[MuZo2]

@khbaur Lets say if we can etch that pattern on pcb can we transfer it to kapton. If thats possible I think we can  make something quickly.


 

 

[FraGGleR]

  I think this is a sick thread. Are there any people out there thinking about an "Open Source" audiophile community where we share ideas freely on printing our own -and/or simply where to source- various headphone parts, including drivers such as electrostatic or planar magnetic designs? I think it'd be really cool if there were DIY headphone designs and headphone kits just like the DIY amplifiers and stuff. If that community existed would this be our thread, or might we think about making a separate forum for all the possibilities that that might create? I mean, DIY IEM's (balanced armature drivers can be bought for relatively cheap, ear impressions can be made for "pennies," 3D printing and scanning is getting to the point you could just print your own custom ear molds pretty soon, although it's probably not there quite yet), 3D printable enclosures or volume knobs, or just various parts that are cost efficient to print, DIY headphone frames/cups that would allow for various baffle chassis to snap into place that could be surrogate homes for a slew of different (possibly -hopefully even- home brew planar) drivers, etc. Like that's such an awesome community I can't even imagine where all that would lead to down the road, and it would mostly be free, or cost of parts, plus the time/knowledge needed to design these things in a 3D environment (as well as time/knowledge to design and set up our 3D printers and where/who to source materials from) so we can print everything. And for people who don't want to go down that rabbit hole, other people with the time, knowledge and equipment can print kits and/or preassemble these kits for other people at the cost of whatever that's all worth to the involved parties.
 
To tell the truth, I don't even have a 3D printer yet, nor any of the equipment needed to "print" my planar magnetic diaphragm design, but I've got some ideas on building a (at least imo) pretty sick planar magnetic driver inspired by a lot of the vintage cans that I've auditioned/owned/sold/drooled over over the years, while attempting to stay true to the original "cheap bastards" mentality of the Ortho Roundup thread. I came here to tell you guys all about it as well as share my CAD designs with you but then realized I was rambling about my own project and you might not be interested. So, do people want to make a separate forum where we design/build/tweak headphones and learn stuff with/from each other "for free," and if so, where do I sign up, or who wants to build it, because I've got some stuff I'd like to post that I think might interest a few people.?

I like the idea of an open source thread, especially one around home fabrication tech.  I am subscribed to this thread as I do hope to get a 3D printer in the coming year, but right now I am focused on CNC machining.  I have a Shapeoko 2 coming and will share any useful designs I come up with.
 
PS Big Chicago meet in a month!  Trying to drum up attendance.

 

[PalJoey]

Hum. Not understanding even half an iota of the technical stuff on this thread, is there a way of printing the circuitry, then laying the driver membrane on the circuitry after the printing process, so it sticks to it? Avoids the heat problems, as far as I can tell.
 

 

[khbaur330162]

I'd like to ask if anyone has attempted to print a trace onto a diaphragm using a laser printer? I understand that even a conventional laser printer uses ink which is conductive, and I further understand that the conductivity of that ink probably won't be adequate to the task here, but I'm curious to know if anyone has actually tried it? Has anyone found a diaphragm material which will withstand the heat of being printed on with a conventional laser printer and ink? 

I believe we're confused here. The ultraviolet laser in the Peachy Printer is being used to break down inhibitor molecules in solution with the liquid resin. The UV breaks down the inhibitor molecules at our desired site(s) and the resin reacts with itself, or solidifies, much like a two part epoxy, afaik. To make things more complicated, the resin and laser strength are matched (inhibitor molecule density within the resin and number of UV photons bombarding the resin per second) and were designed to "cure" resin ONLY at the very surface of the liquid resin and ONLY wherever we point the laser (sunlight is not our friend here). By floating this resin on top of a salt water solution and by slowly dripping salt water underneath this resin, the resin slowly floats upward in our container allowing the laser to "print" objects out of this resin in three dimensions. I want to tell the software that my 3D object exists entirely within two dimensions, and I want to tell the software that that object exists on the plane of my photopolymer laminated diaphragm material sitting directly underneath the laser, and then I want the laser to make it happen. It theoretically will selectively expose the photopolymer allowing me to develop the image in soda ash so I can etch everything BUT my desired artwork.
 
As for laser printing, this is what Wikipedia says: "Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics by passing a laser beam over a charged drum to define a differentially charged image. The drum then selectively collects charged toner and transfers the image to paper, which is then heated to permanently fix the image." I'm fairly certain you could print toner onto whatever diaphragm material you have in mind to no ill effect, the heat should be minimal, but I'm also guessing the toner isn't conductive, so where that leaves you I'm not really sure. Not impossible, maybe we'll see conductive toners for laser printers soon, I really don't know if that goes against a laser printer's operating principal (if the toner was conductive, could it hold a static charge like that in order for the drum to pick it up/transfer it to your desired medium?).
 

  1. I think there is a project to use conductive ink in printer.
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597902824/agic-print-printing-circuit-boards-with-home-print
 
 
2. Peachy Printer to drive laser? I donot undestand this, use of 3d printer to etch circuit artwork?
 
@khbaur Lets say if we can etch that pattern on pcb can we transfer it to kapton. If thats possible I think we can  make something quickly.

1. Interesting product. My biggest concern:

  How long does a printed circuit work?

At least 1 year as long as the printed sheet is not physically broken. As this is a kind of new technology, we have not yet conducted long-term endurance tests, but they worked more than 1 year. Rather than the circuit pattern, it is much more likely to happen that the printed sheets are physically broken as they are just paper. If you use printed papers in a wild environment, it would be better to laminate them.

Can it withstand our applications environment? How long do we want these headphones to last? Apart from reliability it looks interesting. I wonder how many times they have to print their artwork in order to achieve those resistance values. How thick and heavy is the conductive ink after those prints? Will the ink clog my printer heads after x number of prints? The method just seems messy to me, and how well will it actually work? Regardless, I think it could work, but whether or not that's the method I'd choose for an open source project like this is my question.
 
2. Read the more in depth description I wrote for Q Mass on the Peachy Printer's operating principals and my intended use for it. I have another method in mind to create high resolution etch resists for diaphragm fabrication, but the equipment either is in repair or hasn't been bought yet. As I've searched for ways to accomplish this project I kept going back to trying to find the "perfect" metallized film, and I think I've found it (although polyimide might not be the best material to use here, perhaps Wharfedale got it right with pleating). Etching the artwork into a Copper clad board, lifting it off the PCB and then re-adhering it to your desired diaphragm material sounds time consuming, is still a subtractive process, and adds the mass of whatever adhesive you'd use to the diaphragm's final weight... which isn't necessarily bad, I guess. I mean I have no idea what the optimal "average density" is for a diaphragm of this size and shape being used to reproduce the audible bandwidth at the average listening volume... or if optimal is even objective in this case... or if the adhesive layer might magically act as some kind of frequency response shaping steroid, or perhaps a diaphragm resonance buffer. It's impossible for me to really say. Not even sure if serpentine is the route I should have taken, tbph.
 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

As seen there, the stator on the ECR-500 selectively drives a ~55mm diameter portion of the electret diaphragm which just so happens to be suspiciously centered within the scalene pentagon. In order to stay true to the ECR-500 spirit we'd probably want a coil pattern. What's the difference? The serpentine circuit I've created might not play well with the engineering research already done and at work in our ECR-headphones.
 
 

  I like the idea of an open source thread, especially one around home fabrication tech.  I am subscribed to this thread as I do hope to get a 3D printer in the coming year, but right now I am focused on CNC machining.  I have a Shapeoko 2 coming and will share any useful designs I come up with.
 
PS Big Chicago meet in a month!  Trying to drum up attendance.
 

 
Will be interesting to see what we can cook up in here, glad to have you on the team! I've been "on vacation" from this hobby for so long I almost have no idea what kinds of equipment and music would jump out at me at a meet like that. I'll think about it, it sounds like fun.
 

  Hum. Not understanding even half an iota of the technical stuff on this thread, is there a way of printing the circuitry, then laying the driver membrane on the circuitry after the printing process, so it sticks to it? Avoids the heat problems, as far as I can tell.
 

There are lots of guys using Aluminum tape over in the diyaudio forum. Not sure how that method would measure for headphones, I think the mass and overall resolution (which will affect impedance) of the circuit design that you'd be able to create would be your limiting factors taking that approach. Printing you circuit and adhering it to your diaphragm substrate isn't a bad idea, I just haven't put too much thought towards that direction, I was pursuing a direct print, selective vacuum vapor deposition (similar to RFID antenna fabrication technology), or just etching the darn things myself. If we could find a company that could print our diaphragms (a Chinese ribbon tweeter manufacturer, perhaps) and convince them through the power of a group buy, perhaps we could get diaphragms printed for us, Irdk. BUT!!!! I especially like the Peachy Printer community, I think that product has a lot of potential. I'd almost rather do more work and make the diaphragm myself because it gives me another toy to mess around with and I could then prototype tons of different circuits, not just planar magnetic diaphragms. I always wanted to learn about amplifier technology, but barely got my feet wet. Being able to pull schematics off the internet and print them from the comfort of my own home sounds pretty hardcore, even though I'd barely know how to populate them...
 
Links to interesting reading material on the subject:
Planar magnetic headphone drivers out of mylar film and aluminum tape.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/headphone-systems/228986-full-range-planar-headphones-using-neodynium-magnets.html
Planar magnetic speakers out of mylar film and aluminum tape.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/95541-full-range-planar-speaker-using-neo-magnets.html
Planar magnetic speakers out of mylar, aluminum foil, and a chemical etching process. (Not yet personally read)
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/255960-viability-test-diy-screen-printing-planar-magnetics.html

 

[Q Mass]

Thanks for the explanation of the Peachy dude.
Its a very interesting tech', but my query wasn't aimed at that at all.

I was hoping someone could enlighten me regarding whether a thin diaphragm material of the type which would suit our purposes could survive the heat encountered in a conventional office laser printer.

It seems from your Wiki quote that heat is used to
'fix' the ink, so this, and the heat (if any) from the laser itself are my concerns.
Would thin Kapton/Hostaphan/Mylar/whatever survive this heat if printed on directly by a laser printer?


Also:
I may well be labouring under a misapprehension regarding the conductivity of conventional laser printer ink.
Whenever I google around the subject all I get are the proposed projects to create new inks or tech' to achieve printable circuits, but I thought I'd read that conventional laser print ink has some conductivity.
Anyone know if this is true?

The AgIC inkjet printed circuit tech is very interesting, I wish it was already available as that wouldn't even involve heat!

I know this thread is supposed to be about 3D printing, so sorry about the OT, I'd create an 'Open source DIY ortho' thread myself but that probably wouldn't be wise given my very limited understanding of the issues involved.

 

[khbaur330162]

I don't think the heat involved with laser printing is an issue, and I'm pretty sure it can be used as a direct print etch resist. Sounds really, really cheap. Probably the easiest method if the resolution is up to the task, which I'm fairly certain it is. Easily worth looking into if someone's got some metallized film that they can feed through a laser printer. I've looked into methods for tensioning the diaphragm, settled on clips, string, weights and pulleys, but haven't built any kind of jig for it, yet. In a pinch I planned to just use tape and a table like some of the guys in the DIY electrostatic thread. Here are the files for the magnet assembly and spacers if anyone's interested.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:341212/#files

 

[khbaur330162]

Cool update for those interested.
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?3190-Exposing-Photopolymer-Laminated-Copper-Clad-Boards-With-A-Peachy&p=17286&viewfull=1#post17286
Looks promising for a preliminary trial run, imo.

 

[MuZo2]

Can you post picture of PurEtch material.
 

 

[khbaur330162]

Jennifer has some videos up of her using her product. Fast forward to 1:00 to see her unroll, slice up, and laminate some of her film onto a blank.
 

 
PurEtch is not a "special" product, really, there are many other photosensitive films that you can use in exactly similar fashions. The cool thing about PurEtch, imo, is how thin the photosensitive layer is. If you check out the link I provided directing you to the 3D printing forums you'll notice the Peachy Printer logo is underexposed which means (if I'm understanding Pete's process correctly) the laser is either "too weak" or the laser simply needs to spend more time exposing any given location. If he had used PurEtch instead of a presensitized Copper clad board the exposure time might have been perfect. Again, though, PurEtch is not the star of this show, you could substitute just about any photosentitive film/product, I'd wager.
 
Oh, and if you read on into that 3DPrintBoard thread you'll see they're discussing direct etch resists resin printing. This would make things even easier as there would be no developing stage. You take a piece of diaphragm material, throw it into the printing bay, it prints your circuit in plastic (which will act as an etch resist for the underlying Copper) on top of the Copper layer, then you drop it into an acid bath for etching... Would be too good to be true if it worked without (m)any hitches. About as easy as printing your etch resist using a laser printer/toner... Plus the benefit of being able to put an etch resist virtually anywhere on a 3D object with a healthy dose of calibration and effort. And of course being able to print 3D objects. We don't "need" the Peachy to help us make our diaphragms, but if it can I'm not complaining, and any techniques we develop here could be used for countless other hobbies, at least in my mind.

 

[nick n]

What about precision silkscreening using special ink of whatever "concentration" you thought worked the best. You could vary concentrations, types etc for trials.
Burn the image in with the light to your printing screen and it's good for a while. And reasonably cheap to do. Though not sure how the screen would hold up but it woild be more than one trace set on a sheet.
 
If you didn't want to explore that there is the other method using the green ( if I recall ) mask film that you precisely cut away the shape you need.
With the right initial burn of the mask on the screen and proper setup hinged correctly and strongly you can get some really fine lines going.
 
Just an idea.
 
The flux plates could either be simple flat ones like the yamahas used, or u channeled ones similar to what the current fostex lineup uses along the bar magnets.
 
I dunno really

 

[khbaur330162]

The MakerJuice Flex resin looks interesting. I think you could print an entire Grado style headband and whatever cups you want out of the Flex and Stiff resins, but Idk what any of the stuff is like irl, or how well it would hold up over time to everyday usage. But a couple Grado-clone yokes and friction set hinge/head size adjuster boxes, driver housings, baffle adapters that accept whatever pads you want, all out of the Stiff resin, few screws to keep it all together sourced from a local hardware store, or maybe it snaps together, headband out of the Flex resin, etc.

Spoiler: reference here

Idrk, either. They're looking into bio-resins which sounds pretty cool. I wonder if you could eventually just smash up and compost failed printed designs, like backyard recycling or something.
 
I agree, the T50RP is a grab bag of tricks. Deriving an open source ortho from its design would definitely be on the right track to something, imo. Remember when T50RP's sold for like $50...? Anyway, the flux plates have to be cheaper than the magnets themselves for it to make sense, right? At least in the sense of wrapping the flux back around towards the diaphragm in order to cut down on the number of needed magnets. If we're trying to eek out a few extra dB/mW's then you could just take my preexisting magnet assembly, horizontally slice off everything beneath the bottom of the magnet slots in the z axis (the magnets should be able to slide all the way through with some applied force, the "magnet assembly" is now basically a frame work of windows that the magnets lay inside of), and then you take the remainder of the design (the part you sliced off) and mill that with a CNC machine out of SS sheets bought off Amazon, or something, and then sandwich everything together. You just basically need 100mm perforated SS coins stamped out. You could print retention rings, or whatever else you need, out of resin to finish off the build in my mind.

 

[Q Mass]

Regarding magnets:
Is there any reason that they must be bar mag's?

Could a whole bunch of smaller round or square mags arranged in a grid be used?

I'm certain I saw a detailed explanation of how planar diaphragms interact with magnet assemblies, with diagrams, but I've been searching for this without success, and I can't remember the details.

Does anyone else remember the post or page I'm thinking of?

 

[MuZo2]

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/how-planar-magnetic-headphones-work


 

 

[PalJoey]

Regarding magnets:
Is there any reason that they must be bar mag's?

Could a whole bunch of smaller round or square mags arranged in a grid be used?

I'm certain I saw a detailed explanation of how planar diaphragms interact with magnet assemblies, with diagrams, but I've been searching for this without success, and I can't remember the details.

Does anyone else remember the post or page I'm thinking of?

Hey, go the whole hog and use electromagnets!

 

[Q Mass]

Thanks man, that gives me a better understanding of what's going on between the magnet assemblies.
 
I guess that the bar magnets allow the serpentine strip of the trace to make best use of the magnetic fields without 'wasting' parts of the trace upon the gaps which would inevitably appear between the magnets more often on a 'grid' type arrangement.
 
The Inner fidelity article is very good, I wonder if Tyll would consider expanding it with info on single sided assemblies like the Abyss ( I think I've read that these are single sided )  and the Opo PM1 ( I'm less certain re' these being single sided )?
 
Has anyone ever made an ortho' that uses electromagnets?
 
P.S. sorry again about all the O.T, but I suppose that all the tech' we're discussing here could potentially be home fabricated with the help of 3D printing!
 
Edited for typo's