Saturday, 27 May 2017

Cockpit VHF speaker without butchery

One item on my long list of things to improve was to ensure I could hear the VHF from the helm.  I have an aversion to cutting or drilling holes in a boat, and will do whatever I can to solve a problem without doing so. (drilling holes I mean!)   In this case, the solution was fairly easy - mount the speaker in the lid of an existing access cover.
The hole was cut using a flywheel-type adjustable circle cutter on a drill press.   I clamped two pieces of MDF in the drillpress (stacked) and cut a hole  equal to the cover plate's diameter through the first piece.  Removing the cut out created a fixture in which the cover could be placed, already centred under the drill press chuck.  I then re-adjusted the cutter to the correct diameter for the speaker hole, firmly clamped the cover in its fixture, then slowly bored the second, smaller hole through the cover.    Not for the faint-hearted, but it worked fine, and any lack of concentricty is not noticeable..
 The sound  is very loud and clear, the ICOM M506 VHF has plenty of power to drive this inexpensive Polyplanar speaker.






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