notes for the novice

[tfrei]

I just finished my first chip amp. [It works great!] I used a kit from audiosector.com . Since I am complete novice at this, I thought I would share my notes of experience in case there are any other newbies attempting a chip amp for the first time.

1) I fabricated my own chassis from odds and ends from Home Depot. My intention was to save money. I did not. After buying and rebuying various parts to fulfill a design that was evolving as I went, I would have saved a lot of money by simply buying a chassis or chassis kit from an online vendor. What I fabricated did work, but it is not the prettiest box out there. Chassis kits also solve a lot of mounting and grounding problems in efficient ways.

2) Some (many actually) of the details for finishing off a chip amp must be found by searching on the internet. I found help by searching the pages of this forum and by consulting the excellent Decibel Dungeon at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nuukspot/decdun/ . [Decibel Dungeon helped immensely with information on how to wire a torroidal transformer with 4 wire primaries and other configurations.]

3) Volume control. I was really perplexed about which part to buy and how to wire it up. One easy way out is to use a pre-amplifier. You can buy one from AudioSource for about $160. This might not be the approach for purists, but as a newbie you have to strike the balance between completing the amp and completing a perfect amp. For me, buying a pre-amplifier made it possible to finish the amp. I'll try for more bells and whistles with my next amp project.

4) Internal cable management is not something you can execute well on the fly. I didn't do a great job. Study the designs on finished amp projects and adopt a version of something that looks good.

5) Soldering 101: use the right wattage for the size part you are soldering. I used 45 watts for bigger pieces; 25 watts for smaller pieces. This simple advice can save a lot of time and frustration.

6) I used 18 AWG for the mains to the rectifier to the two channels. For everything else, I used 20 gauge solid.

7) This stumped me for awhile: Dual mono-blocks = two transformers + two rectifiers + two channel amplifiers. Usually dual mono-blocks are housed in two separate chassis. A stereo amp = one transformer (with dual secondaries) + plus one rectifier + two channel amplifiers.

8) Consult the forums. Search first, but then ask a question. Most questions, however, can be answered with a little bit of searching effort since somebody has probably has asked the same question before you.

These notes are not earth-shaking news for most of the people who read this forum, but the beginning is more than half for newbies diving into their first project.

[maurycy]

Good notes.

I had a similar experience when building my amplifier. Getting the amp kit, trafo and enclosure was probably less than half the total cost. All the additional parts were pretty expensive when added together (especially buying online with shipping or going to Radio Shack). Though I had to admit, that I did not even had a wire or soldering iron before I started

[renfrow]

Originally posted by tfrei
I just finished my first chip amp. [It works great!] I used a kit from audiosector.com . Since I am complete novice at this, I thought I would share my notes of experience in case there are any other newbies attempting a chip amp for the first time.

[deleted]

2) Some (many actually) of the details for finishing off a chip amp must be found by searching on the internet. I found help by searching the pages of this forum and by consulting the excellent Decibel Dungeon at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nuukspot/decdun/ . [Decibel Dungeon helped immensely with information on how to wire a torroidal transformer with 4 wire primaries and other configurations.]

[deleted]

4) Internal cable management is not something you can execute well on the fly. I didn't do a great job. Study the designs on finished amp projects and adopt a version of something that looks good.

[deleted]

For the things I've built, this has been the most important thing: seeing the internals of other's building. I've bookmarked scores of pages, and started copying some, as I've found pages have a way of disappearing for extended periods of time

Tom.

[Nordic]

If you are building to save money, you are not going to be successfull for a long time.... basicaly it is only once your parts bins start filling up with odds and ends that you can scrounge together...

Generaly you will find that electronic components only account for maybe 25% of the cost the transformers, cases, heatsinks, knobs, feet, speaker terminals, IEC connectors etc... are all things one tend to forget about when you look at an online schematic and starts to do sums in the back of your head....