Smoking Chipamp

[JesseG]

I must say (much to my regret, because it kills our hobby) that these amps sound damn good!

I completely agree about chipamps sounding 'damn good'.
I'm not sure that it kills the hobby - I get a big kick out of getting one of these things working. Then, I usually give it away to a friend or school or whatever. Kind of 'spreading the word' if you know what I mean.

You might have some fun taking a look at tsome of the other National Overture series chips, the LM4731, LM4732 or the LM4766. I have been playing around with these and have found that the lower power chips can sound even better that the LM3886 or LM4780.

My LM4766 has been praised as "the best sounding chipamp I have ever heard" by one of the most critical audiophiles I know.

A Different Chipamp - LM4766

Jess

[Stuey]

Originally posted by JesseG
Hi all

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, and that I learned by letting the smoke out of more than one chip...

The heat sink tab is NOT at ground potential on any of these chips. It is at V- potential. If your chip mounting tab makes electrical contact with the heatsink, and the heatsink is grounded, poof!!

I notice from one of the previous pix that the inside of the mounting hole appears to be exposed metal. If you did not use insulating washers then that's why the chip blew up.

This won't apply of it wasn't mounted to a heatsink when you first powered up, but if it was...

Jess

I'm pretty sure this only applies to the LM3886T and not the LM3886TF. The TF is insulated.