Order of Operations for Sonosub

[adamt]

So I'm planning a sonosub project and I'm having a hard time figuring out what order to do everything. I am using the default configuration from Mr. Collison's Sonosub calculator program. Thanks a ton by the way!

This is very elementary but I'm a total dunce so please bear with me here.

Here is the raw materials list
1-4x8 sheet of 3/4" MDF for endcaps
I will not be putting anything on the top over the port. So I have the foot plate, 3 for the driver location and 3 for the port location.
5' piece of 24" sonotube,
3' piece of 6" PVC pipe for the port.
Then there will be the miscellaneous stuff, but I'm not worried about that right now

I drew the circles on my cad program and I can get all 7 end cap pieces out of 1 sheet of MDF if I don't mess up.

Here is what I have for a semi step by step process of going about this project. I could use some input on anyplace I seem to be awry.
Starting from the bottom and working my way up. My terminology sucks so again please bear with.
1. Cut 4 circles at 1'-10" for the inside diameter of the sonotube.
2. Cut 3 circles at 1'-11 5/8" for the outside end caps and the floor plate.
3. Cut the recess circle out of a 1'11-5/8" piece then make the woofer cut out. I'm not sure how big these cut outs will be yet but I will have the dimensions once I get the driver.
4. Make 2 more woofer cut outs on two of the 1'-10" boards. The driver location cuts are finished here. Glue these three pieces of wood together? What about a chamfer cut?
5. Cut out a 6 3/8"(outside diameter of port) circle on the other two 1'-10" boards
6. Cut out a 6"(inside port diameter) circle on one of the 1'-11 5/8" boards. Round the cut out with a 3/4" round over bit. The port location cuts are finished. Glue these three pieces together?

That's all I really know at this point. What's the best way to secure the end caps to the sonotube? And how about attaching the footplate to the bottom driver plate?

I will probably be picking up the first round of supplies tomorrow and start making the cuts for the end caps. I will post pics when I make some progress. Ordering the gear will come when I get the extra tuition money from my school. Probably a couple weeks or so. If anybody could add to this I would appreciate it.
Adam

[adamt]

So I found a place locally to get the sonotube. Near 100 bucks for a 12' piece of tube. Looks like it will be possible to build two of these dudes but I've only got the cash for one right now. I picked up my port material last night, I'll have to measure but I think I may have enough to do 2 as far as port material is concerned. I'm afraid I can't justify the $40 savings for the additional $200 for another driver at this point.
$30 for mdf
$100 bucks for sonotube
$600 for amp
$300 for driver
1030 plus the odds and ends.
I'm still under my max $1200 limit but not by much.

[JDRoberts]

adamt wrote:

Here is the raw materials list
1-4x8 sheet of 3/4" MDF for endcaps
I will not be putting anything on the top over the port. So I have the foot plate, 3 for the driver location and 3 for the port location.
5' piece of 24" sonotube,
3' piece of 6" PVC pipe for the port.

I would add-

sound deadening material for the inside

some type of dowel for the legs.

spray glue,for inside insulation/outside covering.I ended up using @ 2 large cans.

primer and paint for the caps.

liquid nails to adhere the MDF together and to the tube.I used 1 full caulk tube for my sono.
EDIT: another thing,how are you going to be cutting the tube?
remember,you need to make 2 square (to one another)cuts,as the tube will probably be a little boogered up on the ends from handling.I used builders paper wrapped around the tube to make straight and square lines to cut along.

adamt wrote:

1. Cut 4 circles at 1'-10" for the inside diameter of the sonotube.

I used 23 1/2" for the inside pieces.seems to fit snugly,without being"beat it in with a hammer"tight.

adamt wrote:

2. Cut 3 circles at 1'-11 5/8" for the outside end caps and the floor plate.

The end caps I made 27" for 1 1/2" of overhang. @ 23 5/8" the cap will be smaller than the 24" OD of the sonotube.

adamt wrote:

3. Cut the recess circle out of a 1'11-5/8" piece then make the woofer cut out. I'm not sure how big these cut outs will be yet but I will have the dimensions once I get the driver.

What Driver are you using?you may be able to look up the figures on the MFG's website.

adamt wrote:

4. Make 2 more woofer cut outs on two of the 1'-10" boards. The driver location cuts are finished here. Glue these three pieces of wood together? What about a chamfer cut?

I used a 1/4 round over on all edges,top and bottom.this makes a small space for the glue.

adamt wrote:

5. Cut out a 6 3/8"(outside diameter of port) circle on the other two 1'-10" boards
6. Cut out a 6"(inside port diameter) circle on one of the 1'-11 5/8" boards. Round the cut out with a 3/4" round over bit. The port location cuts are finished. Glue these three pieces together?

Liquid nails is your friend!! LOL.
don't forget,if you use LN,it's kinda thick,so when you glue the boards together put some weight on it to compress the pieces together.(I used a leftover piece of sono to line up all the pieces when I glued them)

adamt wrote:

That's all I really know at this point. What's the best way to secure the end caps to the sonotube?

you guessed it-I used LN.

adamt wrote:

And how about attaching the footplate to the bottom driver plate?

I used 1 1/4" dowel cut into 6- 5" tall legs.I marked the spots for the legs using a protractor-a mark every 60 degrees.the center for the legs I put 1 1/2" in form the outside so the screw heads would be covered by the sonotube.( the screw goes into the channel the sono sits in.)
I attatched the legs to the plates with 2 1/2" Teflon coated screws.the teflon makes them twist in a little easier.that and drill pilot holes.

adamt wrote:

I will probably be picking up the first round of supplies tomorrow and start making the cuts for the end caps. I will post pics when I make some progress. Ordering the gear will come when I get the extra tuition money from my school. Probably a couple weeks or so. If anybody could add to this I would appreciate it.
Adam

I'm going to be doing another build as soon as my other driver gets here(later this week)
I'm sure I'll remember something I forgot to add.
I'm also sure the other guys will remember more stuff I forgot.

[adamt]

Great input. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
One thing I learned when making some adapter plates for my truck component woofers was to use the driver as the cut out template. One of the baskets on the woofers was larger then the manufacturers specifications which led to some nasty clean up work that I didn't handle too well. Check out my stuff on cardomain, I haven't updated it for awhile and quite a bit has changed since I last did.
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2654120/1
As I was looking forward to doing this project an offer landed on my table and I may be purchasing a finished product using the same driver as I originally intended on using for this setup. I'm not sure how it will go either way but I want to keep all of my options open at this point. I'm not spending any more money on this project until I find out for sure when the money is going to get here and if the sub is still available then. I am officially putting this project on hold
I bought the sonotube already ******

[thxgoon]

adamt wrote:

$30 for mdf
$100 bucks for sonotube
$600 for amp
$300 for driver
1030 plus the odds and ends.
I'm still under my max $1200 limit but not by much.

What driver and amp are you planning to use? With $1200 you could pretty easily have 2 sonosubs. I did 2 for under $1000 using 15TC1000 and an ep2500. If you wanted more you could upgrade the drivers and the 2500 should still be sufficient.

[SteveCallas]

Right, the fundage seems swayed towards the amp.

[adamt]

Okay, I'm pushing the bounds of this being double posted on a couple other threads that I have going on. It's becoming a mess because my original intentions of this project were going to be focussed on three phases. Enclosure, Amp, Driver. The driver is set at this point but things have really got screwed up because I've been talking to a user here about purchasing his rlp15 sub completely done with the amp in my target budget range. For whatever it's worth I was trying to be secretive about my talks with him because I don't want anybody else to buy the sub. I told him that he should sell it if a better offer comes about because I'm not sure when exactly the money is going to be here. I'm not sure if I said that I'm getting some grant money for college tuition but the tuition is already covered by other funding. It's rather odd because I'm a grown man in the work force going to college. I'm not your average college kid on a super tight budget per say.
I figured it would be at least a month no matter who makes the enclosure so the driver amp purchase was projected with this date set in mind. I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row. I'm theoretically not sitting on the money for the driver and amp so it would be a risky move to make that purchase with the family funds. You did what??? As far as the rest of the stuff is concerned, enclosure, eq, what not the extras I can space out in little 100-200 dollar expenses that will go unnoticed by the woman as typical household spending. It gets a little shakey when the brown boxes start showing up on the front porch but that's all fairly easily hashed out over dinner. What can you do they're on the front porch?
So I allotted myself 800 bucks out of the grant money and figured I could throw up to 400 of my personal money on this project to ensure that no corners would get cut. The project is aimed at one very solid sub and amp because my room is pretty small and the old house really probably can't afford too much beating. Anyways, I was planning on giving myself a month or so to prepare for this gig but Bonehead let me in on his being for sale. If you don't know of the one I'm talking about it is seen here.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=871870
based off the build here
http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...ject-pics.html
Looks like a solid setup and is very much like what I was aiming for with my projected idea. I'm definitely picking it up if it's still there when the money comes in. If for some reason the HT gods are looking out for me, I will be able to convince her of the urgency of getting this deal of a lifetime and we need to go down and get this saturday per say. And I'll just transfer the money around when it gets here. We'll see how that goes but I'm not really wanting to mention this to him as part of the deal but it could happen. None the less, I have GAS and will probably be picking up some hardware out of the deal especially since the woman knows the brown boxes are going to be showing up on the front porch. Obviously she thinks I'm being an idiot but the cat's out of the bag and that's as close as it comes to her being on my side. For god's sake we're talking about a pretty decent little chunk of gold with some diamonds that could be sitting a jewlrey box instead. Luckily she just recently got a really **** nice set of earings that could have paid for this project plus some.

This package comes with the ButtKicker BKA1000-4
No offense to bonehead, but how is this amp's reputation in the field? I haven't found a whole lot of information on them in comparison to some of the other brands. None the less if I get the chance I'm going to nab all the equipment up for sale but I'm in the market for the corners not to be cut here.
I've been up all night with the stomach flu so this has been an off an on write up, sorry it's so long. I paid the restocking fee for the sonotube and purchased a BFD2496. I already have a ux16 yamaha midi usb interface that I use for doing some music recording so I'm getting some stuff together to have a nice little setup. I'm still on the lookout for any advice for what I need because I'm not sure how this is all suppose to work out. I believe it's going to be a little more then plug and play. No matter what it will be a lot better to know what I'm spending my money on and what else I need to spend money on. I'm not sure what else is going to be taking place but this project is a full go. I'm jacking up this whole site right now
Thanks and sorry this was a long one
Adam

[buggers]

"how is this ( ButtKicker BKA1000-4)amp's reputation in the field?"
I own one and it is currently running an RLP18, 2 Ohms, in a sealed box that is kicking the snot out of me very nicely. I can highly reccomend it.

[adamt]

That sounds great.