I just thought I'd let you guys know we are going to start selling carbon "L" brackets along with our plates. This allows you to build speaker boxes. Better than heavy particle board. You could also use our flexible panel for covering a speaker box. It aint no sticker, it's real autoclave carbon.

 

I can't see this replacing PB or MDF. But it would might be nice for finishing touch on a fiberglass enclosure. Damned expensive though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crx12 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just thought I'd let you guys know we are going to start selling carbon "L" brackets along with our plates. This allows you to build speaker boxes. Better than heavy particle board. You could also use our flexible panel for covering a speaker box. It aint no sticker, it's real autoclave carbon.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Flat sheets of CF would be an aweful material choice for a speaker box...I'd rule out any chance of using this stuff.

 

Really... I am talking to the editor of "Car Audio and Electronics" magazine about helping them on their project car. I have been told weight is becoming a concern for system builders since often times cars with systems have to be fast as well. Wood and or fiberglass is not very light! They are going to use composites on their project car to see what they can acheive. I am not an audiophile but I would assume you guys are saying the carbon would hurt harmonics or something? Isn't there some lightweight material you could coat the inside of the speaker enclosure with to keep harmonics?

 

Flat pieces of any composite are very weak in the through direction, meaning you shouldn't build a pressure vessle out of flat pieces of composite, it should be curved. (Pressure vessles should be curved anyway, but that's a whole other topic that I don't want to get in to )

If you lay up a flat piece of composite (just fibers and resin), you only have fibers oriented along the X - Y directions - but nothing in the Z direction.

I'm not trying to tell you what's what about composites, and maybe I don't understand your product, but unless I'm missing something, a sub box out of this stuff would flex like crazy. I could be totally missing something, but that's what my education and experience in composite design tells me when shooting from the hip.

I'd like to see what you could do if you could get two thin sheets of this stuff, then sandwich this stuff between a good foam or maybe a honeycomb lattice out of aluminum......lots of options.

And yes, I would be worried that a thin piece of CF would have harmonics in and around the audible freq. range. You could add a few materials to it (non-hardening modeling clay) come to mind to damp it, but then you have defeated all of the benefits of CF (high tensile strength and low mass).

Again, I'm not claiming to be an expert on the stuff and it's been a while since I've done any real composite (I just build stuff out of 'glass now ).

 

Oh that makes much more sense. This explains why the magazine was asking about having us make custom molded parts. In our panels there are no fibers in the Z direction. Honeycomb core springs to mind. I have even seen carbon bulkheads for F1 cars are being made with carbon fibers in the Z direction. They shoot tiny carbon pins into a carbon/core panel using an air trumpet and then cure the piece. This makes a much stronger panel.

Thanks for shedding some light on this topic for me.

 

I love technobabble

If you send me a prototype I can test it for ya