Well, planars are tricky things, thats fore sure
Why not try a "rubanoide" instead
Im sure you are the man to do it
Why not try a "rubanoide" instead
Im sure you are the man to do it
Ok, here is my latest attempt. The panel resonated a lot so I added a strip of felt between the magnets and panel. Seemed to help. This one sounds hollow as compared to the last one.. On a good note it is 3Ohm, so that is a step in the right direction.
Suggestion
Less width
Place your magnets closer together, about 5/16" apart
With small bits of something to keep them from clashing
Cover the entire diaphragm with foil leads, and estimated 1/16" between the leads
btw, apart from other things, one advantage of this kind of diy planar is making them big to obtain the higher impedance
But cost becomes significant
there is a thread somewhere from me as well of making these kind of magnepan planars, using the magnets magnepan uses. verry cheap rubber magnet they use. i tried to make a push pull conviguration. but never had great succes. the problem is you need enough drive force for the whole mebrane. i used aluminum foil (tape) les foil on the mebrane it sounded hollow. so had to increace the width of my foil but then drops impedance. what worked best whas magnets half of the size and strength but then more thin aluminum coil . so the drive force is less because of the weaker magnets but more uniform over the membrane. and push pull ofcourse. this whas the best sounding option. this also explains why magnepan uses smaller magnets in width for there treble section so they had more turns on smaller amount of mebrane. also the magnets are a little bit closer to the mebrane because there thicker. this makes up for the smaller magnets they used.
i dont feel like cutting my 60 meters of magnet into half by hand 🙁 cant cut it concistand enough so its still sitting here waiting for a solution.
by the way, place all magnets on a metal perforrated plate like this N-S-N-S-N-S let the coil run in between and ur done as i explained the more coil versus membrane is the best. Doing this gives the best sound. so thin smal magnets with as many strength as you can get would be superb. make another plate exactle the same but magetns in opposite directions so S-N-S-N etc and you have a nice push pull system better then the version magnepan uses but also more expensive.
i dont feel like cutting my 60 meters of magnet into half by hand 🙁 cant cut it concistand enough so its still sitting here waiting for a solution.
by the way, place all magnets on a metal perforrated plate like this N-S-N-S-N-S let the coil run in between and ur done as i explained the more coil versus membrane is the best. Doing this gives the best sound. so thin smal magnets with as many strength as you can get would be superb. make another plate exactle the same but magetns in opposite directions so S-N-S-N etc and you have a nice push pull system better then the version magnepan uses but also more expensive.
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Well I came in and listened with fresh ears today.. Yup... this is crap. Very hollow sounding and the membrane buzzed a lot. So I tore it apart, quickly made a ribbon speaker just for fun, it was crap too.
Wrinex, What you are saying makes sense and parallels my observations. I was hoping to get away with a "small" planar speaker, but it doesn't seem like that is possible. The best sounding speaker I made was in post 33. Unfortunately it was only 1ohm. Maybe the best option is to just build it 4 times as large?
Of course as both of you noted, that means more expense and I have to weigh the options. Up till now I have only about $40 invested in this project. To go to the size that appears to be needed would require an additional $80-90 and at that price there are other projects I would also like to pursue. I'll probably build one more set using the stuff I already have and let it go at that for now. Thanks guys for all your input!
Wrinex, What you are saying makes sense and parallels my observations. I was hoping to get away with a "small" planar speaker, but it doesn't seem like that is possible. The best sounding speaker I made was in post 33. Unfortunately it was only 1ohm. Maybe the best option is to just build it 4 times as large?
Of course as both of you noted, that means more expense and I have to weigh the options. Up till now I have only about $40 invested in this project. To go to the size that appears to be needed would require an additional $80-90 and at that price there are other projects I would also like to pursue. I'll probably build one more set using the stuff I already have and let it go at that for now. Thanks guys for all your input!
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well first i thought i saw some wrinkles in ur design . be sure to stretch the membrane nice and clean no wrinkles. if you use it as a tweeter you can stretch it quite high because if crossed correct you wont hit the resonance frequency.
whas worked for me is using aluminum tape to make the coil. use to blades (stanley) or razorblades, with a coin in between to cut long and really narrow strokes of tape. you first layout the magnets N-S-N-S-N etc put them as close together as possible like few mm put something in between to let them not collide but not over the whole lenghth because then they cant produce sound. i see you got really lumby block magnets to get a uniforme drive you need much smaller magnets in width because now you are limited to 4 aluminum strokes that makes the coil, for a pretty big membrane. try to find smaller ones so you can use more coil versus mebrane. when i used my rubber magnets cut in half about 3 mm in width and in push pull, i got a planer that sounded nice started at 400hz till 20K and up. my problem whas that the cutting of the magnets sucked, and some resonaces of the tape on the membrane that stopped me from using it. still have to try to etch a membrane like the mylar with damped alu on it. althoug they might be to high resistance. should try it one. maybe bigger strokes will do the trick because it weights nothing. i will lookup my post for you, it has lots of pictures as well.
damn i just noticed all my pics are gone but , still there is some info
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/145184-poor-mans-magneplanar-tweeters.html
and by the way you got me going, im might gone restart my own project again to look what we can make, i can finally measure some stuff.
whas worked for me is using aluminum tape to make the coil. use to blades (stanley) or razorblades, with a coin in between to cut long and really narrow strokes of tape. you first layout the magnets N-S-N-S-N etc put them as close together as possible like few mm put something in between to let them not collide but not over the whole lenghth because then they cant produce sound. i see you got really lumby block magnets to get a uniforme drive you need much smaller magnets in width because now you are limited to 4 aluminum strokes that makes the coil, for a pretty big membrane. try to find smaller ones so you can use more coil versus mebrane. when i used my rubber magnets cut in half about 3 mm in width and in push pull, i got a planer that sounded nice started at 400hz till 20K and up. my problem whas that the cutting of the magnets sucked, and some resonaces of the tape on the membrane that stopped me from using it. still have to try to etch a membrane like the mylar with damped alu on it. althoug they might be to high resistance. should try it one. maybe bigger strokes will do the trick because it weights nothing. i will lookup my post for you, it has lots of pictures as well.
damn i just noticed all my pics are gone but , still there is some info
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/145184-poor-mans-magneplanar-tweeters.html
and by the way you got me going, im might gone restart my own project again to look what we can make, i can finally measure some stuff.
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