Good evening, I wanted to share my journey in refoaming two speakers my dear father gifted me many, many years ago.
I don't know much about the quality of them, and honestly I don't care, they have an emotional value to me so I just didn't want to toss them away or replace them when I could have just tried to change the foam myself.
All the information relative to this are well written and illustrated on my blog https://www.mimifactory.com/, otherwise this post would've become too long.
The speakers were in really bad shape. In 15+ years the foam completely degrated and turned into dust..
I got some replacement rings of the right size, cleaned the metal frame and the cone really well with isopropyl alcohol and removed the cover of the voice coil with a heat gun (making the glue soft)
As you can see I put some paper in the gap between the voice coil and the magnet, so the cone was centered and not scraping against the metal after gluing. It would've made a terrible sound and damaged the speakers.
As for the glue, I used some water soluble glue. In case I need to refoam them in the future... If I used epoxy or superglue that would have been a nightmare
After gluing the central part of the ring, I waited until it was dry, then glued the external part of the ring, the black gasket and applied pressure on it until everything was solid
..and don' forget to remove the paper and glue the voice coil cover back.
Overall it was quite tedious and time consuming, but I successfully refoamed both speakers and they sound good with no weird noises or scratching.
I don't know much about the quality of them, and honestly I don't care, they have an emotional value to me so I just didn't want to toss them away or replace them when I could have just tried to change the foam myself.
All the information relative to this are well written and illustrated on my blog https://www.mimifactory.com/, otherwise this post would've become too long.
The speakers were in really bad shape. In 15+ years the foam completely degrated and turned into dust..
I got some replacement rings of the right size, cleaned the metal frame and the cone really well with isopropyl alcohol and removed the cover of the voice coil with a heat gun (making the glue soft)
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As you can see I put some paper in the gap between the voice coil and the magnet, so the cone was centered and not scraping against the metal after gluing. It would've made a terrible sound and damaged the speakers.
As for the glue, I used some water soluble glue. In case I need to refoam them in the future... If I used epoxy or superglue that would have been a nightmare
After gluing the central part of the ring, I waited until it was dry, then glued the external part of the ring, the black gasket and applied pressure on it until everything was solid
..and don' forget to remove the paper and glue the voice coil cover back.
Overall it was quite tedious and time consuming, but I successfully refoamed both speakers and they sound good with no weird noises or scratching.
Hello! It is my firs attempt too. I bought another 4 inch full range speakers from China but I think old ones sounded better so I decided to foam them. I could find polyurethane edges instead of original rubber ones in my country. There is residuals in the back of the cone and I should clean them but it seems residual rubber is a bit strong. So should I use alcohol or acethone and box cutter knife? I don't want to damage the cone.
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Hi Umut... is there residue on the back of the cone because the surround was stuck on the back of the cone rather than in front? If so, in my experience it's very difficult to remove without damaging the cone.
I repaired a pair of Denon woofers (nothing special) that had the same (left over surround rubber on the back) and I ended up attaching the surround to the front of the cone. They work really well. The suspension (spider) was strong enough so the surround didn't bias the cone even when attached to the other side of the cone.
I repaired a pair of Denon woofers (nothing special) that had the same (left over surround rubber on the back) and I ended up attaching the surround to the front of the cone. They work really well. The suspension (spider) was strong enough so the surround didn't bias the cone even when attached to the other side of the cone.