anyone into DIY speaker driver building

a weird question?

I'm getting fancy on doing some DIY speaker driver. any pointer would be nice. AKFAIK, we can import speaker magnets, frames, cones etc from our neighbouring country!

any wild thoughts welcome

getting ready drivers itself i found very diffcult in this country/from this country. Now BUILDING DRIVERS??? thats a long shot. dont get me wrong.i just think its a lot of effort matching up all of them unless you know what you are doing. Magnets, coils and then cones.These are probably the most important. If you are thinking about a few pairs, its going to be really hard. But if it has to lead to commercial manufacturing, then there are a lot of manufacturers willing to send you free samples of their products (esp. china). But you need to present yourself as a serious and legitimate buyer.

Nevertheless, this idea is definitely worth it if you enjoy it. love to see ppl trying hardcore DIY!!

cheers.

k

Hi Sunil,

Well I don't know whether Am late to reply or what !

but the idea of making one's own driver is very facinating and interesting ! but its not as simple as it looks becuase of the following reasons ( you can also take some points as starters for your Driver)

1) This is the basic most important factor to start the project, whats the use of the driver ? bass,midbass ?
2)The type of voice coil (including type of former to be used) you have various types of former materials ( Hope you have heard of ) like paper(crudest most basic) aluminium ( keep away as they introduce or Induce eddy currents) kapton (best and most expensive) etc etc.
3)determining the type of Basket, like Aluminium(very good for various reasons) steel(most common),mixed alloy, and in steel you have to choose between stamped non stamped basket.
4) T yokes again have to be very careful in choosing the right type.
5) pole plates ( top nad bottom)
6) voice coil dia ( determing on various aspects like power handling,type of driver(1 point) etc)
7)cone,here again very very imp to choose the right type depending on what type driver you want to build,the most common is offcourse paper,in paper there's air dried cone,treated cone,sandwich cone(thin layer of matel sandwiched between two paper layers, aluminium (nasty if chosen wrongly),carbon fibre, and who can forget the almighty kevlar !
8)The dustcap plays it role aswell so have to be carefull of the selection ! bold enough try phase plug !
9)The mass of the cone has to be balanced to achive the desired frequencies and desired results.
10) have to select the type of surrend material depending on the driver type ( again the 1 point) the options are cloth( very good for vocals) rubber ( very good for bass) foam( mixture of vocals and bass)

So above mentioned are just the tip of the ICEBERG !
there's even more to building a decent driver than this !

Hope this sheds some light on the topic and hope this hepls you in some way or anyway !!

if you need any info please do the needful !

Regards,

some good pointers & inspiration here!

klone: I know a bit, what I'm talking but not an expert anyway. I do have access to experts in this field who encourages me.

I'd post further findings here, but keeping this in fridge for few months as I've to focus on some interior design project.

Hi Sunil,

You finally read it !! but you have not commented anything on what I said !! whats your take or what you thought it ?? etc. please do post comments on the same.

I've tried to tell you what I knew so if I have missed anything,Am curious to know !!

By the way Sunil you didn't reply to my mail.


Regards.

i did made some headphone drivers!..may be off topic but some one may try with better diaphragm materials... these were very basic ...

i did it long time back in when i was in +2 level...

i experimented with some synthetic diaphragms.... as i had very much less
idea on audio ..these sounded muddy ... so i left it there ...

The technique I used to wind the coils is as follows..

i used very thin coated copper wire ...local kite making paper as a former , dendrite..

-i wrapped the paper on a small electrolytic capacitor first
-followed by a tedious winding of the coil with ..hand only
-after a point i will stop and remove the former out of the capacitor body..
-1 round shaped synthetic i used as a diaphragm