First GC Complete, thanks CarlosT and PDaniel

[Pathmark]

So thanks to some help from CarlosT and PDaniel I completed my first GC last night. It was a great feeling, I sat there listening for hours.

Actually I say complete but it really looks like frankstein at the moment. "Building" a case has turned out to be one of the most difficult parts.

As a note I ended up using computer processor heatsinks which had a copper base and temperature does not seem to be an issue.

I do have some remaining questions:

(1) Can someone walk me through the process of taking some measurements that ensures a quality build? (i.e. voltages, dc offset)

(2) The heatsinks are simply "attached" with the thermal grease provided. Is this enough or is there some other method I should affix?


Oh yeah I almost forgot, I really enjoyed the sound, even just using an ipod as source. I was shocked by the lack of noise. Nothing at turn-on, nothing without music. nothing at turn-off. Just music went it was playing. Thanks again to all those people who help make this possible.

Pathmark

[CarlosT]

Rock on, dude

Yeah...the case is a lotta work...the most work for me, too.

The chip should be secured with a clip or bolt and nut lightly tightened to make sure decent heat transfer happens.

I'm assuming that you're using the LM3875TF which has an insulated tab if you're using Peter's kit. This simplifies things for mounting since you don't have to worry about electrically insulating the chip from the heatsink.

[Nordic]

Use DC voltmeter on output... (short input - turn vol control to 0 if you have one)... typical offsets up to 30mv, reasonable below 100mv, but suspicious

[CarlosT]

For my combined channel mono IGC, I measured DC volts right at the output while playing music fairly loud...consistently got values jumping around 5 to 20 mV. Is that good?