The Timelapse Theatre - Planning n' Build Log - Page 3

Thanks!

Shorts like yours, y'mean? Yikes! My order from these guys hasn't come in yet!

Here's my latest vision of the ceiling. Same concept but darker color.



The current thinking is that the slats will be mounted to unistrut which is mounted to the ceiling joists right through the existing drywall ceiling.

I just wanted to share something amazing that I got to do yesterday. It's tangentially attached to this home theatre project but it was too cool not to share. I went out to the ShopBot (affordable CNC tool) headquarters to meet legendary woodworker Roy Underhill yesterday! I organize this event called Maker Faire North Carolina and we're talking with Roy and ShopBot about some promotional things.



Here's a link with photos. Cool!

I'm using ShopBot's equipment to cut my groovy ceiling. :-)

I have been drying a few bags of play sand in my basement on tarps and have decided that this is for the birds. I was thinking about buying blasting sand from a local company since it's guaranteed to be bone dry. Does anyone see a problem with this? I will, of course, be wearing a respirator and keep kids out of the way while I spread it...

The blasting sand is $7 per 100lbs vs. ~$4 per 80lbs for play sand at Home Depot so it's not THAT much more expensive.

Update: sand is heavy.

SAND DANCE

Enter Sandman...


I lugged 1.04 tons of sand into the basement and filled up the cavities that will be beneath speakers. Yay for sand. I bought bags of blasting sand at a local(ish) supplier. They were a little pricier than the play sand but they were perfectly dry. I slapped my hygrometer from my humidor down on top to check it using SCIENCE as well as using intuition.

Not a major update but I put some R30 insulation in the steps. One of these days I'm going to get two days in a row to work on this project!

Thanks for the compliments. Photo and video are a hobby / side business.

I'm making these timelapse videos using a GoPro HD 960 camera. The camera is tiny. I stuck a gigantic magnet on the tripod mount so I can stick the thing pretty much anywhere. The camera takes snaps every 2,5,10, or 30 seconds depending on the user selection. I use 2 seconds and slap a 32GB card in there so it has no practical time limit except for the battery life (about 3 hours). I can shoot that camera while it's on wall power too which is sweet.

I import all of the frames into Lightroom and crop them to 16:9, adjust for brightness, etc., and then tie them together using some freeware timelapse software on the Mac. I just upgraded to Lightroom 3 so that I can automatically correct for the fisheye distortion on every frame. Pretty slick.

When this whole project is finally finished I'm going to tie all of these videos together into a nonstop construction video. I'm toying with the idea of recropping the whole thing to 2.4:1 so that it will play perfectly on my screen! :LOL:


I don't see any problem with that solution except that I have no desire to buy a $300+ dehumidifier!

I've been really busy with life since my last update and haven't made any progress on construction. I traveled to Rhode Island the weekend before last and New York this past weekend for back to back Maker Faires. I had a blast but I am exhausted mentally and physically!

My wife and I decided that it would be a good idea to get our hot tub controller replaced. We only moved into the house in May but the hot tub has been installed since the late 80's. The timer was broken on it when we bought the house. I was originally planning to build my own Arduino-based control system but I decided that I had too much to learn before I could do it safely! Instead we'll be getting a new outdoor-rated UL certified controller that can handle the gas pack, four pumps (WAY more than I need!), etc. and the best part is that it will be done and ready to use in the next two weeks or so!

ANYWAY! On to the Home Theatre portion of our rambling update!

I have been thinking about acoustics lately because my next plan after enclosing the stage is to mount acoustic treatment to the drywall behind the screen. I have been planning on using Linacoustic duct liner based on all of the suggestions in this forum. I think that the 2-inch thick product is what I want. Does that sound right? The price I got from a local supplier was $246 for a 50' roll of the 2" material. How does that sound?

I have also been thinking about bass traps. The screen and stage are off-center in the room. That means that the right channel will be far closer to a boundary than the left channel.

The left channel will be basically sitting 5-6' from the left wall but the right channel will be sitting more like 2-3' from the right wall. I was thinking that I would stack OC703 or Linacoustic triangles in the right corner only. What do you guys think about this plan?

I'm starting to think that I did something wrong with the stage. I put the first layer of OSB on top today and, well, when I knock on it it sounds kind of hollow. I didn't expect it to sound as dead as concrete but I expected it to sound more dead than it does. Instead of the dull thud that I had hoped for I'm hearing a pronounced, if brief, knock.

I have always thought that the sand-filled stage should be an anchor for the front array and subwoofer... the sand being a method of reducing resonance to near-nothing for the express benefit of the speakers. I do understand that the mass is also used, when combined with a stage that is not in contact with the walls, to reduce the transmission of mechanical vibration to the rest of the house. I've certainly achieved THAT!

Maybe I'm over thinking it but for once in my life I'm taking pause. I wouldn't want all that sand-lifting to have been for nothing!

Maybe a layer of green glue between the first and second layers of OSB is in order?

edit: maybe I didn't add enough sand? The sand comes pretty much right to the top of the cavities but it doesn't overflow them. There is probably 1/32" or so of air between the OSB and the sand. I really hope it's not this!

I'm going to rip up the work I did yesterday and replace the 7/16" OSB with 3/4" instead. I was planning to do two sheets of 7/16" but two layers of 3/4" should take care of a lot of rigidity and hollowness issues. I may top off the cavities with more sand while I'm at it. Yay!

Yeah that's kinda what I'm doing now but I'm not convinced it's necessary!

I didn't make very much progress today. I finally wound up with a layer of 7/16" OSB, a layer of 30# roofing felt, and another layer of 7/16" OSB on top of that. The stage actually sounds VERY solid now! Yay!

The sad part is that I managed to make three runs to Home Depot, one run to my office in TechShop (hunting for my 1/2" router collet), at least an hour or two rummaging in the garage for the same collet, and at least an hour driving! I hate wasting time looking for tools and materials!

My plan at this point is to
1. Use a flush trim bit to smooth out the OSB sandwich that spills over the stage edge,
2. tack two strips of 1/2 x 3/4" stock to the edge all the way around,
3. follow around the tacked strips with a roundover bit for carpet.

I just ordered, reluctantly, a replacement 1/2" collet for my router. I have to wait until TUESDAY to do anything more! Maybe while I wait I'll see about ordering some linacoustic for the screen wall.

Thanks for the tips! I'll check those places out!

Last night I installed spikes in the bottom of the Meridian DSP 5000s and put them up on the stage.

I was so pleased by the sound from the speakers up on that stage! I'm willing to concede that some of the pleasure is psychosomatic having thrown so much blood and sweat into the stage project but WOW! I thought that the bass was tight and sudden with a visceral impact. The mid range was still muddy, of course, due to the lack of treatments in the room but the imaging was surprisingly good. I had a strong emotional reaction to various pieces of music that I fired up... the old classic favorites and demo pieces that I know so very well. It was enough to encourage me to keep up the good fight in making this room awesome.


On a more practical note I did notice sound from the main water drain in the closet in the back of the room. I knew that the water drain would be audible but I hadn't been in the room without power tools running to hear it! I'm going to replace or sand-fill the door to that closet and add layers of linacoustic to the interior of the closet to absorb that noise... eventually.