Well, Greg's amp parts came in while I was away. I sat down and went through the parts last night, and even did a bit of soldering on one board.
The boards are very well-made. Through-hole plated, and what looks to be heavy gauge foil. The included parts are all top-notch, with the arguable exception of the electrolytic caps. Greg includes some nice-looking 105C caps, but I'm unfamiliar with the brand. Also, the shipped box got totally mashed in transit, and the 100µf 100V caps ended up looking like a Taco Bell burrito that someone stuck in their back pocket and then sat on. No big deal, as I had planned on replacing the 100µf 100V caps with 47µf 100V caps to allow better access to the MOSFET mounting screws. I'm also replacing the single-turn trimpots with 25-turn Bourns pots.
There are two zeners in there with writing on them that you just about need a microscope to read...Greg, if you read this, might consider marking these before shipment for those of us with aging eyes. :yes:
The board is set up so you can wire in a bi-metallic switch to shut down the amp at a preset temperature if you want, and you can even wire in an LED to light when this occurs. I'm going the quick and dirty route, so these niceties are being skipped.
Greg does not include a input capacitor, suggesting instead that one use DC coupling, or use your favorite cap. I dislike DC coupling a bipolar input to an amp, so I'm using a 3.3µf 50V metal polyester cap. I wish there were room to squeeze a larger metal polypropylene cap in there, but the current layout of the board does not allow this.
I'm still waiting on the heatsinks, so I won't be getting too much further till they arrive, but here's a really crappy pic of one nearly completed board, and the parts for the other one.
The boards are very well-made. Through-hole plated, and what looks to be heavy gauge foil. The included parts are all top-notch, with the arguable exception of the electrolytic caps. Greg includes some nice-looking 105C caps, but I'm unfamiliar with the brand. Also, the shipped box got totally mashed in transit, and the 100µf 100V caps ended up looking like a Taco Bell burrito that someone stuck in their back pocket and then sat on. No big deal, as I had planned on replacing the 100µf 100V caps with 47µf 100V caps to allow better access to the MOSFET mounting screws. I'm also replacing the single-turn trimpots with 25-turn Bourns pots.
There are two zeners in there with writing on them that you just about need a microscope to read...Greg, if you read this, might consider marking these before shipment for those of us with aging eyes. :yes:
The board is set up so you can wire in a bi-metallic switch to shut down the amp at a preset temperature if you want, and you can even wire in an LED to light when this occurs. I'm going the quick and dirty route, so these niceties are being skipped.
Greg does not include a input capacitor, suggesting instead that one use DC coupling, or use your favorite cap. I dislike DC coupling a bipolar input to an amp, so I'm using a 3.3µf 50V metal polyester cap. I wish there were room to squeeze a larger metal polypropylene cap in there, but the current layout of the board does not allow this.
I'm still waiting on the heatsinks, so I won't be getting too much further till they arrive, but here's a really crappy pic of one nearly completed board, and the parts for the other one.
