Building instructions - Ponkala/audiopoli-protone GitHub Wiki

Enclosure

Make sure you have the correct pieces for building a single speaker:

  • Enclosure front
  • Enclosure back
  • 2 enclosure side pieces
  • 2 enclosure top/bottom pieces

Equipment:

  • Wood glue (we used Kiilto-66)
  • 2 clamps
  • Scrap wood/plastic/anything to keep clamps from touching your beautiful wood
Parts for the speaker enclosure.

Step 1: Glueing sides to top and bottom pieces

  • Apply wood glue to the shorter sides of the side pieces (larger pieces)
  • Spread the glue using your finger
  • Attach pieces together
  • Spend some making sure everything aligns well
Glue side pieces to top and bottom pieces and attach pieces together
  • Attach clamps AND USE SCRAP WOOD OR PLASTIC TO PROTECT THE WOOD
  • Tune the clamps and make sure everything aligns well by adjusting the pieces by hand
  • Let rest for 20 minutes
  • Use this time to apply wood glue to inner and outer seams to seal them (very hi-fi)
Clamps attached WITH WOOD SCRAPS TO PROTECT YOUR BEAUTIFUL SPEAKERS

Step 2: Glueing front and back pieces

  • Check that the longer side of the side pieces and front and back pieces have the same length. If not, measure and cut an appropriate amount from over the tweeter using a circular saw.
  • Check that attaching the front and back pieces leaves no large gaps and possible fix them by sanding the enclosure.
  • Apply wood glue on all edges of both front and back pieces
  • Spread wood glue using your finger
  • Make sure the oval tweeter hole on the front piece and reflex tube mounting hole on the back piece align. The medium sized round hole on the back piece should be behind the tweeter and not the woofer element.
Apply wood glue on all edges of both front and back pieces.
  • Attach the pieces
  • Use some time to align the pieces as well as you can
  • Attach a clamp (or two) AND USE SCRAP WOOD OR PLASTIC TO PROTECT THE WOOD
  • Let rest for 20 minutes
  • Apply wood glue to the inner and outer seams to seal them
A full enclosure with a clamp.

Step 3: Woofer circle

  • Apply glue on the outside of the woofer inset circle and put in place.
Attaching the wooder inset circle

Step 4: Enclosure finishes

  • It is generally recommended to sand all visible sides of the enclosure.
  • Before applying primer or paint, it is recommended to apply a 50-50 mixture of wood glue and water to the enclosure, using a paintbrush.
  • Apply primer and paint

Electronics

Parts

For completing the speaker pair build, you will need the following 18 items:
Parts for completing a speaker pair.

  1. 2 power cables

  2. 2 aux power cables

  3. 4 audio output cables

  4. 2 audio input cables

  5. ~30cm xlr cable (split this into 2x15cm)

  6. 2 protone audicrossover pcbs

  7. 2 power connector fuses

  8. 2 power connectors

  9. 2 xlr ports

  10. 2 icepower 50asx2se
More parts for completing a speaker pair.

  1. 2 woofers

  2. 2 tweeters

  3. 2 reflex tubes (Tube 50 mm, length 145 mm)

  4. 2 audio guides

  5. 2 audio guide clamps

  6. sound absorbing wool (you will need a lot more than in image!)

  7. insulation tape for waveguide. ~40cm needed.

  8. ~32 screws

Crossover

You will get the crossover as panelized and populated pcb's. This means that there are two crossover/panel that you have to separate from each other. It is important that you do not flex the pcb's when you separate them, as that can cause stress in the components that can break them. The siderails can be left on if you so wish.
Be careful when seperating the pcb's from each other.

Connections

XLR

The cabling from the XLR connector to the crossover is ~10cm of XLR cable. The nicer you strip the wires the easier it is to solder them on the pcb as the holes for the wiring are quite small.

  • RED is positive signal
  • WHITE is negative signal
  • SHIELDING is ground or shielding
End result should look something like this.

Solder the XLR wire as shown to the crossover:
Soldering the XLR cable to the crossover.

Before soldering the XLR connector, you should insert the crossover into the speaker enclosure, pull the wire through the XLR connector hole and then solder it outside of the enclosure. Then solder the XLR connector using the XLR female pinout below.
Connecting the wires to the XLR connector.

Tweeter/Woofer Connections

Strip the wires of the tweeter and woofer cables and solder as in the following image:
Solder the tweeter cable as shown.

When both of the wires are soldered correctly it should look like this:
Tweeter and woofer wires soldered correctly (marked with arrows).

Aux power cable

Strip the wires and solder as shown below:
Correctly soldered aux power cable (marked with arrow).

Power

Insert the fuse inside of power connector. Attach the button to the power connector and check that it aligns with the below image so that the wiring corresponds.
Insert the fuse inside the power connector.

Wiring behind the connector. You can cut the small wires from the amplifier power cables, as they are very long.
Wiring for the power connector.

Element Connections

Strip the wires and solder to the elements. If you are confused about which speaker connection is positive and which is negative, then ask an EE major. The datasheets do not answer this question, so I guess it's some electrical engineering voodoo shit.

Connecting everything

You should connect everything to the Icepower 50asx2se module by simply plugging the connectors. The only ambiguity should be in the tweeter and woofer connections. After plugging a crossover output wire to the Signal Input in the amplifier module, the corresponding output channel is the physically closer one. Make sure that the tweeter and woofer connections (marked in the crossover) actually go into the tweeter and woofer.

Please check the datasheet if something is unclear: https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/manuals/326-112--icepower-50asx2se-class-d-amp-datasheet.pdf

A finished module should look something like this:
Wiring for the power connector.