DeeCee's SPL Lada Project

[DeeCee 0]

I thought it might be fun to chuck this up here. The lada has moved on now, but it was a great learning experience.

The idea behind the lada was to learn more about SPL, learn about walls and apply some theoretical knowledge I had.

I covered SS 1-2NW, Street Max 1-2 with 1 sub, then a second sub. In the end, I maxed out at 152.6dB which I thought was quite good off 1 batt and a 4000D.

Here we go - please note that the text accompanying the pictures is just a straight cut and paste of when i wrote it up on the local forums.

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Okay, so I decided to start a little bit early on the SS 1-2 NW box. Early meaning start a week out before hand instead of 3 days

This is a test on a couple of things that i want to try in the future and setting up the car for the future

- wood inserts and how strong they are, their application within boxes basically

- testing the MT's and the surfboard (will be loading down to .25 nominal load with impedance rise expected to push over 1ohm making it safe for the fusion to run both subs in parallel/parallel instead of series/parallel

- the triboard - lighter & thicker, but already encountering a couple of probs here and there.

- setting up the battery, the wiring for the vehicle

Here are the build pics of this auspicious build

Hershey overseeing work done on the Lada project

Holes for cable glands for the 70mm2 power cable. 2 runs positive, 2 runs negative

Wide view of holes. Initially i was using a cheap hole saw set bit and i chewed through it in 1.5 holes. The drill bit also slipped and fell out numerous times and a crub screw broke in half.. so i went out and bought a half decent ryobi holesaw set for $56 bucks

Starting the box - 1000x1000x4000 external dimensions with 36mm triboard and two different ports tuned to 65hz, the port is 160mm long and peaks at 70hz in BB6 (will add BB6 graphs later)

With 3000w, the subs in hit 138.6db in BB6. Add approx 15db for cabin gain, transfer function etc and you get 153.6db = new SS 1-2 NW record - i would normally say 17 db (as it is what i have used and predicted before) but i'm being cautious here. This is a one hit wonder box.. for tuning to 45hz, teh port is 2m long

3" screws to hold the bugger together lol - i'm recycling as much wood as possible but still need to keep the box together because of the less dense / wood chip style triboard that i'm using.. box is solid as though it is the best box i've built thus far - not most complicated, as that was with the loading wall in Scoobs big box of fun, but this is a very good box

Box skeleton: the base and top are two pieces. This is because i don't have full sheets, so glue and join together and reinforce

Glue1

Sam jizzed on the box.. dirty boy

To ensure the walls stayed correct distance apart, i used a 928mm piece to keep them seperate - its only a one body box though.. shame - could do two people, but would have to chop them up.

Testing the tolerances of the box top and the positin of the fasteners, i broke out the MT and placed some washers where i wanted teh position of the fasteners to be. This was far too close, so i spaced them out another 10mm each side

Its big.. so big that some initial measurements had the box so narrow that i couldn't fit them into the box - further checking of the box showed that i could get them in

i accidently dropped a washer on the magnet and it stayed upright.. so i decided to take a break and have some fun

drilled holes in the top plate to screw into the side walls

holes finally - so nice and clean don't mind the factory grommet to the left.. it will have its plug put back in.

fitment of the cable glands - don't want the warrant man to have a epi over me not doing it properly!

supporting rods for the box to support subs, and bind top and bottom plates. 1 between subs, 3 to distribute sub weight load across sub plate and two for port piece

support plate over join in base/floor of wood - they line up - yay!

this will shore it up and be strong!

how the plate and rods will fit in the end

me and the jigaboo attacking the 36mm.. it took an age and a half with a firestorm. To be honest, i am guessing that a dewalt, metabo or bosch wouldn't have made it any easier. Start stop, start stop.. blade was just long enough and settings were on max and pendulum action as well.

After a while i actually had to stop and let the jigaboo cool down it had got so hot!

Checking fitment of the sub

I'm like a mechanic - see the box size - barely a one body box!

there is about 50 - 60mm from the back plate of the sub to the box floor.. bit of a tight squeeze

kat with a hat

me with a hat.. and no, i'm not going to do a Leia - too f'ing heavy!

it fits

[DeeCee 0]

Shot without the flash. As you can see, there are the reinforcement holes in the wood that we drilled out previously. We have to cover these with some tape before the fibre glass resin to smooth out the bottom of the box. And voila, all covered up

I put a board at the other end with some tape on it so that the resin wouldn't go out onto the extended port length area.

I mixed up around 1.5 L of resin and tipped it onto the base of the box floor. I spread it around as evenly as possible and they with the excess i covered the side walls as well to increase smoothness on the side walls as well.

MrKat came over and screwed the subframe onto the box. Subframe is to clear the suspension turrets which come into the the middle of the floor slightly. We decided to put most of the reinforcing rod in as well as it would be difficult to access underneath the box once its in.

The taped over holes were cleared out and we have threaded rod through.

Back to the speaker baffle: The night before, i reglued the fillets to ensure that they were more solid and it was time to clean them up.

And all cleaned up with the jigsaw

To increase the seal on the removable baffle, we used foam tape and cut squares into the tape for the bolts

As you can see the intersection between baffle, box, fillet and tape. It all fits up very nicely!

Getting everything bolted up and in place to get ready to put into the car.

I accidently kicked over a small jar of nails.. DOH!

Looking down into teh box, it should go pretty well

[DeeCee 0]

threaded wood inserts.. m8's

Got Fasteners?

[DeeCee 0]

Whoa - factory ground time to upgrade..

to some 70mm^2 !!

With the inclusion of foam for sealing, we ran into some problems attaching the port as the 2mm foam had to be compressed. So we stood the box up on its end and used gravity to compress the foam. I litereally had to jump up and down and stomp to get it so we could screw the bolts in.

Kat also let me grab his zinc so that the cable holes could be properly coated to prevent any possibility of rust.

So we wired up the Dual 1ohm MTs for parallel/parallel

Box all bolted up and ready to go into the lada.

And once we got the box into the car, we ran into trouble.

My measurements didn't take into account the height of the woofer surrounds as well as the floor being slightly uneven. The string test showed we were over :cry:

So out came the box and it was time to think of ways to modify the box and get it lower. Shot of the original bottom of the box, reinforcement rods and subframe

MrKat decided that a circular saw would be the best way to take off height on the box. So here is a pic of him countersinking the screws further to ensure that the circular saw blade doesn't get caught.

I grabbed the good ol angle grinder and proceeded to take off some length on the reinforcing rod.. and this is what was left.

Subframe cut 15mm and now time to test!

As you can see, the subs are back in and wiring about to be fed through the box. Kat had to lift the box up with the subs in it whilst i had my hand underneath trying to feed cable through and out from under the box as fast as possible.

String test time! Do we clear?

By 1.5mm!! yay!

No we're ready to get loud!

Had to go out and get one of the cables crimped up again. When i got back, MrKat had already tagged the amp onto the box, ready for cabling.

During this time, we checked the resistance of the coils before attaching them to the amp. unfortunately we noticed that there was an inconsistancy between both subs.

One sub read .5ohm parallel and the other read 1ohm. Initially we thought that the sub was dual 2 ohm and was reading 1 ohm in parallel.

On the phone to Galen/Gfunk, we talked about what could be the problem and we had a couple of options to test the coils/sub.

So we had to pull out the bad reading sub and checked the resistance of each coil individually to determine what was happening.

We pulled the sub and check the resistance on the coils and one coil was dead. The tinsel leads were still intact so that could only mean a burnt coil from the previous owners. We assumed that the people who reconed the subs from 10's to 18s in Christchurch would have checked the resistance levels of the coils as well so the only reason there was a dead coil was if the coil had burnt out during the Pauls Audio SPL car burps.

We also pushed the cone in and out a little to see any tpe of flucuation in the resistance reading. The live coil fluctuated wildely, while the dead one stayed at 0.

Now this is not uncommon. chit does happen and this is SPL and I was very angry but more importantly i was very disappointed that I couldn't break out the Lada with the full potential initially to give Reuben competition.

A PM to Chris V explained the situation and what we did to test the coil. Chris has let me know that Pauls Audio will cover a recone as it was my assumption that I was buying two working subs. I'm not bitter in the end and there are no hard feelings towards the Pauls boys.. more disappointment than anything.

The decision was made to go ahead anyway and run the setup with 1.5 subs and a werid initial nominal load. I have recones ordered already. One to fix the sub, and another for insurance.

On with the show.

Temporarily positioned the battery to measure outwhere the cables will go

We put the glands on teh cable loose and i went underneath the car and fed the wire throught the holes. Came out to be a nice mess of heavy spagetti

Kat screwed down the terminals and i tightened up the glands from underneath

While underneath, i grabbed some cable ties and bunched up the wiring to ensure that they are safely routed to the battery

i bought a brace to keep the battery in place. For future, i will make up a plate so that the battery can sit more safely than it is at the moment. The battery isn't moving, but i want to ensure safety

Battery all nice and secure

time to sort out the power and ground cables

cable is routed under the seat and safely cable tied up

Initially firing up the system got me 146.5 on low gains.

[DeeCee 0]

Okay - so at the competition i was using 1.5 woofers and i hit a score of 150.6db.

I'm officially in the 150 club and this is my first official competition with gear that i own. Yay for me.

more pics from the comp, thanks to don for taking the photos:

Hope you enjoy and there is more to come in the future

[RobClay 20]

nice score

[DeeCee 0]

I found out the Lada leaks when the rain is heavy

Lake Lada anyone?

The foundation calls for an initial frame for the box.

Covered with a layer of 28mm for good measure. Here is MrKat marking up.

And a test fit to ensure that everything is in place. Its not fully symmetrical due to the fuel filler pipe on the side of car.

The box goes directly over the fuel tank which was under the rear seat (removed)

Frame and edge of bottom of box is aligned with the step for the rear of the vehicle. We couldn't drill into this area as the fuel tank was directly behind, so we utilised the factory bolt holes for the seat.

Test fit of the side walls and the top wall - 1 layer only

As you can see, the box comes prety close to the b-piller

side wall - we had to allow room for the wheel arch on the side - two sides replicated exactly the same for the other side.

To meet the timeline of the build for the SLAP comp, the walls were made from two layers of ply - so only 56mm thick

All clamped up after gluing - note cutout for wheel arch

More glue -this was for the top wall of the box

[DeeCee 0]

Sidewalls and top wall in test fit - note the bowmac steel joints - these were screw/bolted into place one we had finalised position. We had to place the joints evenly to spread pressure as well as mark out where we wanted them before affixing them.

We also pre-drilled other screw holes on the side walls to ensure that we could join the walls together with the side fixtures.

There is no room for a drill and we had to manually screw the sides and top in and couldn't do that without the predrilling. Its a tight gap between side walls and side of car.

THe intersection between the walls is a layered (zig zag) effect. This is to reduce the amount of air leaks at the joins in the walls.

If the box was build with non layered edges then the box may leak more and there would be more work to clean it up.

different shot of the top wall - we screwed these ones in.

Unfortunately, the screws went all the way through as you can see.

So we broke out the angle grinder and cleaned them up flat as the side wall fits into this gap.

All reinforcement joints in place and screwed down. To ensure that the joints fit in place up against the edge of the box, we routed the lip to accomodate the rounding of the joint corner.

Test fit of the walls in the vehicle. We shoe horned the top wall in first, then moved the sidewalls in one at a time. I wedged myself under the top wall and held it up while Kat slotted in the side walls.

Walls were then bolted together using the joins and pre drilled holes for the screws

As you can see, there is already some wood on the front face of the vehicle. This was done for some testing as a sealed enclosure to measure the resonant frequncy of the box and vehicle before estimating port.

You gotta use what you gotta use. Old SS1-2NW box top (cut back) and some random bits of wood to fill the gap.

Back plate being built - the screws are layed out in an even matrix to distribute the stress on the two pieces of wood together

[DeeCee 0]

Back wall was put into place and slipped under the top wall joints. Took a bit to get in there including lifting the side/top walls but it was a great fit.

Note: The edge of the back wall at the top was routed round to ensure that the bowmac joints fit as close as possible.

Taking into account these types of requirements early on ensure that things go as plan when it comes time to bring everything together.

We decided to test the res freq of teh vehicle with a 12" behind the rear seat and the box taking up the void - res. freq was in the mid 70hz area. Of course, things change when the big sub is in.

To get the sub in for testing, i had to climb in and support the sub from the back while Kat mounted the sub in the front plate.

This shot is of me getting in to wire up the sub and test the resistance

at this stage, we underwent testing in a sealed enclosure (well a big leaky box at least).

Testing showed inconsistant resonant frequency results which went from 30 odd hertz to high 50 hertz.

Initially I was testing with the sub with one broken coil (as referenced in the SS1-2NW build)

Unfortunately during testing, I also smoked the other coil after playing sweeps through it so we had to get the sub out and install the other sub with two working coils.

The good sub lasted all of one run which was a bewilderment to us.

As such, we had recones on tap and we got stuck in getting the subs back to brand new.

I got Kat to open up the subs as he hadn't reconed subs before and wanted to hack into one

[DeeCee 0]

I emphasis this - all information contained forward is the logical deduction based on what I know of SPL and the effects of going hard in SPL setups.

Equipment breaks/gets damaged and I have no issue with Pauls Audio or the state of goods that I bought 2nd hand after they had been in the Superstreet car.

Pauls Audio sorted me out with the broken coil and I fully support them and the time and effort they put in to get loud in New Zealand.

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The following are observations on the subs after they were broken and opened up for reconing.

upon removing the spider and broken coils, we found that some interesting things had occured to the subs:

1) the broken coil was burnt out. I had already identified the broken coil side on the faulty sub and upon removing the spider/coil marked the coil side that was the trouble. Pics to follow, but the copper on the coil was burnt on one lead.

This meant that the fault occured during one of the runs, which may have restricted the Pauls boys from getting higher than the score they hit with the MTs.

2) There was evidence of major rubbing of the coil within the motor. This was apparent on both coils.

My conclusion was that the company who reconed the MTs from 10's to 18's did not align the coils properly. The MTs have a very tight tolerance and subsequently the mis-alignment at high power use wore the side off the coil.

Of the two coils, one had more rub than the other and this I conclude was the issue of the step at the base of the box in the Daihatsu which caused uneven loading, thus causing the former to go even more out of alignment creating huge rubbing.

Aer0 discussed the effects of uneven loading in this thread:

http://forums.nzicemag.co.nz/viewtopic.php?t=16670

i dont understand Confused (and id like too, can someone explain)

because there is something right behind the cone at the bottom and there is nothing there at the top as the cone moves in and out (very fast) its getting more pressure buildup from the bottom therefore having uneven pressure all around the cone area and causing it to flex more plus after a while it appears to have broken away and fc*ked itself..

3) There was evidence of the coil hitting the backplate on both subs and we're talking some pretty good scoring/marking of the plate here.

Scoring was one sided and not all the way around. Misalignment issues come up again here.

There are a couple of potential reasons for this:

- clipping the subs and over extending the linear range of the suspension causing the coil to hit the back plate.

- misalignment of the the subs causing the scoring of the back plate

I would lean to the arguement that some clipping and misalignment had the formers hitting the back plate.

In SPL, we get to the point of clipping and to gain those extra db's we clip it ever so slightly.

With the misalignment due to the step and primary reconing, it caused the coil to hit and make marks in the backplate.

Pictures are a bit fuzzy due to having to highlight the picture so the scoring is evident but here they are.

Pics of coil rub to follow.

Again - these are only observations and conclusions of what I found on the MTs.

Chris, Dale and Mike are stand up guys and my full support is behind them and the Pauls Audio shop 100%.

chit happens in DBDrags with designs and equipment and they have made changes which have proven without a doubt that they are freaking loud in the world.

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Cleaned up the basket of all the glue - took ages as i chiselled the glue off with a hammer and a screwdriver.. got super clean though!

[DeeCee 0]

One broken track on the coil - burnt out as explained in last update build post.

The coil was so out of alignment that the coil rubbed on the yoke

Me cleaning up the 2nd MT for the recone

During this time of reconing, I had popped off the RE MT dustcap and had it sitting around. Kat had one of the reactor 8's around, so I thought it would be funny to chuck the MT dustcap on the Reactor to see if it would fit. And it did!

So started the REactor8" that we used in our initial Krazy8 attempt at SLAP in November

Inerestingly enough, when doing recones, I use the clamping force of washing pegs to ensure that there is an even load when pushing the surround onto the basket.

I was just about to recone the first MT when I realised that I didn't have enough pegs to do the recone. There is a lot of surface area to cover on the lip and spider of the MT18 and I had to rush out to get some new pegs.

I got some really funny looks while at the supermarket testing the spring tension of the different types of pegs

Clean MT ready to get reconed.

1 x MT18 drop in recone kit - just add glue and solder

A quick clean to ensure that there is no crap before using glue.

Edited December 2, 2008 by DeeCee

[DeeCee 0]

Cardboard spacer for the coil alignment.

Interesting note: I initially was going to use cut pieces of cardboard like I did with the XXX recone. Problem was that the I tired it and the gap was even less than the XXX

So I tired manilla folder cardboard = fail, plastic sleeve material = fail, 3 different types of cardboard = fail.

In the end, I found some cardboard that fit between the coil and the yoke like a glove. There was very little movement between the two, so was the perfect spacer.

I marked out the point at which the cardboard hit the back plate and marked off to ensure that when the coil was over the yoke, the spacer was as far down as possible to ensure as perfect alignment as possible.

Bloody beautiful mate!

As you can see, I used some offcuts to hold the recone up while I applied the glue.

Glue for spider ready to affix. Tip: Affix spider before affixing surround.

Also, I'll most likely get a dremel and smooth out the vents on the basket under the spider to improve air flow and cooling next recone time

Its always a close thing when working with 3 layer stiff spiders.

Clamp Peg Super Force Kaa-pow! Was a little bit of a tight fit with the 3 layer spiders and the under edge of the MT basket. The new pegs worked out great!

Glue time for the surround. It always pays to have a very clean and even surface when putting a surround down

The start of things to come

[DeeCee 0]

Just like a rainbow

Because of the time constraints, I removed the spacer after the glue had been setting for around 15 minutes. The glue is basically superglue, so initial contact grip is high and I had no fear of the coil moving out of alignment.

I used a surplustronics 8" to put weight on the dustcap which was glued on with the same glue.

Done like a done thing

2nd MT cleaning time - got to get rid of all the small stuff for clean contact between surround and basket!

Same spacer, 2nd MT

Back to the box. As you can see, I added threaded wood inserts all the way around the frame of the box to allow the front wall to be moved to any position I want to.

box takes up a pile of room! and its damn beautiful!

Front plate made of 3 sheets of 28mm ply sandwiched together.

We didn't have a large enough compass this time around to measure the hole, so we used the old cut out from the SS1-2NW box. See, pays to have offcuts around :up:

[DeeCee 0]

Kat going hard with the router. The inside edge was also rounded off.

We wanted to get the front plate in place, so we got busy test fitting it in and measuring it up. Box joins inside were sealed up with some no more gaps.

Sexy big ass box! Mwahahahahaha :twisted:

Me drilling holes for the front plate.

Front plate mounted on to box and sub mounted into front plate. As per usual (and for some weird reason we always get into our boxes lol!!) me in the box doing something - wiring most likely.

[DeeCee 0]

People in boxes

[DeeCee 0]

Huh... i thought i put up these photos to this, but obviously not

[Tmax98 3]

wow nice build here

[DeeCee 0]

wow nice build here

Cheers

I plan as much as possible in my head to ensure that the results come out as i expect them to.

This build worked out pretty well, though in the end, I didn't have the time to fully complete what I wanted to do with the vehicle.

The work car is getting some stuff done for the local series that is happening, so hopefully, I'll finish with some time to spare and get some proper testing done

[a1161979 3]

DeeCee as in from Headphonic and Head Fi?

Great looking build and nice result, your mate has guts to leave his leg out that hole, id be worried about someone jumping on it...

[DeeCee 0]

DeeCee as in from Headphonic and Head Fi?

Great looking build and nice result, your mate has guts to leave his leg out that hole, id be worried about someone jumping on it...

Nope.. diff DeeCee. This is DeeCee from New Zealand aka FlexD2 on some other car forums.

And Leigh stuck his leg out because he couldn't fit himself all the way in the box. there was no one else around to jump on it