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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
So far this project has been somewhat of a nightmare, mostly because of Parts-Express.
Today marked the first day of my Thanksgiving Break, I was anxious to get started on the build. So far I've got the counter sinks routed in the two front panels for the tweeters and 6.5's. I did that in the afternoon and started arranging and assembling crossover components. I got the first network arranged and glued to the board and moved on to the second only to find that PE had sent me a damaged inductor. Sadly when I received these parts a month ago, and was checking them out, I only unwrapped one of the big inductors and of course it wasn't the one that was damaged, instead I discover the problem mid-build.

Pic of the broken inductor:


The other assembled network:


I can't believe the damage occured during shipping as there were no other big items shipped with inductor other than an identical counterpart which is in perfect condition. Looks like it must have been dropped from a nice height before even being shipped to me.

This is in the same order that I purchased a pair of the Dayton 24" speaker stands only to be shocked by the quality of garbage that is supposedly worth $100. The material used in the stands was some of the cheapest Chinese steel you've seen. They failed to paint one of the posts completely and that was followed by several poorly tapped holes and very poor tolerances. I couldn't believe the amount of rust coming out of the posts. You could hear it rattling around when you shook them. Along with that there were red streaks on the bubble wrap they were wrapped in. Basically, stay away from the Dayton 24" speaker stands.

Pics:





Needless to say I returned those stands immediately for a refund. After that I ordered a set of VTI DF speaker stands ($109 shipped) which have much better quality. Sadly someone didn't drill one of the wholes in one of the base plates in the correct spot and I ended up having to take a Dremel to it and widened the whole. However, they are together now and are much more stable than the Dayton's were and look much nicer.

At this point it looks like I'll have to two day another inductor, save that for last in the build, and pray that nothing else goes wrong.
 

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Discussion Starter · #5 ·
I got the new inductor in and the Kepler's have been up and running for a good three weeks now. I've been meaning to upload some pictures of them but right now I am working on a Tempest build to go with them in a 2.1 configuration so I'll probably just set them all up together and take some photos, in another week or two. I am very happy with them. I really like the Peerless HDS tweeter (it was my main reason for picking the Kepler as a project in the first place), very crisp SQ. Kevin did a great job with the crossover.

I thought about gluing the inductor back together but I was afraid that since it was a ferrite core, that might change the characteristics of the inductor. I figured better safe than sorry. Someday I will learn how to wind my own inductors but I'm still very new to this hobby.

Currently I have 1 Anarchy woofer on order and hopefully I will be getting 1 free Anarchy woofer when I complete and post my Tempest build. I'm planning on experimenting with them and 2 of the Seas 27TDFC tweeters. I've been messing with LspCad, which is giving me some problems, and Speaker Workshop, which seems to be working correctly, trying to figure out the crossover design. It's hard as I have no way to test the drivers themselves so I'm using the frequency response measurements supplied by the manufacturer and SPL Trace to input the data into the different programs. I've been trying to use the Kepler crossover design as a model in both programs to see if the simulated response is close to what Kevin actually measured. I'm afraid the way I'm attempting it is no where near accurate enough and if I do design my own crossovers, they could be hit or miss. I also downloaded Basta! but haven't played with it much yet.
 
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