Im building a pair of paul carmodys hitmakers, and have been having some trouble with the crossover. I got one side all wired and soldered before I thought to test the components with a multimeter. the 8 ohm resistor seems to be running closer to 2 ohms, and the 2.5 ohm is down to 1.9. Unsoldered components for the other speaker seem to be in spec. Did I fry these? Were they no good to begin with? or is my cheap radio shack multimeter not sensitive enough for the job?
A: None of the above! The problem is that you cannot measure components once they are wired together in the crossover as there are alternate paths for the current to flow giving you inaccurate readings. The 8 ohm resistor, 2.5 ohm resistor and 0.4mH inductor basically form a loop, if you try measuring any one of those three components current can also flow back through the other two. If you unsoldered one leg of each component so that you break any alternate paths it is likely they will measure on spec.
Oh, thats right! I had forgotten about the loop there. I was thinking since I didn't have the speaker terminals connected to anything yet there wasn't anywhere for it to loop back. Thank you for easing my mind.
I figured I'd add to this post as opposed to starting a new one. Almost done with my hitmakers for my studio massive build. They are drying now from their first coat of Duratex. I have some ideas for a crossover layout, but I'd like to see any that you guys have made and maybe have a picture / diagram of. It seems whenever I design it myself, it works, but then after the fact, I'll see a layout that makes much more sense than the one I came up with. So hoping to skip that facepalm moment and see if anyone has a pic / diagram on file of their hitmakers crossover. https://goo.gl/photos/4AjXxexMEDvShKyh7
so far, I have come up with this from a google search... This one I guess I understand... except the red "x's?"