Melted ciare 12.00 driver from a punisher

I was wondering whether it's possible that when the cone moves in towards the sealed box, the pressure can escape from the 6mm hole more easily than it can from under the voice coil gap - especially approaching excursion limits when the gap for air to go through is much smaller. So the air pressure would be momentarily greater under the dust cap than in the rest of the chamber.

Then the same might happen in reverse too. If pressure equalization rates under the dust cap differ from those in the rest of the chamber each time cone movement reaches it's peak, I guess that would cause damage over the long term. Just wondering whether it had something to do with your flying dust caps problem...

May be completely wrong though!

"The tone of your post makes me think you are thinking deeply about something" am I that transparent?

darkmatter wrote: Sibulus wrote: darkmatter wrote: When I see people saying punishers can be run with up to 1500w per driver I do wonder what amps they're basing that on... I've seen people mention those power figures when driving them with martin audio 4.2 (re-badged lab) and lightweight QSCs - both of which I've also heard may not deliver rated power for long periods for sub. I think it's worth using a big amp, so that it can keep control of the driver (prob helps avoid over excursion), but stay well within limits. CSG said 800W - that sounds right to me. Well having run 6 4R loaded Ciare 12.00sw Punishers from a MK1 Infinite 8 for the best part of two years, and never having blown a driver, I can safely 800w is not about right. As the guy said his Camco was playing up. Plus with a design like the Punisher the air-tightness of the cab is a pretty big factor in drivers getting eaten. I think we're agreeing to be honest, I know you have a load of experience with punishers, I'm saying use a big amp but don't push it hard with heavily compressed sub when high passing at 39Hz. Is that 3 x 4ohm Ciares per channel on an Infinite 8 mk1? How much power would each be getting? Interested to know cos I'll have 6 punishers, so I was going to opt for 8ohm drivers.

Well I worked on the asumption that the fairly savage horn loading of the Punisher effected the resistance quite a bit, so the each driver is getting approx 1100w. Roughly!

yeah i thought just over 2ohms total load. 

From what I can tell it's not a overpower issue, but a mechanical problem. The dustcap gets loose with time and after the air can cycle freely front to back, the excursion rises a lot. I guess enough to get the VC that much out of the air gap that the cooling gets lost. So it's not much power that's needed in that situation to toast the speaker. I have six horns similar to the Punisher with 12.00SW and already had three loose dustcaps, one of them resultet in the here shown problem. The others I found loose before they got molten.

Hello JD,