Good Amp Kit?

[MellowTone]

Good day my fellow diyers, I have been considering building a chip amp for a while now (small, cheap, low heat and easy to do) and before commiting my dollars would like some advice on a kit amp I can buy here in Australia.

I have settled on a kit ChipAmp, as by the time I have tried (and failed) at etching my own pcbs or tried stripboard the monetary advantage would have dissapeared long ago, and much less frustration.

I was thinking of using this kit or this one. Both would use this power supply or similar.

Any thoughts?

Cheers, Nic.

[alleycat]

I recommend the kits from Peter Daniel at audiosector.com. You can get high quality toroids from Harbuch in Sydney.

[Stuey]

Howdy Nic,

The kits from Chipamp are way better quality than those from Altronics and Jaycar - in fact, the PCB's are probably the best quality I've ever seen. If you buy the electronic components from them as well, they are very good quality too - Panasonic caps and Phoenix resistors etc.

To buy the stereo pair LM3886 PCB's + the power supply PCB (single) and all components it cost me AU$92 delivered to Perth.

After much deliberation looking at combinations of the components from Farnell, RS Components and Jaycar/Altronics I figured it wasn't even cheaper to source this level of quality of components (along with the Chipamp PCB's) so I just bought the whole package from Chipamp...

Cheers

Stuey

[Leolabs]

Originally posted by alleycat
[B]I recommend the kits from Peter Daniel at audiosector.com.[B]

Agree and easy to get help within this forum.

[rabbitz]

Originally posted by psychocow21

Any thoughts?

Cheers, Nic.

I can help you as I just pulled out a LM4780 from a case to build a pre amp. This is built from an AudioSector LM4780 kit and is set up for 2 channels from 1 module. A plus of the LM4780 kit is that you can build 2 stereo amps.

You can have this for free as I still have the other LM4780 PCB in operation and don't need a second. This will have the power amp and power supply PCB's ready to go and all you need is a heatsink if you go higher than 25V rails (18-0-18 transformer), a transformer, case etc. The guys here can help you with voltage recommendations but this one was set up for 25V rails as I said which is good for 30W into 8 ohm and 55W into 4 ohms with using a small heatsink. As soon as you increase the voltage the heatsink requirements go up, especially for loads less than 8 ohm.

Send me a PM if you want it.

[rabbitz]

Going once.... going twice.....

[MellowTone]

Hey Rabbitz, I have now sent you 2 messages through the diyaudio link (from where you click on your name). I'm not sure why you have not recieved them. I am still very interested. Cheers, Nic.

[rabbitz]

Hi Nic

Received the second email and I'll send it to you this week.

Thanks to all the others that showed interest which shows that ChipAmps are alive and well.

Enjoy

[tlparker]

I have a premium 4780 kit on its way to me from audiosector (Peter has been very helpful, as I am considering driving it with an smps, but that's a whole 'nother matter).

What I'm curious about is your statement that you can make TWO stereo amps from one kit. My understanding is each board is basically a single monobloc, so one kit gets you two mono's (or stereo from a stereo pre-out). Are there some mod's posted to turn these babies into stereo boards? That would be fantastic for what I'm looking to do.

Originally posted by rabbitz


I can help you as I just pulled out a LM4780 from a case to build a pre amp. This is built from an AudioSector LM4780 kit and is set up for 2 channels from 1 module. A plus of the LM4780 kit is that you can build 2 stereo amps.

You can have this for free as I still have the other LM4780 PCB in operation and don't need a second. This will have the power amp and power supply PCB's ready to go and all you need is a heatsink if you go higher than 25V rails (18-0-18 transformer), a transformer, case etc. The guys here can help you with voltage recommendations but this one was set up for 25V rails as I said which is good for 30W into 8 ohm and 55W into 4 ohms with using a small heatsink. As soon as you increase the voltage the heatsink requirements go up, especially for loads less than 8 ohm.

Send me a PM if you want it.

[sangram]

One kit from Peter is two 4780 chips, with all the components required to turn them into two bridge amplifiers, two parallel amplifiers, or two stereo amplifiers.

Each 4780 is two amps, so you get 4 amplifiers.