New Here, Wanted to say hi

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:24 am

Hi, I am a new member here. Just wanted to check in and say howdy. Tell you all a bit about myself.

My name is Jason Campbell, I live in midland, michigan. I work full time shift work at a major chemical plant here. I used to be neck deep in car audio, from '96 or so until '02. I worked at a custom car audio shop for a few years, from '99-'01. Phoenix Gold has always been my prefered amplifier, and I have never gotten over that love affair. My first "real" amp was a ZX500, I had three at one point driving 6 RF Punch DVC 15's in a Old's Calais that I competed with.

My last ride with a decent system was a '97 Camaro SS with a Reactor, MS1000, and Power Core. Before I bought the MS1000, I drove the subs with 3 ZX500's (including the ZX5 side of the reactor). Subs were 3 Eclipse Titanium 6 ohm subs. Boston Pro 6.5 components in the kicks, Boston Ralley 6.5's for midbase, and Boston Pro 5.25 components in the rear. It sounded awesome, and hit 159 db, was by far my best system I had put together.

I got married in December 2001 and had to sell off most of my goodies. Got into 4 wheel drives and custom fabrication. I currently own a Fabrication business I run in my spare time, and cater mostly to the jeep crowds. My off road toy is a 4x4 tube chassis powered by a FI BB ford 460.

I love building stuff, and have never lost my love for high end car audio. I kept a small system in my DD pickup (had to trade in the camaro for something bigger, lol) a '99 Silverado 2500. The Silverado has a Panasonic head, PG Tantrum 1200.1 and 2 JL 12W3's. I kept my Boston components from the camaro, and the 6.5 pros are still alive and kicking in the truck.

I joined the board because I am starting to put a system together in my new project, which will hopefully replace my current DD. I have a '89 Ford Bronco that I am resto-modding. It has a '95 front clip, '95 Dash, and a lot of custom fab work going into it. The Plan is for a car PC, and I have already finished fabbing a custom 'glass center console to house my 15" LCD touch screen. A few months back, I began buying up PG amps in preperation for a big system. I currently have 2 zx600TI's stowed away, a TI500.4, tantrum 1200.1, and tantrum 600.4. I am not likely going to use all of the amps, but after seeing where PG is headed, I thought I ought to get some of the better stuff they had before it was all gone!

I just snagged 4 Cerwin Vega Stroker 12D2's tonight on ebay. Brand new, old stock. I had 2 15d2's somewhere along the line, and loved them, 4 12's are gonna rock.

If any of you want to see pics of my fab work, or fab/machine shop, current projects, let me know and I will try to put some together. Unfortunately I don't think I have any pics of the systems from back in the day. I may have a few of the camaro, but they are likely analog.

Well, sorry for the long post, good to meet you all!

Jason

nico boom · Post by **nico boom** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:26 am

Welcome Jason!

Now THAT's a proper introduction; I miss that when a lot of other new members join this forum.

Looks like you're a real do-it-yourself man from the start; also something that is getting old-fashioned nowadays.
Old pics are always very much appreciated here, so if you can find some [you won't hear me complain about quality]; DO post them.

nico

martinkruit · Post by **martinkruit** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:41 am

Welcome

Ahsmo · Post by **Ahsmo** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 2:50 am

welcome

fordtough1 · Post by **fordtough1** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 3:39 am

Welcome to the Phorum, lets see some pics!

twisted · Post by **twisted** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:13 am

fordtough1 wrote:Welcome to the Phorum, lets see some pics!

yeah welcome and

dcmcki · Post by **dcmcki** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:15 am

Jacampb2 wrote:My off road toy is a 4x4 tube chassis powered by a FI BB ford 460.

Pics or ban..........J/K......wish I never got rid of my TJ.

Welcome aboard...........we are always in need of another enthusiest.

Post by **Rold Gold** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:18 am

What they said.........

Welcome to the funhouse....

Post by **Francious70** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:44 am

Welcome to the phorum mang.

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 2:13 pm

Thanks for the welcome guys. Pictures of the buggy, I can do. I have my wife looking for the 35mm pics of the camaro, but I just looked through a bunch of my back up cd's and didn't find any digital. I got rid of the camaro right around the time I got my first digital camera, so it was a long shot. Hopefully we have something around on film.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of the buggy. I finished it in '07. It has been out on quite a few wheeling trips, sadly though, it has no tunes!

This one is right after it got done, first time it moved under it's own power, and I drove it up a tree

First actual wheeling trip.

I will post a few pics of the bronco project, CNC Mill, and some other odds and ends I am currently working on later, I have to get to get ready for work, heading in for another 12hr midnight shift.

Later,
Jason

Post by **Wakeup** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 3:07 pm

Welcome to the PHorum! You've come to the right place if you like PG gear!

I hope you enjoy your stay here. You are more than welcome here! Hope you enjoy! We're a pretty good group of guys here.

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:38 pm

Thanks!

Now that I am settled in at work for the night, here are some more pictures.

This is the first shot of the new bronco project after work began last fall. The front clip is from a '95, the frame, drivetrain and axles are all from a '94 F350, I took 24"s out of the middle of the frame to fit the bronco. Wheel base is extended 6"s, which is taking a hell of a lot of body work to do, but it is slowly going forward.

Here is a pic of the '95 dash installed. This turned into a lot more time than anticipated, it was nowhere near a "almost bolt in", I had to cut out a good portion of firewall and graft in the newer pieces, but I like the dash style a lot better than the old one...

This is a picture of the plywood frame for the 'glass center console. There are two sections to the back of the console, bottom has a trap door and will hold the car pc cpu, top section is going to be your ordinary center console. Cut out for a 15" touch screen, and you can also see a glimpse of the remote shifter I made. The truck is a manual trans, so I fabbed a short throw shifter that also moves it back to between the front seats. Makes it more like a sports car shifter, and gives me room for the touch screen.

Some pics of the finished project.

And, my newest project I just dragged home. Bought a CNC bridgeport Series 2 mill a month or so ago. I am working on retrofitting it to modern drives and a PC based control. It should be up and running in the next few weeks. I also have a smaller manual knee mill in the background, and a pretty good size colechester lathe.

Is that enough pics for everyone? I know you really want pics of the PG stuff, but it is all in boxes in the back of the bronco right now, I don't have room in the shop at the moment to get it all out and take pictures.

Later,
Jason

Post by **Wakeup** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:08 pm

NO NOT ENUFF pictures! More pictures please!!!

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:21 pm

Wakeup wrote:NO NOT ENUFF pictures! More pictures please!!!

LMAO! Of what? I have pictures of almost every project I have taken on for the last 7 years, but not much of anything audio related. I don't want to piss y'all off first things with a bunch of off topic pics, but I have about a thousand, start to finish of a very poorly built S10 (my first 4x4 project), start to finish of about three generations of a jeep cj7 I built after the s10, lots of four wheeling pictures, start to finish pics of the buggy, from the first bend in tube to the ones above, start to present on all of the bronco work, plus pics of my machine tools and rebuilding each and every one of them.

So pick you poison, and I will post pictures until you are sick of me

Later,
Jason

Post by **Bfowler** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:25 pm

that center consol is excelent! nice job. i always have a hard time shapping wood to the contors of the vehicle.

welcome to the phorum!

fordtough1 · Post by **fordtough1** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:27 pm

Hell, show off your pics, we love pics here.

Is the motor modded at all in your buggy? What kind of gearing does it have? I love krawlers, so raw and beautiful.

Keep posting the pics!!

twisted · Post by **twisted** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:52 pm

nice buggy

hey can that cnc do say hmmmmmm maybe some PG surf board logs and such

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:53 pm

The motor is a bone stock 460 out of a '89 F350. The thing has enough low end torque that sinking money into it IMO would be a waste for what I do with it. I would rather have it factory and reliable, then built and not running. Not to mention trying to keep a stock motor this size cool at low speeds in tight quarter is bad enough, I don't want anything to do with a built one. All of the emissions crap is stripped though, and the motor wiring harness was gone through by yours truly, useless bits stripped out, and reloomed to clean up the engine bay. The trans is a stock ford 3sp C6, something like 2.46:1 1st, Transfer case is an advanced adapters Atlas II 5.0 comp case, 5:1 reduction, and the axles are both Dana 60 one tone ford axles, with 4.10:1 gears and lockers. Puts it right around 50:1 in first gear, low range. With an auto, that is more than enough reduction to make it walk through the brakes at idle.

I will dig up more pics in a while. I do have to do some work at work

Later,
Jason

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:01 pm

twisted wrote:nice buggy

hey can that cnc do say hmmmmmm maybe some PG surf board logs and such

Thanks, the cnc can't do anything at the moment, but hold down a 7'x8' square of concrete

It is a 4 axis mill, which means it can machine in the standard x/y/z dimensions, as well as either a horizontal rotary or vertical rotary axis. It has a CNC rotary table that can be bolted to the mill table in either orientation. Working envelope is about a 36" long piece, and 16" wide piece.

I guess I don't know off hand what a "surf board logo" is. If it will fit, and it's made of metal, or about any machinable plastic, then it should be able to do it. I am thinking that one of the first jobs for the machine will be to knock out aluminum covers for my rusty ti amps, and possibly engrave the logos and markings instead of silk screen.

Really got to get to work for a bit, thanks again for the warm welcome. I am very glad I found this place.

Thanks,
Jason

fordtough1 · Post by **fordtough1** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:38 pm

I'll bet that thing would climb straight up a wall if you gave it a chance. I agree about the motor mods though, reliable is always better on the trail

Post by **Wakeup** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 8:54 pm

Jacampb2 wrote:
Wakeup wrote:NO NOT ENUFF pictures! More pictures please!!!
LMAO! Of what? I have pictures of almost every project I have taken on for the last 7 years, but not much of anything audio related. I don't want to piss y'all off first things with a bunch of off topic pics, but I have about a thousand, start to finish of a very poorly built S10 (my first 4x4 project), start to finish of about three generations of a jeep cj7 I built after the s10, lots of four wheeling pictures, start to finish pics of the buggy, from the first bend in tube to the ones above, start to present on all of the bronco work, plus pics of my machine tools and rebuilding each and every one of them.

So pick you poison, and I will post pictures until you are sick of me

Later,
Jason

Heheh...was only giving you a hard time....most of us really just want to see your PG gear!

If you are interested in ours...here's some of everyone's gear.

http://phoenixphorum.com/let-s-see-your ... t3194.html

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:25 am

Jacampb2 wrote: And, my newest project I just dragged home. Bought a CNC bridgeport Series 2 mill a month or so ago. I am working on retrofitting it to modern drives and a PC based control. It should be up and running in the next few weeks. I also have a smaller manual knee mill in the background, and a pretty good size colechester lathe.

Have you seen this for CNC?

http://www.linuxcnc.org/

I personally don't know anything about it, but it looks cool.

Post by **Jacampb2** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:51 pm

Wakeup, I already saw that thread. One of the first things I looked through after joining. I had to stop half way through, all off those amps made me feel like I have to start spending even more money to catch up! Really made me miss my reactor. You guys don't have a database of LE amp numbers do you? I think my old one was 486, I sold it on ebay in early 2002, I think I got $700 or so for it. The MS1000TA brought only $500 or so, I hated to let them go, the MS1000 was less than a year old, and the reactor was only 2 or 3 years old, I bought them both new...

fuzzysnuggleduck, I have looked into EMC2, it is great software, more capable than most, and I will probably eventually run it. I am planning on starting off with MACH3, which will run in windoze. I will probably put a second HD in the machine, and load linux for emc2, but I have never used linux before, so there will undoubtedly be a learning curve.

Later,
Jason

Post by **Wakeup** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:04 pm

Jacampb2 wrote:Wakeup, I already saw that thread. One of the first things I looked through after joining. I had to stop half way through, all off those amps made me feel like I have to start spending even more money to catch up! Really made me miss my reactor. You guys don't have a database of LE amp numbers do you? I think my old one was 486, I sold it on ebay in early 2002, I think I got $700 or so for it. The MS1000TA brought only $500 or so, I hated to let them go, the MS1000 was less than a year old, and the reactor was only 2 or 3 years old, I bought them both new...

fuzzysnuggleduck, I have looked into EMC2, it is great software, more capable than most, and I will probably eventually run it. I am planning on starting off with MACH3, which will run in windoze. I will probably put a second HD in the machine, and load linux for emc2, but I have never used linux before, so there will undoubtedly be a learning curve.

Later,
Jason

Ya $700 for the reactor is a decent get in 2002. The MS1kTA tho....for 500...ouches...they go for upwards of $1000-1500 Depending on condition.

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:22 pm

Someone brought up a way to track LE amps before... I think we need the sticky thread.

New Here, Wanted to say hi

New Here, Wanted to say hi

Re: New Here, Wanted to say hi