carbon based design technologies

hey you can see my little to-be-tang band enclosures in the background! photos of them soon!

someday, i will build a case for this… something… something sleek… something like this…

there is a garage on the property that, at least for the past few years, has mostly been used as housing by rats, a pee-spot by passing drunks, and occasionally to store things by various neighbors. our landlord insists it can be “rented out as a studio” – only, its still just a rat infested, pee-stained empty ex-garage with two garage doors that long ago stopped opening.

ANYways, someone with vision can see that a useable space COULD be coerced out of this particularly stinky space… once all its un-intentional entrances are sealed (including the leaky part of the roof, around the seems of the old garage doors, and anywhere else really), a floor of some sort is laid down, walls put up… in fact, basically the whole place needs to be sealed, then framed up from floor to ceiling, then ply dropped for the floor, ply or sheetrock / drywall the walls and similar for the ceiling. oh and thats after electrical, which currently appears to be two lights bulbs, only one of which works.

you can see there is a drop right as you walk in the door – well, that and a leak – that would allow us to drop in 2×6 floor joists and still not have to step up. however, there may be some problems with that…

i can just touch that 2×6 which means that its at 7’6″ up, meaning the ROOF is at 8′.

you can really tell with this photo and the following two how raked the roof is, so if we were to – as initially intended – drop a level floor, which is not a lofty goal, the height of the room towards the garage door side would be like maybe a foot shorter. combine that with closing up the ceiling (which would feel like your losing another 6 inches) and youve got a 6 ft tall room (at one end).

basically, i need to go back in there, and take some *ahem* more precise measurements.

bass death is a project im working on that consists of the theory behind a bass cannon, but scaled down, and with all found parts. (bass cannon = bass of death = bass death.) essentially its an experiment to see if bass cannon theory is scalable.

the theory is that off either side of any driver come equal but opposite polarity signals (in wave form) that we recognize as “tom waits” or “john coltrane doing is strangled goose noise thing”, but what we may not realize is that half of that speakers signal had to be killed so that we can hear the other half – otherwise these two opposite polarity signals neutralize each other, and this is exactly what “active noise cancellation” is all about. essentially, this is what a speaker “enclosure” aka speaker boxx is for – to deaden one half of any given speakers signal.

so Dr. Amar Gopal Bose – of Bose, and a resident lecturer and all around “cool guy” at MIT – goes, ‘ok, how can we capitalize on both signals – what needs to happen so that we can use both?’

and that answer lies in matching polarity!

and the way to match polarity? send one signal out a tube of distance X, and the other signal out a tube of distance 2X. now, the (extremely limited and thin) theory ive read on this is that higher than subsonics, and it doesnt work – but is should work for anything below, say, 150 hz. only in my minds eye, it should only work for one very specific frequency. never the less, those who have executed Dr. Bose’s strange and wonderous beast (and to scale), have reported success and have implemented it for various warehouse party situations – but im not about to invest in a 15″ sub, 1000 watt mono amp, or the concrete column forms.

having found many discarded, but working subs from 2.1 computer systems, i decided to use a 4″ yamaha driver, in combination with a few smaller but sturdy mailing tubes that house the rolls of banner we use at my shop. measuring 6 wide x 56 tall, these are about the best things going outside of actually purchasing the recommended solution, and the only thing left to procure was the mounts that would bring the whole thing together.

after a few beers, twice as many measurements (“measure twice, cut once”) and an evening of laying out in illustrator, i was ready to send my creations to the router. using scraps of 1/2 inch black pvc from some other job, i was able to bust out one test plate to check the measurements of the seat that the tube sits in – out by 1/10 of an inch! re-adjust measurements, and send the whole thing to cook!

next up was the glueing of the struts to the tube and plate that mostly hold it together. i used a silicon compound of some sort that seemed the most appropriate – really, what i had at hand wasnt all that good, so it was the best of the worst so to speak, but its held together fine.

after that dried, i then went at ‘er with a drill and screws, to really make sure she holds tight – 8 x 2″ drywall screws for each side, from flange to strut, and in tight enough to draw under so their heads dont interfere with the final mating, and 8 x 3/4″ screws / side from strut to tube, just to really make sure everyhing holds.  once completed i then placed, marked, drilled and then mounted the sub to the tube with the slightly smaller plate (smaller so it can receive screws, while the other plate is big enough to clear the sub during mounting). initial tests of just the one tube with driver were positive, but the (fully working regular) speaker that i powered off the other channel of the same amp, with the same power and signal still outperformed it.

that part was last night.

FINALLY today im going to drill the last hole, feed the supply wiring through, mount the two halves, and power that baby up. although i might put in a (im guessing) better driver pulled from an altec lansing 2.1 system of similar proportions, but hopefully higher power handling.

jenn had lots of little things (read: rings, necklaces, loops, thingies, etc) kicking about and always in different locations, with no real method or way of keeping them centralized. I made this two part milky translucent acrylic jewelry tree.

Made a nice engraved sign for jenn’s office – nice enough to cause jealousy office wide (in all both other people, and one lady in Norwegia). 1/16in soft vinyl with a 1/4inch clear acrylic backer. (Notice the panda’s walking on ice? Yeah, guess i got my bears / geographical locations kinda mixed, but whatever.)

i had shown a mysterious preview of the design before hand, but not the end result… until now!

mock up, sandwiched cardboard & double sided tape. i hadnt designed the mate / support yet, but they still supported a bass fine.

first attempt, 1/2 inch white polyvinyl chloride. the angles of the mating piece were too steep, and the slots too wide, so the whole things was wonky, and caving in like.

second attempt, two layers of 1/4 inch foggy white acrylic with double sided tape to hold them together; perfect. gave the supports two slot options that change the angle of their splay, depending on user pref / thickness of instrument used. there now exists three working stands: that one now holds my bass, number two lives upstairs at Noels house, and three holds my guitar.

sidenote: you can see some of my bodoni project in action!

git yers now!

sitting behind a windows machine on a friday night watching old jon stewart shows, waiting for the c&c machine to finish.

heres a taste.

coming soon… here’s a teaser…