hehe yeah its funny, we are just playing with stuff (at least i am 
). someone that knows a thing or 2 about coatings... should be able to whip up something. then again i heard people say a few times they had this background and made a coating. but ...... they are nowhere to be seen ever again.
electro-conductive powders out there. , like what ? since we want high resistance. most are based on low resistance except the tribo electro versions, that are gone after some time depending on the moisture in the air. i knew a person that fixed ESL's that claimed the ESD coating from a well know brand worked nice on audiostatics... that is tribo... or even dish soap. and yes it works..... for a short time. the again he believed in gold plated UTP cables for its router so
i believe the new Finals use ITO, same i thought licron used. then again i cant be certain. since although i talked to the dude from final its never clear what they actually use (it should be better then there failed coating they used before they restarted the company , after 90% of ther panels died)
they actually print there new coating. something i still have drawings of when i tried it by modding a inkjet to a direct to garment printer, to be used for coatings. never found the suitable printer for it (without spending to much)
). someone that knows a thing or 2 about coatings... should be able to whip up something. then again i heard people say a few times they had this background and made a coating. but ...... they are nowhere to be seen ever again.electro-conductive powders out there. , like what ? since we want high resistance. most are based on low resistance
except the tribo electro versions, that are gone after some time depending on the moisture in the air. i knew a person that fixed ESL's that claimed the ESD coating from a well know brand worked nice on audiostatics... that is tribo... or even dish soap. and yes it works..... for a short time. the again he believed in gold plated UTP cables for its router soi believe the new Finals use ITO, same i thought licron used. then again i cant be certain. since although i talked to the dude from final its never clear what they actually use (it should be better then there failed coating they used before they restarted the company , after 90% of ther panels died)
they actually print there new coating. something i still have drawings of when i tried it by modding a inkjet to a direct to garment printer, to be used for coatings
. never found the suitable printer for it (without spending to much)
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Then the binder comes, adhesion promoter... you name it. No surprise it costs like $50 for a soda can.
Nothing comes free. Threre's a reason MJ Dijkstra quit doing it.
Earlier "inverted mode" contains ATO (antimony tin oxide) at its membrane. It's similar than ITO, but more conductive.
I know from Maarten Smits himself that getting the conductivity right and reproducible on these inverter models was very difficult, to say it mildly. In proces quality checks had to be implemented to secure the end product. Cant say anything about current production, they are known to change materials through time.
Yeah i can imagine its also really hard to determen if the coating is good in a small amount of time (cant wait 10 years). pretty scary if you ask me. i would **** myself been afraid it might crap out over time. after i sold them
the new finals are done in a pretty new fashion, at least new to me.
the new finals are done in a pretty new fashion, at least new to me.
LOL you are pretty right here. But hey this is DIY speaker projects not electroconductive science community. On the whole there is some progress. At the start of the ESL hobby in the Netherlands (after the late mr Fikier wrote his book) the only thing around was metalised sheets or methylcellulose with paint. So things have changed.
Unfortunately, the ESL's long term reliabilty isn't important thing in the world. The cell phones and the idiot's toys are well researched and very sophisticated. Our passion gets only "second handed" solutions, for example antistatic and static dissipative coating for industrial use. This is the progress...
The inverted mode ESL's membrane coating must handle a lot of capacitive current, because the membrane acts the condenser's electrode. Between the coating and its feeding electrode there is a vulnerable zone, because the inhomogenity of contact causes pointwise overheating of the conductive material.
There are many good reasons not to sell ESL coating.
- The pricing! Everything is too expensive. What if you had to pay say $ 200 for 50 ml to make an ESL-63 work. Would that be fair?
I've suggested € 60 once, but the potential buyer "found" a € 10 spay can.
So having a good working coating there is no urge to sell it to the DIY community.
They're, their and there. Pronounced the same, mean something different.
- The pricing! Everything is too expensive. What if you had to pay say $ 200 for 50 ml to make an ESL-63 work. Would that be fair?
I've suggested € 60 once, but the potential buyer "found" a € 10 spay can.
- The transportation limitation of chemical liquids/goods. None is allowed to be shipped through international mail. So on top of the price of the coating there is a high transport fee with FedEx, UPS, TNT etc. That is, if you have the correct licenses to be allowed to ship.
- There is coating readily available, so most of the people are looking to do some kind of commercial business with it. Repair for "friends" and the like.
- The huge amount of (un)related questions you will get and have to answer (ask Rob from ER Audio or @MJ Dijkstra )
- The complaints you will get of the coating not working (correctly) even if it is proven to work and last
- Every single person that has seen two YouTube videos is an expert on electrostatic speakers and will try to explain what you are doing wrong
- The risk of people injuring themselves
- When does "warranty" expire?
So having a good working coating there is no urge to sell it to the DIY community.
They're, their and there. Pronounced the same, mean something different.
At the university of Utrecht I did research with electroconductive coatings. Some where deposited in situ and characterized with optical methods. Even ultrathin gold layers, to be expected highly inert, would come off at higher currents. Talking about milli ampere range. My guess is that a coating for inverted ESL is troublesome. But I am not an expert regarding inverted ESL so maybe they figured it out by now.
Graphite needs to be fresh milled by a ball mill.
I made a ball mill from a stainless steel Thermos and some roller bearing steel balls of different sizes, smallest size 2mm and biggest 6mm.
You let it spin for some days and the carbon becomes really "thin".
If you let the carbon inc stay in the bottle it will form larger clusters and the end coating will have to low resistivity.
I made a ball mill from a stainless steel Thermos and some roller bearing steel balls of different sizes, smallest size 2mm and biggest 6mm.
You let it spin for some days and the carbon becomes really "thin".
If you let the carbon inc stay in the bottle it will form larger clusters and the end coating will have to low resistivity.
Those who know, know. Those're visionaries more or less. Obsessed ones, in a good way.
What about laser printer toner? I suppose the problem is not finding the material of right conductivity, but finding the right binding material. Ideally it should be in a liquid form for easy application, and it should get dry at room temperature, bonding the particles of the conductive material to the mylar. So it should be a two-component mixture. I heard also about titanium-dioxide (TiO2) once used for CRT screen antistatic treatment.
Yes it is, among many other important properties.
Or UV, or heat treated (like Quad did/does). Maybe better.
Why?
That is a pretty good summary.There are many good reasons not to sell ESL coating.
- The pricing! Everything is too expensive. What if you had to pay say $ 200 for 50 ml to make an ESL-63 work. Would that be fair?
I've suggested € 60 once, but the potential buyer "found" a € 10 spay can.
And probably many many more issues
- The transportation limitation of chemical liquids/goods. None is allowed to be shipped through international mail. So on top of the price of the coating there is a high transport fee with FedEx, UPS, TNT etc. That is, if you have the correct licenses to be allowed to ship.
- There is coating readily available, so most of the people are looking to do some kind of commercial business with it. Repair for "friends" and the like.
- The huge amount of (un)related questions you will get and have to answer (ask Rob from ER Audio or @MJ Dijkstra )
- The complaints you will get of the coating not working (correctly) even if it is proven to work and last
- Every single person that has seen two YouTube videos is an expert on electrostatic speakers and will try to explain what you are doing wrong
- The risk of people injuring themselves
- When does "warranty" expire?
So having a good working coating there is no urge to sell it to the DIY community.
They're, their and there. Pronounced the same, mean something different.
I guess I was lucky never to have problems with international packages but I can confirm all other points.
well there stators are made out of acrylic (or PC, but i think acrylic), so not conductive. and they use the same method of printing a conductive layer on it as well as they do on the mylar (i dont know if they sandwich the conductive layer between 2 sheets though). i dont think they are inverted anymore either (not entirely sure, since there transformers are really affordable (at least to them)) ,, but if you buy allot price comes down allot ). they drill all the holes in the stators them self. , using a cnc with multiple spindles to speed the process up.pretty funny idea. sicne you can also alter the amount of holes or even the hole size to damp the foil differently at different points on the foil.
i am not sure if the cutter has a round over function (like a combination bit that makes a hole with a chamfer ) , if not you could even drill multiple sheets at once. with multiple spindles. speeding things up allot , 2 sheets 2 spindles is making 4 stators in one go etc
). they drill all the holes in the stators them self. , using a cnc with multiple spindles to speed the process up.pretty funny idea. sicne you can also alter the amount of holes or even the hole size to damp the foil differently at different points on the foil.i am not sure if the cutter has a round over function (like a combination bit that makes a hole with a chamfer ) , if not you could even drill multiple sheets at once. with multiple spindles. speeding things up allot , 2 sheets 2 spindles is making 4 stators in one go etc
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