3D Printed Headphones

thingiverse

Here is a set of great looking and awesome sounding headphones you can print yourself. The parts that cannot be printed (drivers, cushions etc) are all readily available and will cost around $25 (plus shipping). How I Designed This Unlike loudspeader enclosure design, there is almost no publicly available intormation on designing great sounding headphones (that I could find anyway!). Therefore I had to do a heap of development and testing to understand how the design variables affect the sound. If you're interested, details of my work can be found here: http://homebrewheadphones.com/design/detailed-design/ Info on the test rig I built for sound development can be found here: http://homebrewheadphones.com/closed-back-test-method/ Overview and Background Recently there has been a lot of hype about 3D printing being the way of the future, including how it will replace store-bought items. With this project, I set out to expore two aspects of this: firstly whether people will readily 3D print things they are likely to otherwise buy, and secondly, how mass manufacturing and 3D printing will realistically have to coexist for the foreseeable future (as some things such as the magnets and mylar film in the driver cannot easily be printed yet). Lesson Plan and Activity The lesson can comprise of two elements: a hands on demonstration of 3D printing, how it works and what it can do a discussion exploring the implications of 3D printing, including implications on existing industries and the consumer (eg increased personalisation of products etc) Materials Parts to purchase: 2x drivers: http://bit.ly/Dayton-ce38mb-32 Cushions: Bose QuietComfort QC15 QC2 replacements https://amzn.to/2KfEcMK Cable: Sol Republic Master Tracks HD V8 V10 V12 X3 replacement http://amzn.to/2kAyrkb 2x 2.5mm female audio jacks http://amzn.to/2niNn8n Hookup wire. These come cut and stripped http://amzn.to/2jv59Qk Gel consistency glue for plastic http://amzn.to/2liPTXh Plasticine https://amzn.to/2tC6dHl Solder Parts to print: 2x covers 2x baffles (printed with the driver mouting side facing up) 1x headband I made mine from ABS using the printer's default settings, except for reducing the headband infill to 5-10%. The parts Assembly Instructions Step 1: Solder the hookup wire to the 2.5mm jacks Solder two sets of hookup wire to the 2.5mm jacks as per the photo. On the jacks we used, the negative (black) wire is the large tab and the positive the small round one. The red arrow indicates the positive terminal Step 2: Attach the driver and jacks to the baffle Mount the jacks into their holder. They will screw in snugly. Being careful not to damage the mylar film, place the drivers into the baffles with the terminals on the driver 90° from the jack, oriented towards the wire retainers (yellow circle in the picture below). Glue the drivers into the baffles with four 1/4″ (6mm) length spots of gel glue, placed at 90 degrees around the perimeter of the driver (blue arrows). DO NOT glue around the full perimeter of the driver, as this will adversely affect the sound. Let the glue dry. Attach the driver and 2.5mm jack to the baffle Step 3: Attach the wires to the drivers Solder the hookup wire to the drivers, with the red wire going to the solder tab next to the red dot. You can solder the wire on just by melting the tabs and inserting the wire, ie without adding any solder. Make sure the wires are in their retainers so that they don't get caught by the headband. Step 4: Tune the sound Now for step that took me tons of testing to figure out! In a closed back design, the Dayton Audio CE38MB-32 drivers are too bass-heavy and lacking in high end detail. To even things out a bit, we need to reduce the mids/bass to make them more equal to the treble. Don't worry, there will still be plenty of bass after this step! Using plasticine or similar, roll a small amount into a sausage then block all except one of the holes under the black fabric on the back of the driver. The black arrow below shows the non-blocked hole. Apply plasticine over all except one of the holes on the rear of the driver Step 5: Assembly Press the baffles into the covers, making sure the headband end of the baffle corresponds to the headband end of the cover (ie the two square holes line up). It may take a bit of force to assemble them – they are deliberately a tight fit so that they don’t require glue and can be disassembled. Using the double sided tape which comes on them, attach the pieces of fabric to the baffle. Fit the cushions to the baffle. Insert the headband and cables. They are handed, so make sure you put them on the right way around! Crank up some tunes and enjoy! Please share pics of your build, I would really love to see them! Press the baffle into the cover Fit the cushions Your done - now enjoy them!