 |
Version 2.0 has been a great system for the past two years with many trips down the Guadalupe, to the lake, and the beach. But it’s time to raise the bar a little for 2011. With every new build I try to go louder with a cleaner sound than anything I have seen on the river. Not having the advantage of the confined air space in a car for sound to bounce around, I found car speakers were not cutting it in the open air of the outdoors. The general design will be the same; I'm still using the ICE CUBE igloo cooler with four mid range speakers on the top corners with the sub in the middle.
The changes to ver 3.0
Upgrading the four midrange speaker to Alpine's SPR-M700 seven inch marine speakers. These things are made for the outdoors so sound quality and the speakers getting wet should not be an issue. They are also very big and since I only have the top of the cooler to work with I will be moving to Infinity's 860w 8 inch sub. This is a much higher quality sub than the Sony sub from Wal-Mart. If I can get the same boom out of the Infinity as the Sony I will be happy. I am 90% sure that I will be using the Pyle PLMRA420 1000 watt four channel amp to power my speakers. Some of the bench tests I have done on it have been promising. All this will be tied together with Sony's CDX-GT700HD head unit. The final major change will be me trying my hand at fiberglass.
Check out the Your Cooler Radio section of the forums for the latest pictures and specs of the build. Please post any questions you have about ver 3.0 in the forums. This helps others that may have the same questions.
I use 1/2" MDF for the base of building the whole enclosure.
I graph the top sheet this helps to keep things centered, square and can help make sure you have enough room to fit all your speakers.
The top piece is 19”X17” This covers the whole top lid with a little overlap that I will trim later after the speaker pods are built.
Cutting the sub hole. If you have a router it makes cutting circles a breeze.
I marked the outer edge of the sub so I will always know if have enough clearance for the speaker pods. After checking my speaker depth I know how much of the corners to cut off to mount my speakers.
Cut the corners to mount the speaker rings.
Cut the speaker rings.
The lip is where I will staple the fleece to the ring. This will make more sense when I start on the fiberglass.
Cutting and framing the lid.
Marked and drilled mounting holes for the lid and removed some of the excess deck to give the top a smoother look.
To keep the speaker pods Identical I will create a form to mold all four pods. I glued sheets of styrofoam packing I had to form a styrofoam block. Using a sander I shaped the block into what I want my speaker pods to look like.
I covered the styrofoam with masking tape to prevent the resin from melting the styrofoam and resin does not stick to the tape making removal easier.
Spray adhesive works great for working with fleece.
Now for the resin. I added a layer of chop mat to give my form some extra strength.
Split my mold in half, remover the styrofoam and applied a coat of resin to the inside.
Started to build the foam molds for the speaker pods. I lined the inside of the mold with duct tape and used car wax to help release the foam.
I use a two part liquid expanding urethane foam.
A little goes a long way.
Trim off the excess and pop it out of the mold.
I wrap the foam with masking tape to help prevent the resin soaked fleece from sticking to the foam mold.
I added a small piece of half inch mdf to give me a flat solid mounting surface for the top cover.
Wrapped with fleece and trimmed. I use 3m spray adhesive to attach the fleece.
Time for resin.
Used a big knife and slowly cut and ripped out all the foam.
Glassed the other three pods.
Reinforcing the inside with chop mat.
Sanding to remove the high spots.
I use auto body filler to fill in the low spots.
I use 80 grit to smooth it all out.
Mounted to the lid.
I had to build the sub box with a slight triangular shape to clear the amp and allow the lid to close. Inside dimentions are Height 8" / Width 12" / Depth one 7" / Depth two 10" giving me .47 cubic feet.
 | 
