These sell cheap with tight tolerance: Dayton Precision 1% Metallized Polypropylene Capacitors at Parts Express
I once bought a number of Jantzen caps--blue ones--an they were all w/i 3%. I may have just gotten lucky b/c I don't believe they were rated that well.
Dan
I once bought a number of Jantzen caps--blue ones--an they were all w/i 3%. I may have just gotten lucky b/c I don't believe they were rated that well.
Dan
I wouldn't be overy concerned about the 96uF parallel cap bundle on the woofer. Suggest you consider an 80 uF NPE paralleled with a 16 uF Solen MPP film cap - both available at PE.
What I am worried about is buying a bunch of expensive caps to find out that I bought the wrong ones because the existing ones measure out higher than rated.
Maybe the way to handle this is buy caps replacing the rating printed on the existing caps, and adding smaller caps later if necessary.
Dan
Since the original cap bundle has drifted, you don't know exactly what total uF value Snell was shooting for when they assembled it with those NPE"s haveing plus/minus 10% tol. on each anyway. So why fret over tolerance. Believe me, that paralle'd cap bundle on the woofer isn't critical to its operation.
Thanks SpeakerDoc. Not worried about the woofer bundle. Fretting about the tweeter!
I'll just buy the rated values and go from there.
I'll mount outboard anyway, so modification will not be hard at all.
Dan
Almost the same applies to the tweeter bundles because you can't measure the outcome and you don't know what the reference they used sounded like or measured like.
There's another thread here by a guy who wanted help with voicing his speakers and he doesn't have measuring equip. either. A difficult problem indeed.
You can get into a cheap measuring rig for under $200 or find a friend in NY with the capabilities already. That would be a massive help.
Dan
Dan
DantheMan, I do think you are right. That is where I'm going. Find a new fried or set up some gear!
Dan
This project is almost finished. I have speakers with crossovers! All that is left is to enclose the crossovers that are now external to the speakers.
Here are some pictures documenting what I did and found.
First picture is of the crossover removed from one speaker. The plate was used to mount the fuses, tweeter level variable resistor and a 3 way switch for midrange level.
Here's the outside of the plate. Even though the poles allow bi-wiring, the grounds are wired together.
Lots of wire cutting was up next. Considering the electrical tape and the wire nut, I wonder if I was the first in here? Also the woofers were both wired out of phase with the tweeters!!!!! I wired it correctly, but must admit, I bi-wire and wired the woofer out of phase for now.
Looking at the woofers, I would see that the cones were separating from the frame. The ring that glues them down was missing?
So I made some more, using my jigsaw and fiberboard. What a (necessary) pain in the ***! Gluing of about everything was done with Elmer Ultimate Glue. (I love this stuff.)
The back of the woofers had the nastiest stickiest toughest black stuff in the world stuck to them. It was necessary to take this off.
As you can see, the woofer holes had black foam strips inserted. Seems this was here to raise the woofer to be flush with the baffle. It was a mess. I can't believe this was the way Peter sent them out. I removed it all and raised the cutout with some fiberboard. Glued it in. And sealed the woofer (as well as the tweeter and the speaker post mounting board) with caulking cord. It's kind of like clay and very much like was used for the tweeter and board.
Here is the woofer hole with the fiberboard glued in. I hate to say, a Sharpie supplied the "black."
I am a freak when it comes to cables. Used multiple strands of 24awg teflon insulated silver coated copper throughout. Big pain in the butt. Stripall is a necessity if you are this anal retentive.
More craziness with wires.
My not so elegant handwriting.
And on to the crossovers!
For the tweeter side, I used Sonicaps. Woofers used Solens. Replicated the values everywhere except on the tweeter side, where the 2mfd in series with the 8 and those in parallel with an 8 was replaced with a 5.6mfd in parallel with a 4mfd. I retained all the original small bypass caps and bypassed further (using the 1% rule). Here's an in-progress picture. And you can see the Stripall's and the glue.
Here's one crossover completed, without an enclosing box (to come later).
And tossed into my 2A3 set up in the library to see if it worked. (It did!)
Picture of the crossover behind a speaker for now.
And the front shot.
I managed to give a bit of a listen and they sound great! (But they did before the tweeter fuse broke too!)
Seriously, I was always concerned with the clarity of the tweeters. The new crossovers removed a bit of "congestion." But time will tell as the caps break in.
The woofers were just starting to flap around before. Now with the repairs, solid tight deep bass!
Happy i am.
I'll check back later after some serious breaking in.
Dan
Here are some pictures documenting what I did and found.
First picture is of the crossover removed from one speaker. The plate was used to mount the fuses, tweeter level variable resistor and a 3 way switch for midrange level.
Here's the outside of the plate. Even though the poles allow bi-wiring, the grounds are wired together.
Lots of wire cutting was up next. Considering the electrical tape and the wire nut, I wonder if I was the first in here? Also the woofers were both wired out of phase with the tweeters!!!!! I wired it correctly, but must admit, I bi-wire and wired the woofer out of phase for now.
Looking at the woofers, I would see that the cones were separating from the frame. The ring that glues them down was missing?
So I made some more, using my jigsaw and fiberboard. What a (necessary) pain in the ***! Gluing of about everything was done with Elmer Ultimate Glue. (I love this stuff.)
The back of the woofers had the nastiest stickiest toughest black stuff in the world stuck to them. It was necessary to take this off.
As you can see, the woofer holes had black foam strips inserted. Seems this was here to raise the woofer to be flush with the baffle. It was a mess. I can't believe this was the way Peter sent them out. I removed it all and raised the cutout with some fiberboard. Glued it in. And sealed the woofer (as well as the tweeter and the speaker post mounting board) with caulking cord. It's kind of like clay and very much like was used for the tweeter and board.
Here is the woofer hole with the fiberboard glued in. I hate to say, a Sharpie supplied the "black."
I am a freak when it comes to cables. Used multiple strands of 24awg teflon insulated silver coated copper throughout. Big pain in the butt. Stripall is a necessity if you are this anal retentive.
More craziness with wires.
My not so elegant handwriting.
And on to the crossovers!
For the tweeter side, I used Sonicaps. Woofers used Solens. Replicated the values everywhere except on the tweeter side, where the 2mfd in series with the 8 and those in parallel with an 8 was replaced with a 5.6mfd in parallel with a 4mfd. I retained all the original small bypass caps and bypassed further (using the 1% rule). Here's an in-progress picture. And you can see the Stripall's and the glue.
Here's one crossover completed, without an enclosing box (to come later).
And tossed into my 2A3 set up in the library to see if it worked. (It did!)
Picture of the crossover behind a speaker for now.
And the front shot.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I managed to give a bit of a listen and they sound great! (But they did before the tweeter fuse broke too!)
Seriously, I was always concerned with the clarity of the tweeters. The new crossovers removed a bit of "congestion." But time will tell as the caps break in.
The woofers were just starting to flap around before. Now with the repairs, solid tight deep bass!
Happy i am.
I'll check back later after some serious breaking in.
Dan
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nada. In great shape. The surrounds are not foam. Some ruberised something. The cones are fine too
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