The speaker is a mix of craft art old electronics and a some new for convenience clad in metal and hardwood. And I could not leave a plasma ball out as fictional energy source.
This is the end results.
I did not want to overdo it on the gears so left it to a minimum.
Control is via keys salvaged from an very old and rusty typewriter; press o and n to switch it on and o and f to turn it of(f). Volume via a old style valve knob.
Having used the speaker for many months, I find the sounds remarkably good. Better than many a speaker and of course better that these small Bluetooth speakers. So perhaps this is the best large steampunk Bluetooth speaker. I am biased of course ☺
Below you will find the build process, all in chronological order. Hope you enjoy the story.
Below you will find the build process, all in chronological order. Hope you enjoy the story.
And I am in the process of building another streamline speaker in the next 12 months. Perhaps with some 3D printer parts and surely some wood and metal.
The build:
The build:
01/03/17
After years of thinking about it I have decided I will finally make my steampunk speaker.
The most important thing about steampunk is of course the look.
There is loads of stuff out there that looks fabulous, but there is not much stuff that actually also works.
The speaker I am building will properly work and will be properly designed to function like a modern speaker.
I will design a "one of" amplifier. Valve amplifier of course!
I made sketches and decided the choice of materials, well to a degree.
For the amplifier I will use either 6P3S or 6550 valves and 6SN7 and 6SL7 valve equivalent of a Russian origin because these are excellent and look great. And for transformer I will use Hammond valve transformers as they look the part and are not ridiculously expensive, you need a 2nd mortgage for some others. I will be using these are nice signal lamps
And here are the valves I shall be using.
(update: I am using 6 of 6P3S and not 4 of 6550)
08/03/17
I have been looking into stylish fixtures and so on.
First the screws. It's steampunk so it needs to fit in and compliment the other parts. So steel screws are out. Perhaps blackened blacksmith type heavy bolts will do, but for the amount I intent to use these are prohibitively expensive. Copper, cheaper but still too expensive.
That made me think. Lets look for reasonable looking one of any material and then do something about it. So I have bought a copper plating kit and will get coach screw with flange from Screwfix.
The kit and screws are less than half the price and they look better than the best copper ones you can get. Surely I will use some minor PPE kit with that sulphuric acid stuff.
11/03/17
As promised an update on the plating.
Well mixed results from the plating. Some disappointment, some learned.
The first 4 screws went quite well, slow but well. But the zinc plate on the screws seriously hinders the copper plating when I want to speed it up and with the next screws. It seems he sulphuric acid eats the zinc even when using plating voltage. I tried with stainless steel and the copper plate is quite good. Well the lesson I take away from it is that you need the take the zinc of, then Nickel flash it to form a barrier as iron and copper will cause a kind of battery, nickel forms a kind of barrier. But I have no nickel plating kit so I have decided to go for large brass screws. These are more expensive than I had in mind but after potentially contaminating my copper plating kit with the zinc from the screws and needing a nickel flash plating kit I fund the ease of using ready screws more comforting.
I have also tried paint, gold paint as that looks closest to brass, the others looks terrible. And I have asked for quotes from professional platers, I'll see what they charge.
For oldish looking Copper using shine copper spray paint and a hint of mat black and a bit of rubbing works well, follow up with green copper oxide like paint in small faint quantities and it can look convincing.
Anywho, enough about plating.
Let me give you an update on the wooden speaker box itself.
I have cut the wood.
And planed the edges of the planks to make them fit a circle and mounted the first bit.
Then mounted them on the cut wood to form the half barrel like shape.
And this is how it looks.
It was quite some work, but the planks fit very snugly.
You can see the shape I had in mind. A half barrel on the bottom and an arrow like shape as a whole. The inner edges on the top is where the valves will be. I won't give away the rest, watch the blog updates.
The size of the box is quite large due to the speaker I have chosen. I agree, it will be a bit large.
This is worrying my wife and she's already asking where in heavens name I am going to put that thing ;-) bless.
Warning !!! Geek talk in the next paragraph or so, look away now if you have allergic reactions to it.
I have build many speaker, all calculated from the Thiele/Small fundamental parameters from the speakers.
This time I wanted a single full range driver/speaker and not a coaxial type. I want to avoid the phase difference/distortion you get if you use multiple speakers and crossovers. So single full range speaker it is. Other criteria were a reasonable efficiency and acceptable low range. I can't stand speakers that look good on paper but are so inefficient that you need 10kW to hear a faint sound from it. Laziness from the designers if you ask me. Well that is my gripe on speaker designers over with.
Quite some time ago I had a look and I decided on a speaker from Fane. They do a 12" full range speaker that is quite efficient, nicely powerful and has an acceptable low end range.
It's the only one that I could find that fitted all criteria. Amazing that with so many speakers available there are so few proper full range speakers. Well you do have one or two others that seem to be made. But pricing of these is beyond my reach, perhaps they are made from Dodo feathers and Marsupial wolf skin, looking at the prices. Sorry I will now really stop my rant on speaker designers.
So the speaker is a Fane speaker, SOVEREIGN 12-250TC to be more specific.
The main cone is aided by 2 additional smaller cones (sometimes called whizzers, ugly name) that take over when the 12" cone stops emitting sound due to inertia.
That's all.
20/03/2017
Finally an update, I was busy with other things like Karate grading and preparations for it and the weather was particularly unpleasant the last several days.
So my work on the speaker has been sporadic and mostly indoors.
Well the wooden box is ready. I'll show in a later update. I need to put some filler on the inside to stop airleaks and rattling of the wood when the speaker is put at higher volumes.
I have aslo designed the valve/tube amplifier and decided to go for a turret board build rather than printed circuit board, more in keeping even though it will be out of sight for safety reasons: just under 400V DC at 1A is not quite healthy.
Anyway, below a pictures of board number 1 with components but no valve yet.
Wiring connections still to be made.
Board 2 will be made next weekend, family permitting.
And I received a Bluetooth USB TF card receiver sound thingy for £2.80 from China via Ebay.
Was skeptical at first but it works great, Really plug and play, brill. it must be the same module or chip set as in my Bluetooth speaker as it uses the same cute Chinese voice to announce it is paired.
I also received some gears as well, ordered various other brass/copper bits. I am playing with the idea of putting a Stirling engine on to use as "power on" method or a flame licker/eater vacuum engine but these are a bit expensive. I still have o find the right model, and it's really too much work to make any of these myself if for £20-£40 you get a small Stirling engine. I am going to procrastinate a bit more on this idea.
23/05/2017 update
I need some control on the speaker and amplifier, for turning on and off and input select.
I wanted to be original and not have toggle switches. Knife switches (Frankenstein) are one option, but when thinking about it, I came across a nice old slightly rusty typewriter. It was on Ebay. It's really nicely in the style. And I won it, brill. I collected it yesterday from this nice chap Pete.
I will wire it up so you need to press O and then N to switch it on, and O and F to turn it off, yes off has 2 fs but that gets more complicated than it is worth. And for the Input selection I do not yet know, perhaps I for input and then a number. and Plus and Minus or < and > for volume, I'll see.
I also got thin copper sheets in and dome head pins that are like small rivets, and some more stuff.
I am so ready for the weekend!
25/03/2017
I have copper clad the front of the box. In pieces held together with rivets.That took a lot longer than anticipated. The whole copper and rivet stuff is just for decoration of course. Its all done with 10cm wide strips of 0.2mm copper in irregular pieces to look like made from whatever was available, and it now looks like this.
Not bad if I say so myself.
Now some meters, the valve amp, indicators, switches and some decorative copper tubing. I am still waiting for one major part for the operation.
I hope I'll have some time for wiring the valve amp soon.
Update 03/04/2017
Lots of stuff done. The 2 part valve amp is almost wired. The bare black Bluetooth control unit pcb and front has been clad and made presentable. Its only small and looks like this:
With some cliche cogs.
I also spray painted some wooden cogs with copper spray paint, but I am not yet convinced they stand closer scrutiny. I may use them or not.
And after deciding on the means of support I ordered and got the wheels in. A great way of alternate use of a utility item. See if you recognize what they are when it's ready.
10/04/2017
After years of thinking about it I have decided I will finally make my steampunk speaker.
The most important thing about steampunk is of course the look.
There is loads of stuff out there that looks fabulous, but there is not much stuff that actually also works.
The speaker I am building will properly work and will be properly designed to function like a modern speaker.
I will design a "one of" amplifier. Valve amplifier of course!
I made sketches and decided the choice of materials, well to a degree.
For the amplifier I will use either 6P3S or 6550 valves and 6SN7 and 6SL7 valve equivalent of a Russian origin because these are excellent and look great. And for transformer I will use Hammond valve transformers as they look the part and are not ridiculously expensive, you need a 2nd mortgage for some others. I will be using these are nice signal lamps
 |
| more expensive that I hoped for |
And I have ordered the wooden planks for it.
And here are the valves I shall be using.
(update: I am using 6 of 6P3S and not 4 of 6550)
08/03/17
I have been looking into stylish fixtures and so on.
First the screws. It's steampunk so it needs to fit in and compliment the other parts. So steel screws are out. Perhaps blackened blacksmith type heavy bolts will do, but for the amount I intent to use these are prohibitively expensive. Copper, cheaper but still too expensive.
That made me think. Lets look for reasonable looking one of any material and then do something about it. So I have bought a copper plating kit and will get coach screw with flange from Screwfix.
The kit and screws are less than half the price and they look better than the best copper ones you can get. Surely I will use some minor PPE kit with that sulphuric acid stuff.
11/03/17
As promised an update on the plating.
Well mixed results from the plating. Some disappointment, some learned.
The first 4 screws went quite well, slow but well. But the zinc plate on the screws seriously hinders the copper plating when I want to speed it up and with the next screws. It seems he sulphuric acid eats the zinc even when using plating voltage. I tried with stainless steel and the copper plate is quite good. Well the lesson I take away from it is that you need the take the zinc of, then Nickel flash it to form a barrier as iron and copper will cause a kind of battery, nickel forms a kind of barrier. But I have no nickel plating kit so I have decided to go for large brass screws. These are more expensive than I had in mind but after potentially contaminating my copper plating kit with the zinc from the screws and needing a nickel flash plating kit I fund the ease of using ready screws more comforting.
I have also tried paint, gold paint as that looks closest to brass, the others looks terrible. And I have asked for quotes from professional platers, I'll see what they charge.
For oldish looking Copper using shine copper spray paint and a hint of mat black and a bit of rubbing works well, follow up with green copper oxide like paint in small faint quantities and it can look convincing.
Anywho, enough about plating.
Let me give you an update on the wooden speaker box itself.
I have cut the wood.
And planed the edges of the planks to make them fit a circle and mounted the first bit.
Then mounted them on the cut wood to form the half barrel like shape.
And this is how it looks.
It was quite some work, but the planks fit very snugly.
You can see the shape I had in mind. A half barrel on the bottom and an arrow like shape as a whole. The inner edges on the top is where the valves will be. I won't give away the rest, watch the blog updates.
The size of the box is quite large due to the speaker I have chosen. I agree, it will be a bit large.
This is worrying my wife and she's already asking where in heavens name I am going to put that thing ;-) bless.
Warning !!! Geek talk in the next paragraph or so, look away now if you have allergic reactions to it.
I have build many speaker, all calculated from the Thiele/Small fundamental parameters from the speakers.
This time I wanted a single full range driver/speaker and not a coaxial type. I want to avoid the phase difference/distortion you get if you use multiple speakers and crossovers. So single full range speaker it is. Other criteria were a reasonable efficiency and acceptable low range. I can't stand speakers that look good on paper but are so inefficient that you need 10kW to hear a faint sound from it. Laziness from the designers if you ask me. Well that is my gripe on speaker designers over with.
Quite some time ago I had a look and I decided on a speaker from Fane. They do a 12" full range speaker that is quite efficient, nicely powerful and has an acceptable low end range.
It's the only one that I could find that fitted all criteria. Amazing that with so many speakers available there are so few proper full range speakers. Well you do have one or two others that seem to be made. But pricing of these is beyond my reach, perhaps they are made from Dodo feathers and Marsupial wolf skin, looking at the prices. Sorry I will now really stop my rant on speaker designers.
So the speaker is a Fane speaker, SOVEREIGN 12-250TC to be more specific.
That's all.
20/03/2017
Finally an update, I was busy with other things like Karate grading and preparations for it and the weather was particularly unpleasant the last several days.
So my work on the speaker has been sporadic and mostly indoors.
Well the wooden box is ready. I'll show in a later update. I need to put some filler on the inside to stop airleaks and rattling of the wood when the speaker is put at higher volumes.
I have aslo designed the valve/tube amplifier and decided to go for a turret board build rather than printed circuit board, more in keeping even though it will be out of sight for safety reasons: just under 400V DC at 1A is not quite healthy.
Anyway, below a pictures of board number 1 with components but no valve yet.
Wiring connections still to be made.
Board 2 will be made next weekend, family permitting.
And I received a Bluetooth USB TF card receiver sound thingy for £2.80 from China via Ebay.
Was skeptical at first but it works great, Really plug and play, brill. it must be the same module or chip set as in my Bluetooth speaker as it uses the same cute Chinese voice to announce it is paired.
I also received some gears as well, ordered various other brass/copper bits. I am playing with the idea of putting a Stirling engine on to use as "power on" method or a flame licker/eater vacuum engine but these are a bit expensive. I still have o find the right model, and it's really too much work to make any of these myself if for £20-£40 you get a small Stirling engine. I am going to procrastinate a bit more on this idea.
23/05/2017 update
I need some control on the speaker and amplifier, for turning on and off and input select.
I wanted to be original and not have toggle switches. Knife switches (Frankenstein) are one option, but when thinking about it, I came across a nice old slightly rusty typewriter. It was on Ebay. It's really nicely in the style. And I won it, brill. I collected it yesterday from this nice chap Pete.
I will wire it up so you need to press O and then N to switch it on, and O and F to turn it off, yes off has 2 fs but that gets more complicated than it is worth. And for the Input selection I do not yet know, perhaps I for input and then a number. and Plus and Minus or < and > for volume, I'll see.
I also got thin copper sheets in and dome head pins that are like small rivets, and some more stuff.
I am so ready for the weekend!
25/03/2017
I have copper clad the front of the box. In pieces held together with rivets.That took a lot longer than anticipated. The whole copper and rivet stuff is just for decoration of course. Its all done with 10cm wide strips of 0.2mm copper in irregular pieces to look like made from whatever was available, and it now looks like this.
Not bad if I say so myself.
Now some meters, the valve amp, indicators, switches and some decorative copper tubing. I am still waiting for one major part for the operation.
I hope I'll have some time for wiring the valve amp soon.
Update 03/04/2017
Lots of stuff done. The 2 part valve amp is almost wired. The bare black Bluetooth control unit pcb and front has been clad and made presentable. Its only small and looks like this:
I also spray painted some wooden cogs with copper spray paint, but I am not yet convinced they stand closer scrutiny. I may use them or not.
And after deciding on the means of support I ordered and got the wheels in. A great way of alternate use of a utility item. See if you recognize what they are when it's ready.
10/04/2017
After a longish weekend with nearly all of the time spend with the family not much time was left for the speaker.
18/04/2017
The valve amplifier is finished and I have been testing it.
Found that above 205V AC mains (variac) there is some motorboating, where the very low frequency total feedback combined with the phase angle leads to positive feedback rather than negative feedback.
I applied a simple solution of reducing the overall amplification a fraction by adding a moderate resistor in series with the decoupling capacitors on the power valves. That instantly sorted it to regular mains Voltage +15%.
And above the speaker with the PSU spilling out of it's guts. I know, not quite safe yet that 380V DC laying about.
The SD card/radio/USB/bluetooth unit works great, but when in BT mode there is an audible whine. I think I need to separate the digital and analogue ground a bit better and am working on finding the best star point ground location. Easier said than done I have the mains ground, switch mode 12V PSU, this USB-SDcard BT unit, shielding and split in half amplifier to deal with.
29+30 April 2017.
Signal paths are sorted.
And the whole box is ready to be closed and speaker attached. I have manged to finish it! It's all working.
Got over some more minor oscillation issues due to high impedance signal feedback that arose by building everything in, something you hardly see in transistor or chip based electronics.
Tested if the plasma ball would cause major noise issues or "statics" on the electronic, but seems perfectly fine.
Now all is ready and I am happy with the results.
Pictures of it finished I have but at the start.
I may put more on later, like carrying bars on either side, only for decoration.
Hope you enjoyed reading it.
If you want to do something like this yourself here are the cost of the major parts:
Speaker £85
transformers £200
HV PSU £30
valves for amplifier 6x £12, 2* £8
turrets and pertinax board £25
hard wood for box £100
brass screws £40
various decorations £50
time: many hours build, if I were to guess it's over 80 hrs, and many more on preparation, design and sourcing material, don't underestimate the time it takes to get the right material.
The power supply is ready and installed.
Control of it is half ready.
Control of it is half ready.
And I have the support; I am going to use these wheels.
18/04/2017
The valve amplifier is finished and I have been testing it.
Found that above 205V AC mains (variac) there is some motorboating, where the very low frequency total feedback combined with the phase angle leads to positive feedback rather than negative feedback.
I applied a simple solution of reducing the overall amplification a fraction by adding a moderate resistor in series with the decoupling capacitors on the power valves. That instantly sorted it to regular mains Voltage +15%.
And above the speaker with the PSU spilling out of it's guts. I know, not quite safe yet that 380V DC laying about.
The SD card/radio/USB/bluetooth unit works great, but when in BT mode there is an audible whine. I think I need to separate the digital and analogue ground a bit better and am working on finding the best star point ground location. Easier said than done I have the mains ground, switch mode 12V PSU, this USB-SDcard BT unit, shielding and split in half amplifier to deal with.
29+30 April 2017.
Signal paths are sorted.
And the whole box is ready to be closed and speaker attached. I have manged to finish it! It's all working.
Got over some more minor oscillation issues due to high impedance signal feedback that arose by building everything in, something you hardly see in transistor or chip based electronics.
Tested if the plasma ball would cause major noise issues or "statics" on the electronic, but seems perfectly fine.
Now all is ready and I am happy with the results.
Pictures of it finished I have but at the start.
I may put more on later, like carrying bars on either side, only for decoration.
Hope you enjoyed reading it.
If you want to do something like this yourself here are the cost of the major parts:
Speaker £85
transformers £200
HV PSU £30
valves for amplifier 6x £12, 2* £8
turrets and pertinax board £25
hard wood for box £100
brass screws £40
various decorations £50
time: many hours build, if I were to guess it's over 80 hrs, and many more on preparation, design and sourcing material, don't underestimate the time it takes to get the right material.
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