Mega Bass Speaker Enclosure

To truly design a proper ported speaker baffle, I think you'd need to do a lot more than a swag at how to design the shape and ports.  One place that I've seen some interesting designs is laptop speakers.  I have a bunch of laptop speakers, and the shapes and sizes of the baffles are pretty interesting.  For tiny speakers, they really pump out the volume and quite decent sound volume.  I've used a few of the laptop speakers in novelty motorized vehicles, and I get way more sound than I'd expect for the size of the speaker.

If I see the design I can 3D print it for you . Might be interesting to others?

@AlanRail - Thanks, I appreciate it. I actually have a 3D printer, but I will post a screenshot of the OpenSCAD preview when I get off work today.  It's technically for a MTH speaker replacement that I bought off Amazon, but I can see it's a lost cause.

Lionel has some nice enclosures for their steamers, and given that Legacy sound is top of the heap in O-gauge as far as I'm concerned, they might be worth a look.  I have acquired a number of the baffles over the years for upgrades, dual fatboy speakers and a proper baffle really give you sound that's really good with nice bass.

Choice of enclosures depends a lot on the specifications of the drivers. Most all vented boxes turn out to be larger than would fit in an O scale engine or piece of rolling stock. Even closed boxes (infinite baffle) won’t fit. Lionel uses the largest that will fit in an empty diesel and a few larger tenders. Even then I doubt they are large enough to give the ideal Qts of .7 For a smooth roll off with no peaks.
If you want to run numbers Parts Express offers data on most of their drivers. There are other online Sites where you can plug in these numbers and get ideal enclosure sizes.

Pete

A. WELLS  glad to hear that! I was also thinking I could make a box FASTER with my laser cutter.

So i'd like to see your design.  Also, you can submit a .STL file to this Forum's  3D prints collection.

i used to mess with some custom automotive audio installs as younger man and i tinkered with building a wood enclosure for an early ps2 engine.  The results were fantastic.  I never posted video because you couldn't really tell the difference in the video.  I experimented with porting.  it for sure made a difference but as to what variation made the most difference I never could decide.  It was a project I lost interest in.  Eventually I sold the engine and the enclosure found the trash.  It was pretty trick.  even used sound mat over the enclosure.  There are some amazing speakers out there like john mentioned the laptop speakers.  Overall I'm not much of an electronic guy and I've never invested in to learning how the boards work and what does what.  But I always felt like there was great potential for gains here.   

About 20 years ago or so I took a Weaver sound system fairly simple and built a pair of small wood speaker boxes and used radio shack speakers for under the table sound for noisy train shows for bell and horn sounds it worked well very loud and lots of extra bass sound. A few years later I took an early Lionel Steam sound system from an engine and installed the speaker in one end of a 3 foot long cardboard shipping tube and left part of the other end open. I have used this for many years at train shows the kids push the whistle button on the fence and they hear a very loud steam train whistle with the tube it is by far louder and has more overall range of sound and bass. Based on this over the years I have tried to move the engine speakers from steam or diesel engines of Lionel to a larger speaker chamber in my tenders or following dummy engines or box cars. I have some times used the cardboard round shipping tubes inside engine or box car bodies. The speaker is glued or taped in one end of the tube and I leave the other end partially open. In all cases these designs have produced more sound volume and and a greater range of sounds and much improved bass sound.

For example I have picked up some of the Lionel LionChief FA B units that I had found on sale, I use these for train shows to push other dummy engines. I install the LionChief controls on the fence for the kids to run trains. I found that I could plug an extension cord from powered B units that do not have a speaker but still have a plug in the boards for sound. I run wires to a dummy A unit and with the speaker installed in a cardboard tube inside the dummy A unit body. When I compare one of these set ups with the same design of FA A powered units with sound the sound in the dummy A unit engines always sound far better with more sound range and bass and louder then the factory designed systems.

I think that if you experimented with the largest sound chamber that you could fit into an engine or tender then you could experiment with having air holes of various sizes to see the effects. You can always build a plastic baffle box from thick sheet styrene to create a box to fit an odd space and just ensure the speaker is secured tight to enclosure. In my experiments the bigger the sound chamber of any size the better the overall sound and much improved bass sounds. Anything you can design or use should improve your sounds.

@kj356 - The points you bring up are very interesting and actually lead into what I'm ultimately trying to accomplish. I should probably come clean with this goal and you'll see that our work is very similar.  Unfortunately, it's a full ZOOM day for me and I'm not sure when I'll have time to divulge my plans.

Anthony

Just an old spray can lid over the speaker will greatly improve things.  Obviously, not the best that could be achieved, but a two minute investment in time can give you a substantial boost in both sound quality and volume.

john is right. I use a top from my big lots brand shave cream its orange and has one tiny hole in it. I try to tape it so the sound does not escape the sides as much as possible. it realy helps improves older proto two steamers with speakers in the tender. there is lots of room usually for this mod. it surprisingly works well and is cheap and easy to do.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Just an old spray can lid over the speaker will greatly improve things.  Obviously, not the best that could be achieved, but a two minute investment in time can give you a substantial boost in both sound quality and volume.

This is actually how my process started the results were great and that inspired me to see where I could take it .  

I only took it as far as using some of the nice Lionel baffles that are available on the parts site.   I have also constructed a small Styrene box to enclose two speakers in tenders to improve the sound as well.  For single speakers, I have a bunch of thinwall 2" PVC pipe, I cut a piece to length and glue a Styrene cap on it to construct the baffle.

@kj356

Interestingly enough I have a 4 foot long cardboard tube.  With a bass speaker installed, it reminds me of a compression blaster.  However, I've always wondered about the resonate aspects based on the length of the tube (think wind chimes) but I'm not about to touch that.

I'm upgrading one of my Rock Island E8A PS1's to PS3. In the process, I wanted to add two base speakers and replace the stock MTH speaker.  (I also wanted to add LED's to the interior and cab, covers for the top grills, a model engine interior, and working fans.)  Like you, I wanted to shunt the sound to the EB unit.  To accomplish this, I want to find the unamplified audio signal (line level) on the PS3 board, shunt that into a 3 way active splitter (which I'll need to make), feed one output back into the PS3 board, another into a Class D 3 Watt amplifier (that I have) for two bass speakers, and the remaining one into another amplifier in the B unit.

For the SoundTraxx mega bass speakers, I have decided to first try the square version and 3D print an enclosure using my Pioneer subwoofer as a model.  With a little caffeine, I'm hoping to complete that, along with my other project laundry list, this weekend.

I have decided to leave the MTH speaker in place in the A unit and add a speaker to the B unit since there is enough room in it for an enclosure.

Anthony

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I only took it as far as using some of the nice Lionel baffles that are available on the parts site.   I have also constructed a small Styrene box to enclose two speakers in tenders to improve the sound as well.  For single speakers, I have a bunch of thinwall 2" PVC pipe, I cut a piece to length and glue a Styrene cap on it to construct the baffle.

As I recall John, the setup you put in the Santa Fe Northern tender could fill Carnegie Hall. If you have a video of it handy you should show these guys what can be done with off the shelf components.

Pete

I think I supplied the speakers to Pat for one of those, but I didn't do one myself.  I had some really nice (and big) speakers I found some time back and sent them to him.  I do believe he posted about it here.

Can anyone show pictures, or even sketches, of these installations?

A top from a laundry soap container, a top from a shaving cream can, etc., etc. Sometimes a great baffle is in our hands and we discard it. Try whatever fits. Don't think about it. Matching the speaker can take all kinds of variables to figure out. What works, is what works.

I have a small pill bottle attached to the inside of my scratch build SD80MAC above the fuel tank with dual 4"? speakers inside.

(EMD) G scale engine CR (NS) SD80MAC build | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

Our grandson saw it and asked what it's for. It's for bass response. It doesn't look like it would help. I was surprised that something so small, happened to tune it. I got lucky. I tried a bigger one and it was no help. Open back port to the whole shell wasn't good. A small pill bottle was good to my ears. No calculating!

quick 3D print model

need dimensions and speaker screw hole locations.

Bigger is not better when it come to speaker enclosures.  Every speaker has a set enclosure size at which it will work best in.  Too big and it's as if it's not there, too small and the sound waves can't do their thing.  Putting a tube on the front the speaker is adding a horn to it, and helps with volume and direction of the sound waves.

When it comes to ported/sealed boxes, that's really a matter of personal taste.  I like the tight sound response of a sealed box.  It also has a lot to do with the sound you have coming out of the speaker.  It you have something with lots of rumble, a sealed enclosure would be better as it helps the speaker move back to center quicker, so better produces the rumble.  A ported box is better for a hit and hold sound.  Ports also work best pointed at the listener, which is why they won't do much good if it does into the locomotive body.

There are all kinds of formulas to help you in designing an enclosure, ported or sealed.  Something is better is nothing in the end, which is why the aerosol can lids and the enclosures Lionel have work.

@AlanRail - Are you going to 3D print that our laser cut it?  And, are you going to tell me about this laser cutter of yours?

@Lionelzwl2012 posted:

john is right. I use a top from my big lots brand shave cream its orange and has one tiny hole in it. I try to tape it so the sound does not escape the sides as much as possible. it realy helps improves older proto two steamers with speakers in the tender. there is lots of room usually for this mod. it surprisingly works well and is cheap and easy to do.

This works, because the sound off the back of the speaker is one hundred & eighty degrees out of phase with that off the front, so most of the bass is canceled out.

thank you MONK

Here is an enclosure I worked up for the SoundTraxx 810131...

Looking forward to printing it and trying it out.