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Made it onto the Ocoee this weekend. It was the "easy" section, and a short day, but still a good time. I'm going to try for the whole middle section in 2 weeks.

Thanks Kevin! Working on an all heatsink version. Left side is almost ready...

Went into the City to pick up the Penofin oil for the deck chairs and found I can get clean 2x12 cedar there for less than I was paying for rough cut 2x8 out in the country. Who would have thunk it.

Sourcery - Terry Pratchett As an American, it is a little hard to believe Terry Pratchett was the best selling author in the UK in the 90s given the way his work just never took off over here. That being said, I’ve always been intrigued by the Discworld series and figured I’d give one a try. I think this was a bad place to start. It felt more like a collection of witty one-liners and gags held together by a loose plot. Looking at people’s rankings of the Discworld novels, this one usually rates in the bottom 1/4-1/3, so I am up to give Discworld another chance and write this one off. I hear the City Watch line is a fan favorite so going to try those next.

Is that Pete's daughter?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that just described the whole series -- at least as far as I got. You might try Christopher Moore. There tends to be more plot...actually, now that I think about it...I haven't read him in a while. Good idea, I'll have to catch up on his books. I just autosugged myself.

^ I tried Discworld a few times years ago. Not bad but not for me is what I remember thinking.

Hi James, from your detailed description, it looks like the cutter being the culprit. It would be the first to swap out.

Motion Sick Pip Millett 2021 https://album.link/i/1570669902 Example: An R&B EP from a new UK singer. Overall I liked it, the groves are good and the voice is there. I will keep an eye on them.

I'm definitely not a coffee aficionado, but I have recently grown fond of iced coffee. I finally got my measurements correct for making my own concentrate. Makes it simple to make a great iced coffee (usually with Irish creme) at any time.

Legs will be feeling this for a bit. Notice the one minute and thirty seven second difference between moving and elapsed times. I did not stop other than for a dropped chain and at a few ride lights. I should have eaten more and needed more fluids but all in all, survivied ok and feel ready for the century in a couple weeks.

Which aliminium alloy is this exactly you are working with? 6061-T6 being the standard for CNC machining and excellent all purpose alloy.

Godspeed, Matt...and best friend. Please accept my sincere condolences for your losses, Brent. Sam

I´m ready for my next challenge (1º Oct). Cicloturista de la Gomera 🙂 I have very good friends in the amphitryon team and this year I have managed to square the dates to be with them

Nice day with old friends . Who said hot?

Built a Megatron. Seems to be the perfect amp to build during the seemingly unending shortage of 10m90s. I used up my final few pieces of 10m90s and C2M1000170D for this simple build, and it gave me some mild anxiety and regret for not hoarding up those sands. However, the build experience and result are worth it. Build process and after thoughts I started off with a pair of generic chassis from Taobao. 32cm wide, 8cm tall, 35cm deep. Silver and black anodised aluminium. They weren't available in other finishes but this looks clean enough to me. They do have some minor scratches and dents if you look hard enough though. The casework was done by a laser etching service provider I found on Taobao. The end result was a clean and modern appearance. Inside the PSU are a pair of +/-450V GRHV, +/- 15V GRLV, delay board and a 270VA toroidal transformer. The idea was to create a PSU that can be used by both the Megatron and the Grounded Grid amp units. These components fit the chassis nicely with little room for a third GRHV board for the 300v rail for Megatron. Outputs are split into AC and DC outputs. Transformer specs: The heatsinks for the amp unit were probably redundant since most of the heat comes off from the top. The amp board could probably fit into a smaller and lighter chassis, but I chose the same chassis as the PSU just so that they can stack. The amp build was straight forward and relatively easy compared to a Carbon build or any of the KG dynamic amp builds, due to the low component count. I did not use any boutique components in this build. The coupling caps are Wima, and the voltage rail decoupling caps are Siemens. Volume pot is an EIZZ-style stepped attenuator, internal signal wirings are pure copper. Special care was taken when routing the heater filament wires to avoid hum. Amp testing and adjustment was simple. Just ensure the all the rails are as spec'ed and that's about it. The voltage offset settles automatically after power on. No need to fiddle with any potentiometer when the amp is powered on, so it is much safer to test than the Carbon or the T2 family. Sound I used the Megatron with ES-1A, and here is my impression of the Megatron after comparing it with GG (on the same PSU), Carbon (450V GRHV 15V GRLV) and Mini T2 (triple GRHV). Currently I am using the Megatron with a quad of Mullard XF2 and PSVane EL34PH. The front end tubes are all Valvos. The sound of the Megatron is warm, slightly thick in the mids, and non fatiguing and airy in the treble. It sounds very natural and the imaging is holographic with good recordings. While it is very detailed, it does not ruin joy if the recordings are of poorer quality. Older or poorly mixed recordings have a smooth timbre and organic vibe when heard from the Megatron. While the Megatron's treble is not as extended as the Carbon's, it complements the overall signature to create a very complete soundstage and convincing sense of separation and space. What makes the Megatron standout from crowd lies in its low end - it is an amp for bassheads. It has by far the most THICC bass compared to my other amps, even more than the Carbon. The bass extends as deep as the Carbon, but the Megatron has a nice lift in the mid bass that makes my ES 1a slam extra hard. Listening to EDMs and fast pop tracks on E-Stats is finally satisfying, and I can finally stash away my planars. Carbon is like an antithesis to the Megatron. Carbon is like a clean cutting razor with little tolerance for inaccuracies where as Megatron adds a lot of joy and flavour into the listening experience. Carbon also sounds a little linear. Although the stage is wide, it is not as deep as the Megatron's. GG sounds more organic than Carbon in general. The GG's signature is quite dependent on the tubes. With the XF2s, GG is warm and clean, but doesn't deviate far from the Carbon sound. The bass isn't as tight and fast, and treble could sound stiff and slightly shrill with the wrong tubes - such as the re-issue Mullard EL34. Mini T2 sounds slightly leaner and cleaner than the Megatron, and has a much smaller bass. It is as enjoyable a listening experience for me, but the Mini T2 was much harder to build - by sheer component count. Tube placement and choices Placing the EL34s in this manner shown below allows one to use two matched quads of EL34 if matched octets are unavailable. Initially I used cheap Linlai tubes for the front end and had issues with sound imbalance and hum - turned out that the tubes were the culprits. Switched to some cheap NOS and the issues were gone. So my advice would be to use well built tubes from reputable makers. The 12AU7s affect the sound significantly. The option to roll tubes makes Megatron extra fun to use. More photos of the internals and the back of the amp coming up soon, when I am more free. I would say that the Megatron is my favourite amp - until I build the T2.

Celebrating the Birthday of Corrinne Bedecarre.

Been working to overhaul a trailer redid the bearings cut off the old bunks used POR-15 for three coats directly on the rust then top coated two coats of OSHA blue re-did all the wiring and lights to get it legal, finally got inspection and the vin number assigned (a three month process, involving appraisal, inspection, weight certificate, surety bond, tons of paperwork and waiting in lines…) Now I am on to working on the front mast cradle again and trying to build in a winch to help with the mast raising process. Had a trial run over the weekend and my trig was off (angles are hard) and line was too short. Rats!

Today I’ve equipped my modified T2 with the 01N100D/LT1021 current source Kerry has simulated, see previous posts. From beginning it had a straight 10M90S set to 10 mA. When JimL came with the cascaded version I removed the two resistors at 10M90S and added a small board with the DN2540 and corresponding resistors(red circle below). Today I made new daughter boards containing LT1021, 1k resistor and 47pF cheremic capacitor (green circle). Have listen to this for an hour. It works and I’m satisfied. Thanks Kerry for coming up with this. Below solar cell. Only for experimental purpose.

I saw some noise issues in the Spice model for the regulator version as well. I could mostly control it, but not completely (especially once you go above 20KHz). Here's another idea I came up with (CSS #2 and #4). They will also support 1,000V. You could improve it slightly by adding a DN2540, but I'm not sure it's worth it. These other two models work almost as well as the battery at 10KHz and only a bit worse at 20KHz. The second (#2 below) is probably the best bang per parts. # 4 could be made to be a bit better, but I'm not sure it's worth it. The results are for the first three only (which includes the battery that Kevin came up with). R1 May not be necessary, but it felt good I want to experiment a bit more with it.