ProAC 2.5 Clone Project - Part 4

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Putting the speakers together

Continuing from the last article. Once you've installed the crossover module into the bottom of each speaker cabinet, it's time to glue the rear panel to close the speaker cabinet. Next, use the sander to sand flush all the seams. Fill any gaps with wood fillers. Clean all surfaces from dust with a damp towel/rag prior to applying the wood veneer.

Applying Wood Veneer

Parts and tools needed

• Wood Veneer
• Contact cement
• Router with a straight bit (for trimming excess)
• Roller pin
  

Here are the steps applying wood veneer. Apply to the side first, then the front.

1. Cut the veneer to size. I added 1/2 inch to each edge.
2. Apply contact cement to the back of the veneer and the speaker cabinet surface. I used a 3" roller designed to apply contact cement.
   
3. Wait for the contact to dry. I waited 25 minutes for mine. Depending of the contact cement you're using, the drying time varies based on the manufacturer or the humility. Read the label.
4. Before you apply the veneer to the speaker cabinet, a word of warning. Once the veneer and the speaker touch, it's final. The saying "That is all she wrote" applies here. So make sure everything align correctly before you apply the veneer. A good tip I read in a forum for applying contact cement surfaces is to wrap wax paper around sticks, put them on the surface, lay the veneer on top of these sticks. This will give a better way to align the veneer properly. Once you're satisfied with the alignment, simply slide the sticks out one by one.
5. Use the roller pin on the veneer. Start from the middle and roll it out to the edges. Make sure there aren't any trapped air bubbles.
6. Trim the edge excess with the router.

Repeat the above steps for all the surfaces. The toughest part to trim the excess off those circular speaker holes with the bevel. You need to trim the bevel edge with the utility knife.




Finishing
Sand all the veneer surfaces with an orbital sander. I started with a 150 grit and ended with a 220 grit sandpaper. I chose to finish the veneer with clear shellac from Zinsser. Here are the steps I took to finish the veneer.

1. First coat, apply liberally amount of shellac with a brush
2. Wait for it to dry (1 hour or so)
3. Hand sand with a 220 grit sandpaper.
4. Clean the surfaces with a damp towel.
5. Apply the second coat of shellac
6. Wait for it to dry. It takes much longer for the second coat. I left it dry over night.
7. Lightly sand with 220 grit sandpaper.
8. Clean the surfaces with a damp towel.
9. Repeat the step 5 and 6 for the 3rd coat
10. Again, wait for the shellac to dry. Left it dry over night.
    
11. Lightly sand with 220 or higher grit sandpaper. The finer the better.
12. Clean the surfaces with a damp towel.
13. Repeat the 4th coat as you would the 3rd coat. I was planning to put on 4 coats of shellac.
14. For the final coat sanding, I used "9999" steel wood, make sure it said "9999" on the label. After this sanding, you should a piano finish.

This is after 4 coats of Shellac

The more layer of shellac you apply the better the finish will look. Of course you can choose whatever technique on finishing you desire.

Building the Plinth

• Cut 2 pieces of 3/4" MDF to size. 1" from all the edges of my speakers. I glued them together to create a 1-1/2" thick plinth.
• Round the top edges with a 1/2" router bit.
• Painted the Plinth glossy black with a spray can.
• Glue it to the bottom of the speaker cabinet.

Conclusion
This project may look daunting but once you're committed and get going. It's not as tough as you think. I enjoy working on this project immensely and now I'm still reaping the reward for the work I've done. Now that I've built a pair of loudspeakers, I'm thinking of building a subwoofer next.

ProAC 2.5 Clone Project - Part 3

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Crossover

After you've put together your speaker box together (except the rear panel), you're ready to build your crossover module. I built mine based on this diagram.I followed the optional notch filter using the 1.5 Ohm and 5.6 Ohm resistors. I used an extra piece of laminated flooring cut to size to fit at the bottom of the speaker.

Top View

Bottom View

After testing the crossover module to make sure it works, it's glued to the bottom of the speakers cabinet. Also, it is a good time to label the speaker wires prior closing the back panel.
Glue the rear panel to close the cabinet. In the last article, we'll apply the maple veneer, finishes build the plinth and install the speaker drivers.

ProAC 2.5 Clone Project - Part 2

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

In my previous article, I listed all the tools, material and parts used to build my pair of speakers.

Cutting - I used the dimension from here to cut my MDF sheets to size. When working with MDF, I highly recommend wearing a dust mask and goggle. MDF is very dusty.

Panels - When I bought my 4'x8' MDF sheets at the hardware store, I asked them to cut it in half (4' x 4'). Two reasons, it's easy to drive them home and to cut on my tablesaw. I used the tablesaw to cut the panels to dimension.

Speaker and port holes - Use the router with the Jasper jig to cut all those circles. Cut the recess first, then cut through on the inner diameter. When cutting the recess, make sure you account for the thickness of your veneer. I made that mistake. I did not do that, so my speaker drivers sit a bit deeper than desire. I also use the Jasper jig to cut the holes for the bracing piece. Note: If I'm to build another pair, I would veneer the front panel first before I cut the speaker circles. You should get a better look and fit. Trimming veneer from the recess part is difficult.


Putting the front and side part together - Glue everything except for the rear panel to allow access for installing the crossover and damping materials. I used drywall screw in addition to glue. In hindsight, I don't think the screws were necessary. The wood glue provides a very strong bond.
After the glue dries, use the orbital sander with varying grits to sand excess glue and any imperfections in your cuts. In some area, I had hairline gaps, I used wood fillers to fill these gaps.

Port and Binding posts - I added a 100mm x 100mm bracing for the port and glue it to the inside of the cabinet as mentioned here. Before gluing the port, I decided to paint the inside of my PVC pipe black (a glossy black aerosol spray paint can). At this point, I decided to apply the Maple veneer, glue in the Ports (PVC pipes) and the binding posts to the rear panels. Add the damping material (felt and poly-fill)

Add Damping materials - Add the roof felt to all the internal surfaces except for the front. I used spray adhesive and stapler. Then glue the poly-fill on top of the roof felt. I used spray adhesive. Also, this is when I install my crossover module. I'll cover on building the crossover module in the next article.

Flash Element TD - "Interest" ugrade to level 28

Here is a strategy/walkthrough that'll get to level 28 with "Interest" only upgrades. After level 28, you can pick your desire "element" upgrade and finished with a descent score. I use this technique to create my "All Fire", "All Arrow", "All Rockets", "All Water", etc final scene.

We'll use only "cannons" for land critters and "airs" for air critters. The desire placement for cannons are from the upper right corner to lower left corner on the map. Experiment your placements.

Round 1: 1 x canon (lvl1)


Round 2: upgrade canon to level2
Round 3: Add a 2nd cannon


Round 4: Upgrade 1st canon to level3

Round 8: Sell all your cannons, add 2 airs (lvl2).


Round 9: Sell all your air towers and add 2 cannons (lvl3 & lv1)


Round 10: Upgrade the cannons to level 3
Round 11 (Boss): Add 3 more level3 cannons (5 total). Sell down to 3 when the boss is close to dying.


Round 12 - Round 16: You can get by these rounds with 3 cannons (level3). On 16, try to sell all but one before round is over.

Round 17: buy 4 air towers(lvl3) Try to sell all air towers before end of round


Round 18: Add 5 x level3 cannons


Round 19: 2 more cannons (level3)
Round 21: 1 more cannon (level3). 8 total.

Round 22: Add 4 Arrow towers (level3)


Round 25: Add 1 more cannon(level3)
Round 26: Add 10 more Arrow towers(lvl3). You should have 9 cannons and 14 arrows

Round 27: Add 6 Air towers(lvl3). Sell the air towards to the of the level. Below screenshot, I had 6 air towers, it's not enough, I would use 7 or 8.


Round 28: Sell all the air towers if you haven't sold them.

Wood!, upgrade to whatever you desire.



Updated 01/22/07
For a good reference to help maximize gold jump here Flash Element Turret Defense Interest Calculator

Flash Element TD - Final Battles

Fire Storm

Well this blog article is a bit off topic, but it's a how-to. Last week, I found this game on digg.com. It's a flash game based Warcraft TD game inspired by Elemental TD for WarcraftIII. It got popular really fast. Because of its popularity, the game author(s) is updating the game almost daily. The game is quite addicting. Anyway, I decided to have some fun with the game. I wanted to build crazy last battle (Level 38). So far, I got all Fire Element Towers scene. I wanted to do screencast of all my final battles, but I haven't found a free screencast software I can use on my Mac, so I settle for screenshots. I'm planning to do "All Arrow Towers", "All Earth Towers", "All Cannon Towers". I'll update with more screenshots later.

Before we can do that, we need to build up a lot of money to afford to setup the last battle. So far, this is my strategy to save as much money as possible before the last battle. I usually can get to about 20,000 coins using the following strategy.


Rockets in my pocket (UPDATE: 1/18/2007)


These guys (kids) didn't make past the lower right corner on Round 39.
Ok, I'm using another coin accumulating strategy ("Interest" only upgrade to Round 28). There are 5 woods upgrade you can get in the game. To get rocket towers, you need one of each elements (fire, earth, water). So, do the first 2 upgrade as interest and the rest with the elements. Follow the mentioned guide up to round 21 and upgrade to fire. Use fire towers to get you to round 35. After round 35, I used the rocket towers exclusively. In round 22, use 2 fire towers (lvl4) and sell down to 1 on the boss 2nd pass.

• Round 23-24: use 1 fire tower (lvl4)
  
• Round 25-31: use 2 fire towers (lvl4)
• Round 32: 4 fire towers
  
• Round 33 (boss): 9 fire towers. sell down to 5 towers towards the end.
• Round 34: 5 fires
• Round 35: 7 fires

Upgrade and now you can start building rockets, start with 2 upgraded towers

Play the game here



Build your money strategy (OLD: 1/11/2007)
I'm pretty sure other folks have a better path, because I see crazy high scores of 60K+. The general path is get to level 7, buy Fire tower with wood and buy "Interest" with the rest. There are 3 boss levels, I usually ignore them. I try to kill them in 2 rounds.


Round 1: Build a Level 2 Arrow tower(AT).


Round 2: Upgrade Arrow to level 3. (note: Sometime the last monster escape, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can buy back that life later)

Round 5: Add second Arrow (level 3)


Round 6: Add 3rd Arrow tower(level 2)


Round 8: Buy Fire Elemental and the rest of the wood, buy interest.
Round 9: Upgrade 3rd Arrow to level 3

Round 10: Add 1st Fire Tower


Round 13: Add 2nd Fire Tower

Round 16: Sell 1st Arrow tower and replace it with Fire Tower
Round 17 : Sell 2nd Arrow tower and replace it with Fire Tower



Round 18: Upgrade 1st Fire Tower(FT) to level 2. Sell 3rd Arrow tower and replace it with Fire Tower.

Round 19: Upgrade FT1 and FT2 to level2
Round 21: Upgrade all FT to level2

Round 26: Add the 6th FT and upgrade the 1st FT to level2


From now on, the strategy is to reinforce these 6 positions with more Fire Towers.

Round 30: Add 2 more FT(lvl2)


Round 32: Add 4 more FT(lvl2)


Round 32 (Boss): Add more


Round 36: and upgrade and add more. I pretty much have all the FT at least level2 and level3. It may be overkill. Adjust to your need.


Round 37: Add more. You should have 20k in coins after this round.


The Setup - Spend at will.


The final battle

How to Upgrade Your MacBook Memory

If you own a MacBook and things seem a little sluggish... well, a little more memory might be the answer. This DIY project will save you money and make a big performance impact on your MacBook (especially if you are running Windows XP in parallel like I am)

MacBook default specs are either 252k or 512k (depending on the model you have and when you bought it). I strongly suggest you upgrade your ram to 2gig. If you take your laptop to the Apple store, they will take you to the cleaners. Follow these simple steps below and get more out of your Mac laptop and do it for half the price.

What you'll need:

• MacBook
• Two 1gig compatible ram chips
• Towel or soft surface
• Mirco Phillips head and flat head screw driver
• Mid sized coin

1. First lets talk about what kind of memory you need. When shopping for ram that will work in a MacBook, visit this site to confirm what type of memory you'll need: MacBook Memory
2. Now that you know what you need, you'll need to purchase TWO 1 gig strips. The MacBook performs best when you have an even amount of ram in each of the two memory slots. Shop around, but your best bet is NewEgg. Jump over to see what I purchased for my MacBook (black).
3. Now lets open the Laptop and remove the battery (write down or print out these steps).
1. Power down and unplug the power
2. Turn the MacBook over and place it on a soft surface
3. Using a coin, turn the battery lock clockwise to unlock and pop out the battery
   
   
   
4. With the battery out, you've exposed a bracket held in by three little screws. Using you Phillips head, unscrew the three screws.
5. Slowly remove the metal bracket to reveal the two memory slots (remove slowly so the screws remain in the bracket).
6. Now lets take the old memory out. Using your thumb, slowly push the white levers to the left. You may need to put some pressure on the levers because the memory is tightly housed. The chip should present itself and now you should be able to pull the memory out... While you do this, take notice on how the chip is housed. There is a notch about 1/3 from the left. You'll need to put the new chips in the same way.
7. After removing the old chips, evenly push the new ones in (lined up the same as the old ones). Push evenly, using your thumbs, until it's all the way in. A good amount of pressure is required, so don't fell like you are going to break something.
   
8. Place the bracket back in it's original place. Using a flat head screw driver, tuck in the fabric tab (that's on the bracket) into the space where the memory is housed. Screw in all three screws and take notice that the fabric tab remains in place. The bracket should be flat against the memory slots (like it was when removed)
9. Place the battery back in using a coin, lock the battery in place.
10. Turn on the computer and verify you system settings. Upper left, click on the apple. Then click on 'About this Mac'. A window should open showing 2gig next to Memory. You are now free to move about the cabin...
    

If you prefer a video showing these steps, jump here to see: Instructional Video