Help Needed! Woofer works but Tweeter doesn't.

[Jdurg]

Yesterday my Dayton RS621BK speaker kits arrived in the mail. My roommate and I were up until 7:00 this morning putting them together. (What can I say, we were both really into building them and hearing them in action).

First off, these kits are a bit tough to build. There is absolutely no room to maneuver in the case once the acoustic foam is installed according to instructions. Figuring out how to get the crossover boards in there made me glad I went to college. :D (Hint-Hint Parts Express. Perhaps you should make the back side of it removeable as I'd rather spend time gluing the back on than fiddling around hoping not to break anything as I install the crossovers).

Regardless, these speakers are beautiful looking and I will soon be placing an order for another set to use as my surround speakers.

Anyway, here is where I need help. I got one of the speakers built successfully as both the tweeter and woofer work. On the other one, however, only the woofer is making noise. Not the tweeter.

When I discovered this I went and removed the tweeter and tested it on it's own. (hooked it up right to my amplifier with the volume at minimum, then SLOWLY raised it in one point increments until I heard audio coming out of the tweeter. I immediately turned everything off since at least I know the tweeter is working.

With the woofer working, I also know that the woofer crossover is working just fine. So that leaves me with the tweeter crossover not working. I've desoldered the connections to the binding post terminal and from board to board to allow me to test everything easier.

I bought a good digital multimeter that I'll use to test the boards themselves, but I honestly don't know what to look for. I know how to check for continuity and I've checked each component's connection to the next one in the line and they all check out okay. I guess the one thing that I'm not sure is how to check for connections that SHOULDN'T be there.

Can anyone give me some tips or advice on how to check my crossover boards to see if they're set up properly? MANY thanks to any help I can get. I can't wait to get these speakers up and running. :D I think I've just found myself a new, great sounding hobby.

[Æ]

You don't really need a multimeter to check a crossover.
Just hook up your woofer along the circuit at various points. Yes, use one of the woofers to check the tweeter section of the crossover and listen. You won't have to worry about blowing up anything, because the woofer can handle the power.

Most new circuit failures are because of poor/bad solder joints. Visual inspection is very important. I'm not familiar with your crossover, but there will be a capacitor and maybe a resistor in series with the tweeter. Either one of those components could be bad if the soldering checks out. Do you have any alligator clips with wires attached? You can always bypass suspected parts, components with the alligator clips/wires.


Yesterday my Dayton RS621BK speaker kits arrived in the mail. My roommate and I were up until 7:00 this morning putting them together. (What can I say, we were both really into building them and hearing them in action).

First off, these kits are a bit tough to build. There is absolutely no room to maneuver in the case once the acoustic foam is installed according to instructions. Figuring out how to get the crossover boards in there made me glad I went to college. :D (Hint-Hint Parts Express. Perhaps you should make the back side of it removeable as I'd rather spend time gluing the back on than fiddling around hoping not to break anything as I install the crossovers).

Regardless, these speakers are beautiful looking and I will soon be placing an order for another set to use as my surround speakers.

Anyway, here is where I need help. I got one of the speakers built successfully as both the tweeter and woofer work. On the other one, however, only the woofer is making noise. Not the tweeter.

When I discovered this I went and removed the tweeter and tested it on it's own. (hooked it up right to my amplifier with the volume at minimum, then SLOWLY raised it in one point increments until I heard audio coming out of the tweeter. I immediately turned everything off since at least I know the tweeter is working.

With the woofer working, I also know that the woofer crossover is working just fine. So that leaves me with the tweeter crossover not working. I've desoldered the connections to the binding post terminal and from board to board to allow me to test everything easier.

I bought a good digital multimeter that I'll use to test the boards themselves, but I honestly don't know what to look for. I know how to check for continuity and I've checked each component's connection to the next one in the line and they all check out okay. I guess the one thing that I'm not sure is how to check for connections that SHOULDN'T be there.

Can anyone give me some tips or advice on how to check my crossover boards to see if they're set up properly? MANY thanks to any help I can get. I can't wait to get these speakers up and running. :D I think I've just found myself a new, great sounding hobby.

[dotzs]

take your meter and set it on impedance and continuity then take the meter + lead and - lead and check if signal is passing thru the parts.Don't worry this happens to everyone sometimes when we are rushing to hear something.
Keep posting till its up & running-probably something very simple.

A nifty tool for screwing in cross overs is an extension bit like a 12 incher that can change tips-these always come in handy . These may not be a simple build but when you are done you are going to be a happy camper.

[Æ]

The typical multimeter doesn't measure impedance, only resistance.
You cannot check a capacitor with a resistance based continuity test, a capacitor blocks DC.
If his meter has capacitor function, he can measure the capacitance of the capacitors. Otherwise he would have to apply a steady AC signal (sine wave) and measure the AC voltage. He will need a true RMS meter to do a really good job of measuring AC at audio frequencies.


take your meter and set it on impedance and continuity then take the meter + lead and - lead and check if signal is passing thru the parts.Don't worry this happens to everyone sometimes when we are rushing to hear something.
Keep posting till its up & running-probably something very simple.

A nifty tool for screwing in cross overs is an extension bit like a 12 incher that can change tips-these always come in handy . These may not be a simple build but when you are done you are going to be a happy camper.

[Jdurg]

Well, I've got a pretty beefy multimeter. It measure continuity, impedance, resistance, capacitance, tempearture, voltage, etc. The only thing it can't measure is inductance.

I went and tested all of the parts on the crossovers and they work fine. They are all within the expected specifications written on the part. (Though measuring the larger capacitors was tough as it took a whle for them to "charge up" before giving me the proper reading).

So the connections all seem to be fine. What I'm thinking is that my soldering of the wires to the tabs on the crossovers may have been bad. Shortly, I'm going to go and solder the wires back on to the tabs and then before installing the parts inside the cabinet I'll hook the tweeter and woofer up without soldering the connections. I'll then hook it up to the speaker system and see if I can get any sound out of it. If I do, then it will all go together.

Boy, this is really bringing me back to high school/college physics and experimentation. :D

[Jdurg]

I tested all the parts and all the connections and it's fine. I tested the driver and woofer separately and their now fine. I put everything back into the cabinet and hooked it up. No sound at all from anything. I went and hooked up an old speaker and no sound out of that. It now appears as if whatever the problem was with the speaker crossover it has destroyed the right channel in my amp. :( I reset the amp's settings to factory default, and now there is "some" sound coming out of the right-front speaker but it's incredibly quiet. I jsut want to cry. The crossover tested out just fine but when I put it back into the box, whatever problem there was before has re-invented itself. I might now be out the parts for the crossover without ever knowing what it was that created the problem, and now I might be out $380 for my receiver. God this went from absolute greatness to absolute devastation now. :(

EDIT: Well, I guess my receiver isn't broken, but instead it has a safety feature in it which will not allow it to output a signal when the characteristics of the speaker aren't the same. If I put the new working speaker on the left and my old, small speaker on the right, the left produces sound but the right does not. I switched inputs and the same thing. If I remove the new speaker from the setup, then the small one plays. So for now I'll just do without a right channel and just live with the surrounds, center, sub, and front left.

This is so incredibly frustrating. I have no idea how I could have put one speaker together just fine, but the other is fudged up. I looked at all the connections and they all look fine. The only thing I can think of is that the space inside the cabinet is so incredibly tight that a connection keeps getting broken when I try and worm the crossover through the opening in the cabinet. I really like these speaker kits, but I highly doubt I'll ever buy another one as the installation of the crossover is completely impossible. Moving forward, I will just get the parts and build a cabinet where you can actually access the crossovers.

[djg]

I'm glad your receiver is ok. You can test your bad speaker with a flashlight dry cell battery. Jumper the battery across the speaker terminals momentarily, you will hear a thump in all drivers that are working. You can try this with the guts pulled out and manipulate things to find if you have a bad connection. A properly soldered crossover should stand up to some rough handling. Good luck.

[Jdurg]

Thanks. I'm glad the receiver is okay too. I guess I'm glad it has that safety in there. :D For now, I'm going to hold off on doing anything with the speaker. If the PCB board itself got damaged by something, then I don't know what I can do aside from buying more parts, or getting one of the kits without the cabinet and just use the tweeter and woofer in an upcoming cabinet and take the crossover for my busted speaker. I'm looking to build a center channel using the same parts, so that might actually be a good idea.

[Æ]

Thanks. I'm glad the receiver is okay too. I guess I'm glad it has that safety in there. :D For now, I'm going to hold off on doing anything with the speaker. If the PCB board itself got damaged by something, then I don't know what I can do aside from buying more parts, or getting one of the kits without the cabinet and just use the tweeter and woofer in an upcoming cabinet and take the crossover for my busted speaker. I'm looking to build a center channel using the same parts, so that might actually be a good idea.

I doubt the PCB itself is damaged.
You previously said that your multimeter measures impedance. At what frequency?

[Jdurg]

I doubt the PCB itself is damaged.
You previously said that your multimeter measures impedance. At what frequency?

Not sure. It's a simple Radioshack digital multimeter. I've gone and bought the cabinet-less kit anyway since I will need the driver and tweeter for the three-way center channel I'll be building, so I figure it won't hurt to get the assembled crossover and install that, then take time to figure out what my problem was with the one I put together.

[Æ]

Not sure. It's a simple Radioshack digital multimeter. I've gone and bought the cabinet-less kit anyway since I will need the driver and tweeter for the three-way center channel I'll be building, so I figure it won't hurt to get the assembled crossover and install that, then take time to figure out what my problem was with the one I put together.

To measure the impedance of a woofer or tweeter, you need an adjustable or sweeping frequency source of 20Hz-20KHz. Impedance is a function of frequency. Not likely your meter is adequate for complete audio bandwidth measuring. But it's not necessary for the problem you are having.

I have an LCR meter. It actually does measure impedance because it has it's own built in AC signal generator, but at only one frequency. (1000Hz) I can use it to measure the impedance of a woofer or tweeter at only one frequency.

[Jdurg]

Yeah, looking at my multi-meter I'm now not 100% certain it can measure impedance. I'll have to actual break out the instruction manual. :D

In the end, I wound up purchasing the same speaker kit but without the cabinets. It's enough parts to build one of these speakers, but the crossover board is already soldered together and is ready to install. I'll take that build crossover and do comparison tests with my faulty one to try and see where the issue is. The tweeter and woofer that come with the kit will wind up going in my center channel once I get a midrange and figure out what to put in that three-way crossover. (I may even go crazy and double up on the woofers, tweeter, and mids and build one with two of each in them to avoid off-axis issues. I'll have to do more research on that). But by getting this kit I'll be able to also have one of the tweeters and woofers for my center ready to go. Eventually, (Once the tax man pays me) I'll go and get another set with cabinets for my rears. By that point, I should have plenty of soldering experience and will hopefully get the crossovers built right.

I just want to thank everybody who has helped me. The response time on this forum is great, and for someone brand new to this hobby, it is a great source of information and inspiration. (While the hobby itself is agreat source of perspiration! :D )

[Jdurg]

Problem solved!!! :D My roommate came back from whatever he was doing and took a look at the crossover. I went out to dinner with my family, and when I came back it was all working. Apparently, the inducer on my tweeter crossover was soldered to a part of the non-tinned lead. I couldn't see it, and my multimeter wasn't able to detect it. He de-soldered the connection and with a match heated off the covering of the lead to expose the bare copper. Once the bare copper was soldered onto the board, it worked just fine! :D :D :D These things sound GREAT! I'm hearing sounds in my music that I just couldn't hear before!

Of course, I now have a speaker kit coming my way which I won't have much to do with (As I need two rear surrounds, and I'm not sure if this will make a good center, but I'll try it anyway.

[dotzs]

I was as frustrated as you were and have half a tank of gas so i almost dropped by from L.A. to help.

Like i said this stuff happens .

A real nightmare in the old days was trying to assemble a Heathkit T.V. from the kit only a forensic pathologist could figure out .

[rtkelly]

dotz,

I built one (memory, automatic rotor, the whole 27 ft.), I thought it was great.

Heath had the best and easiest kits.;)

Rollie

[Jdurg]

I was as frustrated as you were and have half a tank of gas so i almost dropped by from L.A. to help.

Like i said this stuff happens .

A real nightmare in the old days was trying to assemble a Heathkit T.V. from the kit only a forensic pathologist could figure out .

Ha-ha. Thanks. The frustration was definitely mounting which is why I had to step aside for a bit. I'm just very happy with the results and now figuring out what to do with the cabinet-less kit I bought figuring I needed to just steal that pre-built crossover. I guess my options now are to buy another set of these black speaker kits, then use the pre-built crossover on one of them so as to save me some hassle in building the crossover, keep the crossover parts for future builds, and use the tweeter and woofer that came with the kit for my center channel. Either way, I'm having fun and getting great results. (Heh. Kind of like a fun night out at the bar. :p)

[johnnail]

Yeah, looking at my multi-meter I'm now not 100% certain it can measure impedance. I'll have to actual break out the instruction manual. :D

In the end, I wound up purchasing the same speaker kit but without the cabinets. It's enough parts to build one of these speakers, but the crossover board is already soldered together and is ready to install. I'll take that build crossover and do comparison tests with my faulty one to try and see where the issue is. The tweeter and woofer that come with the kit will wind up going in my center channel once I get a midrange and figure out what to put in that three-way crossover. (I may even go crazy and double up on the woofers, tweeter, and mids and build one with two of each in them to avoid off-axis issues. I'll have to do more research on that). But by getting this kit I'll be able to also have one of the tweeters and woofers for my center ready to go. Eventually, (Once the tax man pays me) I'll go and get another set with cabinets for my rears. By that point, I should have plenty of soldering experience and will hopefully get the crossovers built right.

I just want to thank everybody who has helped me. The response time on this forum is great, and for someone brand new to this hobby, it is a great source of information and inspiration. (While the hobby itself is agreat source of perspiration! :D )

How about a simple solution....if the binding post mounting in the back of the cabinets are just simple drilled holes and use the pass-through posts, then drill another pair of post holes, purchase some posts and then you can mount the crossover outside the box in it's own enclosure....run separate wires to the posts on the cabinet to power woofer and tweeter. No more crossover inside the tight fit enclosure. IF the kit uses a cup type, then purchase bi-amp/bi-wire type cups and enlarge the hole to accomodate them.....simple.

John