Nissan Cube SQ project with Focal Utopia M

Yesterday I started putting the puzzle pieces for the enclosure together.


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The first step was to piece together each layer, and lock the parts in place with CA glue. Here they are placed on top of another (not joined yet), held in position with the wooden plugs that help align the layers.


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Baffle placed on top, starting to look like something here.


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Took it out to the car, fitment was nice, using the available space in a effective manner. The bottom layer is not a part of this enclosure, although it's exactly the same material, 22mm mdf. This has just been used as a floor board for the last year or so, to see how the printed image holds up to wear and tear. It's printed directly to the mdf.


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Put the baffle on top, but decided that I didn't like the layout when seeing it in real life instead of on a computer screen. So will make a now one in one of the other layouts that was on the shortlist.


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Sometimes you just have to see it before your own eyes to decide it it works or not in regards to how you imagined it in your head.
 
Today I'm awaiting delivery of my new amps, I finally decided on the setup after measuring avaiable space after the enclosure is in place and DSP has gotten its placement. Went with an all Helix setup on amps, from before I had a P Two that I now will use for midbass drivers (2x280w rms). I ordered a P One (last one in stock) that will power the 2x 10" subwoofers (1500w in total for the both of them), and for tweeter and midrange amplification I chose a real classic (although in the latest revision) a Helix H 400X, a class AB amp that they have made ever since 1992. This is brand new though :)

I think that trio of amplifiers will do a great job powering the Utopia setup, controlled by the Brax DSP. They are all pretty compact amps as well, so they will all fit side by side with room to spare for running cables bewteen them.

Now I'm just waiting for a delivery notice to pop up on the phone.

I also ordered RCA cables btw, I will be making custom length cables to get a perfect fit between the DSP and amplifiers. I will be using Digital Designs (dd audio) Z-wire that comes on a 250ft roll that you cut to size, and terminate yourself with supplied RCA connectors. I believe this is made on licence (with own branding) from another US-based company that have been making this setup for a long time. With great real world feedback and reviews on other car audio forums (of the diy kind). Worth a try!
 
The joys of ordering fabric based on sample pictures on the internet.

Tried to find a (close) match for the brown velvety seats in my car, and decided on "lion" from this sample pic
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Maybe a bit light, but the tone matched pretty well, at least compared to this pic I took of the actual seat in my car:
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Until it arrived today
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Phone camera made the colours a bit weird, the seats have a warmer tone than shown here. But that was so far off that I could only laugh :D

Same for another colour I hoped would match the tan/beige interior plastic. It was equally off, but in the 5 years I've owned this car I have not found a match anywhere for this colour. Nissan calls it gray, it looks kind of beige-ish. But put something beige next to it and it looks gray, put something gray next to it and it looks beige...

So I did the only "sensible" thing, ordering the full 124 colour sample book of available 4-way stretch microfiber/suede fabric colours ;)

I have set a deadline for myself, a car audio meet locally (well 9 hour drive across the country, but local to Norway at least). This is on July 30th. So crunch time now!
 
Started v2 of sail panels, taking my time with these compared to last time. When I built both sides from scratch in 3 hours, the day before finals, lol. That time it was a mishmash of OEM speaker rings, popsicle sticks, hot glue and grille cloth (yes I burned my fingertips multiple times rushing this together), however the end result was halfway presentable and surprisingly well-sounding. Considering that no aiming was tried out, just took a chance and made both sides symmetrical. Also they were not only playing free air, but basically in a dipol baffle since they had no actual closed off pod due to the open grill cloth.

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They did the job, but now it's time to do this properly.
 
Back to square one on the sail panels. This time I started making templates for the base of new panels. Using transparent plastic sheet to easily mark the wanted contours of the shapes:

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Spare OEM sail panels will be used as part of the base, but here it is removed. Plenty of space behind, and also vented into the door, so can choose to make them either closed or open back.

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3" Helix midrange for size reference:

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As you can see, no matter how you angle the drivers here, no visibility is impaired from the drivers seat (for both sides)

So, could have scanned the templates and imported into CAD software, but much simpler is to just tape them to the computer screen and trace directly ;)
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So after smoothing out the lines, I made this cut file for laser cutting of acrylic pieces to construct the shape of the sail panels.

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A lot of multiple/spare pieces in the spirit of get the most yield from the piece of acrylic.
 
Today I did some laser cutting at the sign shop, always nice to know people with the right set of tools and machines.

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Now I have the pieces to make a 3D puzzle:

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The Utopia M mid and tweeter will take about this much space in the sail panels. But I think I will make separate mounting rings, placed a bit staggered since they will probably be angled a bit upwards, a bit more on axis to ear level.

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Excellent fitment of the cut pieces though, this bezel that goes just 1mm outside the tweeter fit so snugly that it stays on the tweeter when pressed over.

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Actually two rings here, one 3mm and one 2mm.

Snug fit into the mounting plate as well, good to know when making new, separate ones.

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Thank you very much :) I try to do my best, no doubt with great help from advanced tools that I have access to for the time being.

Now I'm trying to find a suitable placement for a Helix Conductor, and I also want some auxiliary switches for different purposes. I thnik this would be the best placement, I can remove the big hazard light button and rewire it into one of the new switches. I have some on order now, both with and without self-locking

"artist rendering"
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Regarding the mismatching suede fabric, I ordered a sample book of the whole 124-color range.
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And even then I couldn't really find a match for the seat color. But I did settle on a colour that was decently close to the greyish tan colour of the interior panels. So I ordered a length of that, and also a color that was pretty close to the color of the car (pearl orange), that maybe could work as a contrast color. We'll see when they show up.

I also want some nice lighting in this build, so I ordered what I have found to be the optimal LED controller. It's the favourite choice of those who build custom head- and taillights it seems. Made in the US, it's a Blueghozt Smart LED Controller. You can program it to do just about anything, like this (I will just be using it for interior/install lighting though)
https://youtu.be/E9cKxRUj9BI
 
Did some minor things in the driveway since the weather was nice, had to reroute some wiring on account that I decided against having the mids and tweeters in a-pillars and rather just make new and better sail panels than last time.

This meant that the wiring that went up in the dash, behind the pillars had to be routed through the door grommet instead. Last time it was easy enough, it was then three runs of 1,5mm2 speaker cable for midbass, midrange and tweeter. In addition to the OEM wiring off course.

But now I already had one run of 4mm2 cable to the midbass, and needed to fit two additional runs of 2,5mm2 <strong>and</strong> wiring for the LED lights that will be part of the install. Tight fit!

Got some good help from my nephew who lives in the house next door, always nice to have some assistants!

That being done it was time to move on to the trunk area, and do something I have been reluctant to do ever since I got this car. And that is to make permanent mods like cutting and drilling into it. But come to think of it I have already made a big fat hole in the firewall to run 1/0ga power cable, and also cut the door panel/speaker grille. So what's another 4 holes really?

Removed some sound deadening on strategic places, marked up on what will become the bottom plate of the enclosure, and drilled pilot holes trough both the plate and car floor at once. Checked that everything looked good, and drilled larger holes to insert rivnuts (I believe its called in English?). Threaded inserts anyway. Placed so they're accessible to put bolts from the top, through the cutouts for the subwoofers (before they are installed)

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