17. Wildcard week

Assignment:

Design and produce something with a digital fabrication process (incorporating computer-aided design and manufacturing) not covered in another assignment, documenting the requirements that your assignment meets, and including everything necessary to reproduce it.

Download files

Blender 2.79 Download here

Generated SVG file Download here

DXF file to cut Download here

ArtCam file Download here

Paper Speakers SVG file Download here

Research

In this week I want to make Paper Speakers using the Vinyl cuter from week04 Computer controlled cutting, creating the speaker coils from a copper foil.

Vinylcut copper coil

Parts list

  • Copper foil
  • Amplifier
  • Paper/ Cloth
  • Magnet
  • Power supply

Design the Spiral

The general idea of the design is to make two spirals mirrored to each other, and having a piece of paper/cloth between them, with a hole in the middle to connect the two spiral.

Create curve spiral 01

Blender

I used the Blender to make the Spiral.

Steps:

  • From the Blender User Preferences, check the Add Curve: Extra Objects, then go to default window and click shift+A and create the curve.

Curve --> Curve Spiral --> Logarithmic

Create curve spiral 01

  • I used the next configuration:
Turns : 11
Steps : 50

Logarithmic settings

Radius          : 72.00
Expansion force : 0.97
Height          : 0.00

Create curve spiral 02

  • From the right side, under the curve menu we do the next options:

Under Shape

Change Fill to Front

Under Geometry

Change Depth from 0.0 to 1.4
Resolution from 0 to 3

Create curve spiral 03

  • Create mirrored spiral from the one we created, and change the end turn distance so we were to connect them, they wont touch and short circuit.

Create curve spiral 04

  • Exported the files using the freestyle svg exporter and the Camera form Blender, with the next settings.
    Then we click on Render.

Create curve spiral 05

Create curve spiral 06

Inkscape

We open the SVG file that it has been generated by Blender addon freestyle svg exporter, and check the settings and the dimensions are correct.
The copper foil max height is 250mm.

Create curve spiral 06

I export the file as DXF, and change the base unit to mm.

Create curve spiral 06

Problem

The Spiral lines was too narrow and need to be adjusted.

Design multiple speakers

I was worked on this just after I designed the spiral speaker, I made multiple speakers with parallel coils on ArtCam using vectors.

ArtCam

  • First I created a polygon with 6 edges with a 30 degrees angle and radius of 30mm.

artcam01

  • Then offset the vector to the inside by 3mm with a sharp corners.

artcam02

  • Then create the next shape shown the picture below using trim vectors tool, by putting overlapped vectors on top of them, then join them.

artcam03

  • Then copy the shapes then connect them as a series circuit, now while I am documenting this week, I notice I did not trim the first speaker from the top left.
    1 and 2 are two ends of the same circuit.

artcam04

  • Then I exported the vectors as svg file extension.

Vinyl Cutter

  • I have prepared the copper foil tape on a transparent plastic sheet, because we need more thickness to cut on a vinyl cutter.

multi_speakers_01

  • Then loaded the sheet into the vinyl cutter, then set the origin if the cut.

multi_speakers_01

  • I loaded the file into Cutstudio, by copy the vector from Inkscape, then I started to cut, then I started.
  • But I made a mistake on the scaling of the vector, and got it wrong and it was big, we took out the one part of the speaker to test it, and no part go to waste.

multi_speakers_03

  • I load again but with the right scale, but I want to see really is good to cut the copper foil tape by itself on the vinyl cutter, and the answer was NO, the first method was better and copper foil does not stick well if you want to peal the extra foil.

multi_speakers_04a

multi_speakers_04b

  • Then I put paper tape on it and move it on a clear plastic sheet, and fixed the missing speaker, and solder it just to be sure.

multi_speakers_05

Connecting the circuit

what we need to make a simple speaker with are the next parts

  • Copper coils, or in this case the copper foils.
  • Magnets.
  • Audio Amplifier.
  • Power supply 9 to 12 volts.

The power supply is connected to the Audio Amplifier, and the output audio is connected to the copper foil, while we put magnets under the center of the coils.
In the multiple speakers, I fixed the magnets using paper tape. And after that I remove some parts of the border, because some part of it was cut out.

multi_speakers_06

Trying out the speaker with a single coil

I amplified the audio, because I did not take in mind the background noises.

Hero shoot! video

The video was close to the speaker to record the audio.

Trying out the speaker with multiple coils

I amplified the audio, because I did not take in mind the background noises.

Hero shoot! video

Conclusion

Things you should consider making this type of speakers:

  • Number of magnets; too much will not give good audio, as well as too little.
  • Do not crank up the volume to the max, you should set it at good level so you can hear the music/audio more clearly.
  • We cad do a different shapes of speaker not just circular shapes.
  • Copper foil must be handle with care, take your time removing the extra foil.