April 23, 200818 yr Great work Nate. I have enjoyed following the gestation and birth of your latest.
April 23, 200818 yr Nate that wiring looks beautiful! If you'd like to see a badly wired amp as comparison look inside a McAlister.
April 23, 200818 yr Nate that wiring looks beautiful! If you'd like to see a badly wired amp as comparison look inside a McAlister. or an original singlepower toaster... kind of wonder what would happen if nate could get his hands on some of my NC toys... one point off for the gluing of the 2 caps to the chassis in the power supply...
April 24, 200818 yr one point off for the gluing of the 2 caps to the chassis in the power supply... good catch. I've been guilty of strapping caps together and in general being too trusting of the sleeve providing insulation equal to the caps working voltage rating.
April 24, 200818 yr Author Well, it only took one emergency call to TX and the amp is now working pretty decently. It has a bit of background hum which Pete and I believe is linked to the less than optimal grounding scheme that I have right now. In truth, there was actually an error in the grounding as shown in the pictures that I didn't catch so for a little while there it didn't look like the amp would be doing much in the near future. Thankfully we got that sorted with only minimal sparks, no burns and nothing permanently fubared. I'm guessing the good folks at CanJam won't even notice the hum given how loud meets usually are but it'll be first on my list to address when I get home. Wuhoo! The Menace Lives. Oh, and I'll actually be adding some external heatsinking to the case in before the amp gets shipped to Florida, she does run toasty.
April 24, 200818 yr Author other than the hum, does it sound good? Yes, but since I've heard a total of 2 songs, sourced by my Ipod touch (i'm on the floor in the basement for safety reasons) I'd be hard pressed to make any real judgments at this point. Translation: needs more burn in.
April 24, 200818 yr Author Thanks guys, I just added a semi-permanent fix to the grounding issue (so it'd be safe to travel on Friday) and refired it and I think the hum is already a little better by using a wire instead of a jumper. It'll definitely need more attention as it is more than I'd ever accept but hopefully it's not all that intensive a fix. So right now I'm chilling to Feist w/ [2] 5U4GB rectifiers, a Slyvania 6SN7GTB and [2] RCA 6AS7G's and it sounds pretty damn good.
April 24, 200818 yr Congratulations Nate. I look forward to hearing it at CanJam. Nice job. You too Pete, wherever you are.
April 24, 200818 yr I'm disappointed I won't be able to get over and give it a listen before you ship it out. But it's great to hear you were able to get it up and running with no little trouble and that all is well. Congratulations are definitely in order. With everything else on your plate, the fact that you were able to plan and execute this build in such short order is nothing short of incredible. :golfclap:
April 24, 200818 yr So..... pics of the completed beast in action? I was going to say the same thing.
April 24, 200818 yr Author So..... pics of the completed beast in action? Jebus man, I've been up past midnight for 3 nights straight working on this among other things and pictures of it on my basement floor just aren't going to cut it. Last night I was so spent when I got it done that I just crashed and went to bed at 12:15. I'm going to a couple mild tweaks tonight see if the hum can be further calmed and also the localized heatsinking. Right now after ~30min of use the hot spot in the center of the chassis was running about 190deg F, a fair bit hotter than I'd like for sure. It dissipated very quickly so it's not like the whole chassis is roasting but I wonder what it would have been like after 2 or 3 hrs or with 6528's on the outputs instead of just the 6AS7's. In the end this may point to the amp chassis needing larger more invasive mods or a new chassis altogether. So the plan for tonight is to: 1. Install a ground loop breaker to offer some separation between the PS and Amp grounds. 2. Install several small top-side mounted heatsinks above the larger resistors to help with heat issues. 3. Run the amp for at least an hour as a semi-stress test to make sure that it's ready to ship to FLA tomorrow. 4. If time permits take a few better pictures.
April 24, 200818 yr Congrats on the beast. Regarding the name... when I was a kid, I used to read this comic called: "fantomas, the elegant menace," that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw your title, heh. To boot I believe this is a french comic character. now, no excuse for the pics, you must please us plebes, otherwhise: Jebus man, I've been up past midnight for 3 nights straight working on this among other things and pictures of it on my basement floor just aren't going to cut it. Last night I was so spent when I got it done that I just crashed and went to bed at 12:15. I'm going to a couple mild tweaks tonight see if the hum can be further calmed and also the localized heatsinking. Right now after ~30min of use the hot spot in the center of the chassis was running about 190deg F, a fair bit hotter than I'd like for sure. It dissipated very quickly so it's not like the whole chassis is roasting but I wonder what it would have been like after 2 or 3 hrs or with 6528's on the outputs instead of just the 6AS7's. In the end this may point to the amp chassis needing larger more invasive mods or a new chassis altogether. So the plan for tonight is to: 1. Install a ground loop breaker to offer some separation between the PS and Amp grounds. 2. Install several small top-side mounted heatsinks above the larger resistors to help with heat issues. 3. Run the amp for at least an hour as a semi-stress test to make sure that it's ready to ship to FLA tomorrow. 4. If time permits take a few better pictures.
April 25, 200818 yr Author Time to find out if the last two hours of tweaking has made any difference...
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