How to mount a speaker on top of a shipping container

When rigging PA speakers for music or another public event, it's important that they have a  good solid base to keep them steady. The last thing any event organiser wants is a speaker falling over mid-event. With this in mind, and having had a few enquiries already from event organisers hoping to put together outdoor events with arenas built from shipping containers, we thought we would put the smallest size of vertical tube clamps to use, creating a raised speaker pole on top of a container onto which we will mount a PA speaker. 

What size tube is used for speaker stands?

The standard size tube for speaker stands is 35mm or 1 ⅜” outside diameter. The wall thickness can vary but is generally around 1.5mm, and the material also varies between steel and aluminium. Usually you'll find them on top of a speaker tripod, or poking out of the top of a bass bin, allowing the midrange speaker to perch on top. 

What equipment do we need to mount a speaker on a shipping container?

As explained in our previous blog detailing how to attach a scaffold tube to a shipping container, we can easily attach 3 common sizes of steel tube vertically to a container using our palm railing fittings; 48, 42, and 34mm. For attaching the speaker, we’ll use a single 34mm clamp with a 33.7mm outside diameter tube. Obviously that's just over 1mm smaller than a standard speaker pole fitting, but with only 0.65mm extra either side, you’ll find that it makes almost no difference, and the added strength of using steel conduit will mean that the tube won't get crushed in the tube clamp. If you really want to use a 35mm speaker pole for this, then you’ll find that they do generally fit inside a 34mm tube clamp anyway, but be careful not to over-tighten the grub screw.

Assembly instructions

This is really simple. Start by inserting your short speaker pole or 33.7mm tube (we recommend no more than 30cm long, and at least 15cm) into the tube clamp.

Then do up the grub screws with a 6mm hex key. (NOTE: these use a smaller hex key to the larger 2 sizes of tube clamp which both use an 8mm key)

Insert a Domino Clamp into any of the shield or stadium holes, located on the sides of any of the upper corner castings of your shipping container.

Do up the Domino Clamp really tight with a long arm 10mm hex key.

The hole spacing on the clamps we supply for this job matches the Domino clamps, so that you can now bolt the tube clamp straight onto the Domino, using the M12 set screws and washers provided. You’ll need a 19mm wrench or adjustable spanner to do these up nice and tight.

Now with the speaker pole bolted securely to the side of the shipping container, Safely lift your speaker up and onto the pole.

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