So who has knocked their Vandersteen over and broke it?

tromba

tromba

Super Member
So who has knocked their Vandersteen over and broke it? Well my dog did. A 2Ci. During a bad storm, terrified of the thunder she somehow got over a 4 foot barrier and probably tried to hide behind the speaker and ended up knocking it over.

So now one of the drivers doesn't work. I can gently touch the driver shown by the arrow, and on the still standing speaker I can feel the vibrations, but on the fallen one, nothing. Cables are connected fine.

Vandersteen_inside.jpg


Does anyone have inside the sock experience with these? I know I can call Vandersteen, but thought I'd start here. I haven't yet removed the bottom and pulled the thousands of staples and removed the sock
 
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Bummer. I have experience with dogs and thunderstorms and damage.....
My guess is that something on the crossover board broke loose in the fall. One of the big inductors probably. Maybe an easy fix. There are a couple (at least) threads here on AK that show how to get into these things. I've had the socks off mine just so I could look at the drivers and verify the surrounds were in good shape. I didn't go so far as to get access to the crossover board. Search the forum to see if you can find one of the old threads.

Good luck.

Terry
 
Here is a thread with pics:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=357811&highlight=vandersteen+sock

It doesn't show how to get to the crossover board though.
I do remember that removing the socks just involved slowly peeling the soft (almost like tar) glue that holds the two end caps on and then removing a whole buch of staples. You will need a staple gun when it comes time to put it back together, but I think the glue was still sticky enough to just reuse it.
I wonder if the crossover is accessable from the plate with the connection terminals?

Terry
 
I ran over a 2Ci stand with a moving truck, does that count?

I need one 2Ci stand if anyone has one.
 
I feel for both of you. I would be pretty sad if something happened to my 2CIs. I hope you get the broken one working. I hate to think what a moving truck would do to one of these. . .
 
Strangeband said:
I feel for both of you. I would be pretty sad if something happened to my 2CIs. I hope you get the broken one working. I hate to think what a moving truck would do to one of these. . .
Click to expand...

Just the stand was run over, not the speaker.
 
Took the sock mostly off this afternoon. It appears to have been removed before - there were staple holes without staples. So I removed the driver and it looked just fine. Terminals still soldered securely, wire to cone OK...

With no obvious problem I guess I'm stuck. Is there a way to test this driver without unsoldering the terminals?
 
You can connect a 1.5V battery to the woofer and see if it clicks and moves. And/or use an ohm meter to check it. There is a capacitor between the woofer and the rest of the crossover allowing DC tests to be done. The largest inductor on the circuit board is also in series with the woofer, it had a lot of momentum to crack the circuit board - lets hope not.

You can also do a resistance check between the woofer negative input terminal on the back and the negative connection on the woofer, should be a direct connection.
 
Thanks for the reply!! I've got a few questions as I've never done this before....

Pete B said:
You can connect a 1.5V battery to the woofer and see if it clicks and moves.
Click to expand...
I asssume the + from the battery to the + on the woofer, same for the - Since this woofer is still soldered into the system, the battery won't cause any problems with the current going (I assume) back to the crossover also?

Pete B said:
And/or use an ohm meter to check it. There is a capacitor between the woofer and the rest of the crossover allowing DC tests to be done.
Click to expand...
I've got the meter but am not sure what to do. Related to that, Vandersteen has a diagnostic paper and showed how to measure ohms on the back where the banana plugs go. I had trouble doing that.... I guess I should put the diagram up to help explain. At any rate, what do I do with the ohm meter and the driver?

Pete B said:
can also do a resistance check between the woofer negative input terminal on the back and the negative connection on the woofer, should be a direct connection.
Click to expand...
That part I understand!!

Thanks again.
 
Here's the illustration from diagnosing problems....

vandersteen_instructions.jpg


I can get a reading of 7 ohms for the bottom, but no matter what I have the meter set on, I only get a 1 for all the others (assuming I'm doing it right....)
 
Set your meter to ohms, short the leads and zero it each time you use it.

The speaker works with AC so it doesn't matter how you hook up the battery, + to + should cause the cone to move out, other way in.

The bigger acoustic coupler on the back is the only thing wired with a DC path to the terminals so that is what you are measuring across the bass terminals - not the front 8" woofer. Roughly seven ohms is fine.

You can use the battery or ohm meter directly across the front woofer since it has no DC path into the crossover, it is isolated by caps. If it moves then the crossover is most likely the problem.

Measure bass input neg to front woofer with ohm meter. Actually, try it to both woofer terminals since I don't remember if the woofer is wired in phase. One should connect with nearly zero ohms, please tell us which one if any.
 
Pete, thanks for the reply. Great information. I hope to have time tomorrow to get on this!!

Dennis
 
Our Internet is out and I hate doing this on the phone. So this is just a quick reply. Testing with the battery showed the acoustic coupler in back, the cone did move and on the 8 inch woofer in front the cone did not move
 
I sure hope you get that sorted out and both speakers back to function quickly. I'd hate to think of life around here without my 2Cs singing.
 
tromba said:
Our Internet is out and I hate doing this on the phone. So this is just a quick reply. Testing with the battery showed the acoustic coupler in back, the cone did move and on the 8 inch woofer in front the cone did not move
Click to expand...

Did you apply the battery to the rear input terminals to get the acoustic coupler to move?
And then to the front woofer terminals to test the front woofer?

Does the cone move freely with some pressure on it or is the VC locked due to a shifted magnet?
 
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