Print PDF
Favorite
Email
Step 15Wire up the crossovers
With the cabinets ready to go (minus the fronts), the next step is to wire up the crossovers. As described in the beginning of this Instructable, the crossover makes sure that high frequencies, like cymbal crashes, get sent to the tweeter, while lower frequencies, like bass guitars, get sent to the woofers and subwoofers. While some drivers don't require crossovers at all because they are equipped to reproduce all of the different frequencies, the vast majority of speaker designs and drivers require one for the tweeter, and another for the woofer.
I've built speakers for 10 years now and have never designed my own crossovers. It's a right of passage for sure, but an easy thing to get around by following someone elses design. In this case, I'm following Joe D'Appolito's design (legendary speaker designer and the man who invented the midrange, tweeter, midrange (MTM) driver configuration), since he's the guy who developed this speaker system.
Crossover plans look exactly like wiring diagrams and should come along with your speaker kit. They consist of resistors, capacitors and inductors. Audiophile quality components are a treat to work with since they're about 10x the size of standard electronics components.
Solder all connections together and hot glue components into place on a panel. Inductor coils should already have bare copper on it's ends, but, if there's any doubt, do a little sanding to remove the paint-on layer of insulation.
Each crossover will need high quality speaker wire running to, and coming from it. You'll need positive and negate leads going to the start of the circuit from the terminal cup, and positive and negative leads that run from the crossover to the speaker driver. For woofers that share the same crossover, which commonly occurs anytime you've got more than one woofer in a 2-way (woofer & tweeter) system, you'll need to solder on two sets of leads coming from the crossover. If you're building a 2.5 way system, like I am in the tower set in this Instructable, where one woofer plays lower then the other, you'll need to make three different crossovers the three different drivers.
I label the tails of all of my leads so I know where they are coming from and going to when it comes time to assemble. Nothing worse then gluing everything up only to find that you put the leads from the tweeter crossover into the woofers and vice a versa.
I've built speakers for 10 years now and have never designed my own crossovers. It's a right of passage for sure, but an easy thing to get around by following someone elses design. In this case, I'm following Joe D'Appolito's design (legendary speaker designer and the man who invented the midrange, tweeter, midrange (MTM) driver configuration), since he's the guy who developed this speaker system.
Crossover plans look exactly like wiring diagrams and should come along with your speaker kit. They consist of resistors, capacitors and inductors. Audiophile quality components are a treat to work with since they're about 10x the size of standard electronics components.
Solder all connections together and hot glue components into place on a panel. Inductor coils should already have bare copper on it's ends, but, if there's any doubt, do a little sanding to remove the paint-on layer of insulation.
Each crossover will need high quality speaker wire running to, and coming from it. You'll need positive and negate leads going to the start of the circuit from the terminal cup, and positive and negative leads that run from the crossover to the speaker driver. For woofers that share the same crossover, which commonly occurs anytime you've got more than one woofer in a 2-way (woofer & tweeter) system, you'll need to solder on two sets of leads coming from the crossover. If you're building a 2.5 way system, like I am in the tower set in this Instructable, where one woofer plays lower then the other, you'll need to make three different crossovers the three different drivers.
I label the tails of all of my leads so I know where they are coming from and going to when it comes time to assemble. Nothing worse then gluing everything up only to find that you put the leads from the tweeter crossover into the woofers and vice a versa.
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
so me i learn on my own to?
plzzzz???? tanx u very much.
you patern s so nice
would you like to send to me the schedule from the crossovers