scored FC's!!!

[impsick]

first off since i've moved here to burbank, ca 9 months ago i got into the diy stuff. and let me tell you this is probably the best freakin city to diy!!!!

today i hit up my local WIMA distributer TAW who also carry panasonic FC's and HFQ's and ordered 6 50v 100uf fc's and they gave em to me as samples. sweet!

so anyways back to burbank, so right next door to TAW is Electronic City which is a sweet store. but those of you who havent yet heard of the mecca of electronic stores "Apex Electronics" its insane. i've spent 5hrs there a couple times, no lies. its worth a 12hr flight to visit this place. it is our mecca. and so i've been told by an employee that apex jr is his brothers place.
but anyways i have never spent more then $20 there with my arms full! the other day picked an ILP torodial for 10$!!! bad *** freakin place. plus there is fry's but **** em. who's with me on that? customer service is horrible and the lines aint worth it for a freakin diode, or opamp. anyways if you need wima of fc's taw has a web site. they're cool people.

not to brag but i gotta tell someone who might appreciate it.
peace

[troystg]

Aki-harbora (sorry for butchering the spelling) in Japan is incredible..

Walk down the street and pick up parts to build ANYTHING.

PC, DVD player, AMP, car CPU... You name it...

It was like a dream to me... Ashame I couldn't afford anything because the exchange rate was so bad at the time...

[Bonicon]

Yes, Akihabara is great, now when I got some projects going I go there several times every month. It took awhile to find all the good places, as a tourist on a brief visit it is a lot to take in, and most of the small shops (some just 2-3 sq.meters) can be hard to find even with maps and directions, since the layout of buildings and stores are so chaotic. I should put up some info in english about good places for audio and diy, and how to find them. However, some parts are very elusive despite the abundance of shops - one thing I have yet to find is a place specializing in toroidal transformators, this has become my search for the holy grail here...it seems with the 50+ shops I have been too there would have been some toroids on display, but no luck so far. Perhaps the diehard audio guys here wind them themselves. As far as the price-level goes, the cheap stuff is cheap but quality or exotic parts still command a price. I can't put the general price-level in reference to other countries as I picked up this hobby after moving to Japan, but I do seem to be spending a lot on some fairly basic things like cable, connectors and materials for enclosures. Even old used stuff is expensive if it was ever considered to be good quality, this even goes for 20 year old caps which may or may not still have any life left within them.

Anyways, there are so many things to see and find there, so you can surely spend the better part of a day there!

[troystg]

Canare cable is made (and fairly enexpensive) there and works GREAT for most DIY stuff.

I now have order it from Markertek at 2 -3 times the price now that I'm back in the states..

I used to buy the 4 conductor mic cable by the roll there.. ~100 meters..

As for toroids, your right all I EVER saw there was EI cores..

[Bonicon]

I'll see if I can find some canare cable there next time I go, do you remember how much you paid for it? I will build a mains power-cable for my current GC-project, so I am looking for some high-quality shielded stuff. I was able to find some cat6 reasonably priced before, which I used to build speaker cables, but it seems that particular source is all dried up now. Also, despite a lot of effort I have not been able to find any with FEP (teflon) insulation, just the plain PVC variety. What is most disturbing to me though is the price of shrink tubing and the mesh-tubing I bought to make my braided cables look more acceptable (they are rather big) in the living-room, just a few meters of that cost me several thousand yen, something like 20USD just to dress up 3 meters of cable. Ouch. Is it expensive in the US as well?

I have tried to find substitutes, even bought some shoelaces in the 100-yen shod (dollarstore) which I can use for interconnects, but obviously not for the lengths of a speaker cable.

[troystg]

These 2 are what I used for interconnects and internal wiring...

2 conductor for short runs:

http://www.markertek.com/Product.asp...&search=0&off=

4 conductor for longer runs:

http://www.markertek.com/Product.asp...&search=0&off=

And I bought this speaker cable to try and was really suprised by it.. For the money it is a steal... I got Grey and it is not bad looking either..

http://www.markertek.com/Product.asp...&search=0&off=

But alas, my current project is a 3 way active speaker with servo woofer section so my requirement for cable has deminished greatly.

[Bonicon]

That 2-conductor microphone cable looks really interesting, I will have to do some experiments with that one.

For my GC I will use some silver wire for internals, but it is really compact so we are talking inches here...hopefully I can get it going this weekend. It is my first GC so I've been going slowly. Well actually, last night I put together an LM380 based amp, just for soldering-practice, and it works well now, although it is decidedly lo-fi.

[CarlosT]

Does Apex Jr. just buy leftover surplus parts stock from JBL or something? I've never been impressed by their internet offerings.

[impsick]

i dont know. i've never gone to apex jr, just apex cuz apex is open to the public and from what i understand you have to make an appointment for apex jr.

here is a shot of the torodial i got for $10

[imix500]

Steve has a LOT more than he is able to put on the website. Just have to ask.