase it would travel for blocks if not miles and make some people sick, quesy, etc, and I just don't see that happening. Niagara's Fury at Niagara Falls has six (6) rotary woofers installed as part of a 4 dimensional show that even includes water being sprayed on you. I've never been to it.

Speakers or strings wiggling does not mean they are producing sound at an audible level.

That said, bumping a condenser microphone can put out significant VLF output, it annoys me that many news programs don’t bother to HP voice microphones, I hear (and see on an RTA) recorded unintended bumps and air handling noises down at 20 Hz and below all too frequently.

Low frequency sound does have the ability to diffract around fairly large objects, so it will travel further than high frequency sound of the same SPL level.

That said, it still falls at 6 dB per doubling of distance.

If your VLF output (say at 10 Hz) was 100 dB at 10 meters from the source, that level would be only 76 dB at 160 meters, 6240 feet, a bit over a mile away.

Put that source in a closed building, and the level may be 20 or more dB lower.

Tom Danley has made blower (fan) driven devices with lots of low frequency output down to 3 Hz.

Here is some information in his own write, circa 1998:

“In my work developing transducers at Intersonics Inc, I have built
devices and systems to produce high sound levels at both ends of the
spectrum. One sonic boom simulator supplied to BBN could produce 163 dB
at 5 HZ (in a concrete bunker) and could remove windows and doors from
there frames and fixtures.

Another sonic boom simulator (3 way system called "speakers from hell"
on "beyond 2000" TV show) had the displacement of an 8 foot by 12 foot piston
moving 18" peak to peak, the system could produce >132dB on the outside wall
of an old house from 3HZ to 5KHZ.

This is about 2 lb pressure acoustic pressure per sq ft and with a sine
wave at 3 HZ, made the middle of the wall move 8-10 inches in and out
and "house parts" frequently would fall off (I thought we broke the
house at one point when there was a loud crash from the crawl space so
we stopped "teasing" the house with the oscillator).

In testing, I intentionally experienced many slow TEF sweeps from 28
down to 3 HZ at full intensity (cause I'm a bass sicko) with never the
need to change underwear. Certainly there was a strong feeling of relief
when it stopped but it had no other Ill effect. BTW at 3 HZ the
threshold of audibility is about 125 dB so at 132 dB 3 HZ IS audible! I
felt fairly safe exposing myself to this as I had found a very good book
on the subject called "Infrasound and Low Frequency Vibration" edited by
W. Tempest, published by Academic press.

Regards,
Thomas Danley”

If you are interested in available technology that can produce serious VLF output at an affordable cost, check out Josh Ricci’s Gjallerhorn.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/189784-gjallerhorn.html

Post #52 has charts, #53 plans, #61 Josh offers more detail to those interested.

Art Welter
 
with a sine
wave at 3 HZ, made the middle of the wall move 8-10 inches in and out
and "house parts" frequently would fall off (I thought we broke the
house at one point when there was a loud crash from the crawl space so
we stopped "teasing" the house with the oscillator).
down to 3 HZ at full intensity (cause I'm a bass sicko) with never the
need to change underwear. Certainly there was a strong feeling of relief
when it stopped..

LOL! Man, I'd love to build something capable of doing this. Imagine how easily it would reproduce "sane" levels if it's capable of detaching your wall studs from the foundation.
 
That's OK Bart we know there might be a slight exaggeration in there somewhere but what the hey, makes a for a good campfire story. 😉
That "story" has no exaggeration, and there were college students paid to live in the hell house to study the effects the noise had.

Tom has also made an acoustical levitator, which I find even more interesting than simply deflecting walls.
 
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