I'll start with some history on this. My boss that I do a lot of gigs for (hired DJ) is very sceptic about DIY cabs, he seems to think that commercial manufacturors have some kind of magic dust to sprinkle over their equipment that make it sound good. One good point that he has though is that there is no easy to work with, safe way of flying DIY cabs. This has troubled and tickled my mind so I'm trying to come up with a flying system for Bills cabs that meets the needs.
I've looked at N.Webbers solution and while it is simple, safe and problably not too expansive it fails in three points, you have to be two guys to rig the underhanging cab (that is if you don't put the cab on something to hold it while you fix the wires in his design), the equipment that he uses is not very easy to find and if you wanna angle more than one cab the underhanging angled cabs front will overlap the overhanging ones front.
I've tried to overcome these three problems and what I've comen up with is this:

It is basically two brackets on each side of the DRs, as you can see the front bracket has a cutout at the bottom hole, this allows the rigger to slide the cab in place and hold the back of the cab up while fastening the back bracket. The front bracket has two holes for the upper cab which will get the underhanging cabs front alined with the cab it's attached to. To secure the cab from sliding out of the front bracket one could just wrap a strap around each sides brackets or one could use something like this:

The brown piece is the bit holding the cab up, the black thing that the bit goes through is the front bracket and the L-shaped piece is the piece that prevents the bracket from sliding forwards. The brown bit would have to have sprints on both ends of it to prevent it from slipping out of it's place. The bit would have to have a bit smaller diameter than the holes to make up for any small measurement faults during the construction.
Ofcourse one could leave out the slits in the front brackets if they have a two man crew.
This shows what I'd thought of how to fasten the back brackets:

Then you need to fasten the array to something:

This array socket has to be engineered and a lot of measurements has to be taken care of but the main concept will probably be a lot like it.
Or you could have an assembly like this one if you have a long J-array and want to take a load off the brackets: The truss piece will in it's turn be underhung from another piece of truss.

There is a major concern though; There must be MINIMAL faults in measurements and some angels or else this will go all wrong.
To make it as accurate as possible you have to make every side of every cab exactly the same. This can be done by making all sides separately and by making the holes in the sides pre-assebly, all holes being measured out with a jig. You'll get the idea with this:
After this every side must be angled the same on the cab, this should be fairly easy done by laying the cab on a true flat floor with the mouth down so that the sides will sit on a same angled surface. After that the sides has to be mounted fairly equally placed so that the cab won't be tilted to the right or the left once it's hanging.

All hanging equipment must be made of metal, I don't think that plywood or any wooden material would meet the required strength. The concept should be fairly easy to construct as long as there is a company nearby that can make the brackets. The cabs are not a part of the hanging construction, they are only attached to the brackets.
No measurements or strengths of anything have been written yet as this has to be carefully engineered.
This is merely an idea thrown out to you.
What say you?

Subscribed to this thread for responses, I have a similar need and would like to hear what everyone has to say. I'm liking your idea so far, will have to review it closer.

Turntablist, are you familiar with Nimrod Webber's hanging rig? Let me see if I can find it...\

EDIT: Found it, check pic #9 in this post on PSW: http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.p ... msg_210975

Yeah I've read about it. My comments on his design is in the top of the text in the first post.

What I've considered lately as an upgrade to my idea is to cross breed my and Nimrod's ideas. To use the front brackets in my design and the back cable support in Nimrods design. The whole idea of my design is to be able to setup the rig easily and fast for one man. That would be made faster with the cable in the back instead of two brackets. It would also be lighter and since it is a three point suspended solution it won't be as dependant on accurate measurements as a four point suspended solution is.

The front brackets needs some thinking through to make them a bit easier to work with. The hook on works but I feel that a better method to lock the bracket in place is needed.

Sorry about that, I see now where you mentioned N. Webber's design.

Here's 4 of my DR280s flow using Penn Flying track system

They aren't cheap. Parts alone cost about $US80 per set and there's 4 sets on each cab

For me there was freight, so I had to double the price ( to NZ ) as the parts are heavy






My client ( pictured ) is very happy with the result though.

Is he the one that order the 8 of them instead of the vertecs? Did he ever get to demo them? and a better question did you get to fire up that stack yourself

And that rigging looks pretty cool, but oh my, expensive. And I imagine the j shape will come in very hand for him.

I'll stick to $50 poles and wood stands (well, that is until I need more than three of anything per side)

Yes

I'd think the better route over the OP design is an integrated metal plate that mounts to the cab front and back. You could do a 3 point instead of a 4 point and the front 2 points would pin together. This would support the cabinet with all the load on the plates, and make it easy to have repeatable results as well. The hanging hardware could then attach to the plate already like another cabinet above the top cab.

Just my 2 cents if you're going to have a metal strip fabricated anyway. The results IMO would be much more pro.

I can't picture what you mean, please explain further! The quest here is to lock down one solid technique and all opinions are welcome!

these penn hangers are basically roundhole bolts and steelwire???

and by the way if your client looks very happy i dont wanna see him "verry mad"

Ok, since you asked.

How about using 1/2" bolts thru the upper and lower plates in the middle of the horn? A stack of 4 would require 6 bolts. Can't think of anything easier, stronger, or cheaper at the moment.

Is there anyway to add fly hardware to the rear of DR's post build? I can see it's easy on the sides.

Not the ones I used. They need doing before you attach the back.

No. They are the Penn flying track, the Penn matching backing plate ( inside ) and the Penn snap in ring. The wires are my customer's manufacture.

He's a very nice guy but yes, not many people give him any lip which is handy in his business.

Harley, sorry bout the comment of your client pal...
I see... I see says the blin... i mean i got to zoom in the photos and i have a Question.. the metal hanger on the forks of the forklift is part of the penn system??
I think im mindcrafting a hanging system that can be used with bfm tops(omnitops & drs) i need to make tests to ensure the proper balancing of the weight of the J array and I think that the key is on that metal hanger

I needed parts for my panel lift yesterday and went to telpro's site. Take a look at these. I called them, ordered some parts and told them to look at what was available for raising cabs and modify one of these for that purpose. They're about half the price of comparable units from everybody else. Still not crazy cheap though. But if they're like my panel lifts, they're very tough.

http://www.telproinc.com/ Look at the cabinetizer/gillift.