Sorry about this first pic, the sun was behind the array. I wasn't thinking when I set it up.
The bottom cabinet is 6' off the ground The stands have another 18" of height available.
One of the key parts is this thing here, I call it the tray, or bridge. Note that it's wired. The single input uses 1+ 1-, and 2+ 2 -. The ouptus on the left are wired 1+ 1-. That way all the patch cables are the same. This lets you parallel an amp and run a single cable to feed the array.
The side shapes are critical. They help transfer the weight back to the cabinets
The sides are strapped together with 3/4" steel, carriage bolts, and wing nuts. The inside and outside of each bolt hole has a carriage washer, and there is aluminum tubing glued into the hole. I wanted to guard against wearing out the holes.
For hauling and storage, flip the bolt around so the head is on the outside, put the strap on the inside and tighten it down. All the parts stay together.
The backs have a piece of hardwall conduit mounted between gussets on the butt cheeks. The conduit serves 3 purposes. It's a handle, it's a race for the wires between the two jacks, and it's a clamp point. The backs are held together with more strapping and some heavy duty lighting clamps. Jacks were located to facilitate daisy chaining.
A closeup of the back supports. Note the tubing attached to the last one, it's the rear stabilizer.
The other end is attached to this crossbrace between the stands. It also has several purposes, and is your best friend, especially you DR280 guys.
When hanging the cabs slide the crossbrace up to the correct height for the cab. The cab will set on the brace while you attach the back support, and stay put while you go around front for the front supports. It's a lot easier than trying to hold the cabinet up while attaching the hardware.
The brace also ties the stands together making them very study, and is used to attach the rear stabilizer. The rear stabilizer will stop the array from waving back and forth and can take some of the weight off the hanging hardware.
A side shot of the array showing the angles. The cabinet that sets on the tray is straight all the time. The next one down is adjustable from straight to 3 degrees. The other cabs are fully adjustable from straight to 6 degrees.
Last shot. I installed top hats in the two crossfiring cabs so I can use them by themselves in small venues or with another cab on top when I want a bit more.
Each stand will handle 125 lbs, total weight for the system is 25o lbs.
The stands will elevate to 10'8". The cranks are easy to turn even with a lot of weight on them.
Yes, it's stable. You couldn't accidently knock it over by a long shot. It takes an awful lot of force well up on the speakers, about 7' off the ground to even get it to tip. The cabinets hanging in between the stands lower the center of gravity significantly. I'd go up one more as long as I went down one more. For 8 cabs you'd want to keep the last two down low. And for that you'd need an elevated stage anyway, so the stand wouldn't need to be cranked up as high.
I sat the system up in about 1/2 hour and took it down in about 20 minutes. It'll get faster, there's a definite series of steps to follow and I'm still figuring them out.
You'll note the tray in the array looks different than the one in the picture by itself. I failed to take into account all of the hardware on the stand and had to modify the tray. I'll build two new ones when I build the other side, but this is good enough for you guys to get the idea.
Refinements? Lots of room. I'm sure as I think on it I'll come up with other ideas.
