Building a Sample Woofer

Building sample drive units as they have been designed by Andrew or Ian is an integral part of our testing process. Our in-house machine shop allows us to sample the various metal parts required quite easily and then it is time for assembly of the sample driver. Below is a look at some of the steps involved.

Subwoofer Building
Alan Lofft holds the large two-inch woofer voice coil on its assembly, the starting piece for building a sample woofer.

Subwoofer Building
Debbie Swinton prepares a mounting jig for the voice coil, to which the aluminum cone is attached later in the process.

Subwoofer Building
Debbie removes the installed voice coil assembly from the mounting jig.

Subwoofer Building
Here Debbie has attached the voice coil to the flexible spider.

Subwoofer Building
A layer of glue is applied to the base of the magnet assembly.

Subwoofer Building
The ferrite magnet is glued to the magnet assembly. Later on, the ferrite core will be magnetized in Axiom's magnetizer.

Subwoofer Building
Here she glues a retainer ring to the ferrite magnet. The retainer ring and magnet assembly will be attached to the large aluminum woofer basket.

Subwoofer Assembly
In this picture, Debbie screws the cast aluminum basket to the speaker magnet assembly.

completed subwoofer assembly
The completed aluminum basket with its attached woofer magnet structure.

Subwoofer Building
Debbie uses a jig to center the voice coil and spider assembly in the center of the magnet structure, and glues it into place.

subwoofer
A bead of glue is applied to the voice coil spider assembly, ready to receive the aluminum woofer cone.

Subwoofer Building
Finally, Debbie takes the aluminum cone and its composite rubber surround to glue it to the basket and voice-coil assembly.

Assembled Subwoofer Driver
Debbie shows the completed 12-inch woofer driver, ready for testing.

Ian Colquhoun and Tom Cumberland at the magnetizer.
When a test woofer is built at Axiom, the magnet core material is unmagnetized. This machine magnetizes the woofer magnets.

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