livewire

Ottmar Liebert - CD: Nouveau Flamenco Track #4 ("Flowers of Romance") is to die for. Literally. Sounds like a funeral dirge done with a spanish guitar. Sad but beautiful piece.

RE: Michel Gondry vids - Weird stuff. Lotza ginger there!

Krypteria - "At The Gates Of Retribution" About midway in this track there is a piano solo, then a guitar interlude. The drumwork that follows these is just so visceral, I cant get enough! GOTTO. HAVE. MOAR!

Infected Mushroom - "Project 100" Great drums and synth.

I cannot believe the proliferation of counterfeit junk out there. The chinese are having a field day selling this crap! Boo Hoo, no repair parts on my doorstep today. I forgot that it's MLK Day. A holiday in the USofA.

My Mouser order of repair parts is arriving tomorrow. Now I can put humpty psu back together and fire it up. So far, it looks like I've cooked the 2SC3381 and the 2SC4686A on the negative supply rail. Not too bad. Not sure yet about the IXYS sand upstream on that side. They dont compare well to the devices on the positive side. Wont know until I've soldered in the new bipolar parts. I bought the new IXYS sand just in case I need them. Wasnt much, about an extra seven bucks. I'd rather not have to place another order with Mouser. Everything else checks out fine, diodes, resistors, caps, etc. I also had an arc flash on the +15 VR. It still works but doesnt regulate too well. So that is getting replaced also. It was due to the cheesy, thin theramsil pad chafing through from a sharp edge on the TO220 mounting lug. Maybe I over torqued it? Aint gonna happen again. Bought some heavy duty insulator pad material. Fiberglass reinforced.

@Lil' Knight - So you were able to fab some boards, good luck with your build! What's the second power supply board for? In case you fry the first one like I did?

Nice! Dont see that (color) everyday. Those tube holes are screaming out for some custom machined dress rings.

Thanks Monkey! Your review was instrumental in making the decision to buy this fine piece of gear.

WOW! Just WOW! Sonically this DAC sails like a home run ball - hit right out of the park! It actually gives believable bass to my Stax and K702's. The instrument separation and clarity is amazing. No congestion at all when hit with a huge wall of sound passage. The highs are slightly rolled off, but whats there is as sharp as a ginsu. I'm a mid-fi kind of guy, so if this is the next step up, I am staying here for a long while. I've had it with op amp based devices and their distorted sound. This one is a keeper!

Let us not forget "looks". The fake Rolex syndrome factors in here as well. "You gotto look good too" - so keep rockin those fake Beats yo!

So who remembers what they were doing on 10/10/10 at 10:10:10 ? I was working, just got off the elevator...

Just one more hour and my Neko D100 Mk2 will be on the the doorstep. Damn! I cant wait to hear this thing!!!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4220[/ATTACH] "I'm a good dog, sometimes they throw me a bone..."

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4219[/ATTACH] Listening to Krypteria's "At The gates Of Retribution". They are a german orchestral goth metal band that projects a huge wall of sound interspersed with traditional euro-medevil choral vocal passages. The lead singer is a lady of korean descent who puts on quite a show. Interesting stuff!

"Evil Boy"...............Boggles the mind! That is some really weird sh*t.

@Craig - Beautiful black box(es) you have there. Love the pics. Is that wood knob a custom micro-machined KG original?

Thank you sir for clarifying that! When I read your post before, I remembered that there was still some doubt as to the application of this shoulder washer. I would still need to use my custom ground backwards #4-40 stainless screws. But that shouldnt be a problem.

So I guess I've proven (the hard way) that the current limited kgsshv power supply is not immune to a dead short between it's ground and one of the 450VDC rails. I'm curious to see what fried. It is still outputting -200VDC on that rail. Time to remove it from the chassis and have a look.

Since I will be placing another order with Mouser and others soon, I will be ordering the alumina insulators and new small heatsinks and will be re-doing the install correctly. I understand that it is not prudent to potentially having 450VDC floating around on top of the heatsinks of the bare metal tab devices. Big shock hazard there if one were to brush up against it while say testing other parts on a live circuit. I'm still not a fan of plastic screws to affix / clamp these devices. Craig Sawyers mentioned earlier about a longer plastic shoulder washer that protrudes beyond the metal tab of the sand device, into the hole of the alumina insulator. These may also be prone to shorting out due to the thin side wall which may or may not have sufficient dielectric withstanding strength to resist an arcy-sparky jumping from the tab to the metal screw threads. So plastic screws it is. Is there a general consensus on what is the best kind to use, strength wise? At a decent price point and availability? Vendor name and part numbers please?

I'm probably not the best one to chime in on this due to the fact that I have a few scorched parts on my psu board at the moment. What I did with the small heatsinks was to use #4-40 stainless screws installed backwards. They fit through the tapped #6-32 hole without threading and I nutted them from the frontside, over the metal tab of the sand. To do this I had to grind the screw head flat on two opposing sides in order for it to fit between the fins of the backside of the heatsink. Since I didnt have the alumina oxide insulators handy for the high voltage devices, I stood the small heatsinks up off of the pcb about 1/4 of an inch, by re-drilling the tab mounting hole and then pulled the mounting pins off of the bottom of the heatsink so that the heatsink would not make physical contact with the ground plane of the pcb. A dab of silicone glue under the outside corner of the heatsink helps hold it in position so it couldnt be knocked over and potentially make contact with the pcb. The small heatsinks are light enough for the leads of the sand device to support it freestanding in the air. If desired, I can take a pic tomorrow and post it. Here again, this is not a "goof-proof" way of doing it, just a work-around kludge that may not be acceptable in the proper view of building a circuit.

That hippy bus has some serious headroom!

In the future, I plan on having two separate DMM's on my test bench. With different case colors too. One dedicated for current checks and the other for testing voltage. I've done this before in the distant past. (not replugging the test leads into the correct holes)

Nope, it did not survive. I see an order going to Mouser sometime soon. It was my mistake in that I didnt re-plug the ammeter hot side (red) test lead back into the voltage position before putting the probes on the terminal block. So, I induced a direct short. My Fluke is fried as well. The negative DC rail output now shows -200VDC instead of -450VDC. The positive side is unscathed, it still reads +450VDC exactly. Spritzer, FWIW on the trafo mounting I think that all is ok. I used the supplied large rubber washers below and above with the steel washer pancaked on top. The unit is mounted firmly, but not too tightly. It has a little wiggle room. I used a 2.5 inch long 1/4-20 center bolt with a nylok nut on top.

Ha! I just noticed my fruedian slip above. That one is sig worthy. I'm such a dork sometimes...