Amp Chasis/Enclosures and Heatsinks

[fredlock]

I believe that most of the DIY Audio members had built a good sounding amplifiers. I'm just wondering where they bought their hardwares (Amp Chasis/enclosure & heatsinks) for their amps. I built a couple of DIY amplifiers and I've been looking on the internet for these hardwares, that is available in the US, but I have no luck. I found one in the internet but the store is located in Taipe Taiwan. Here's the link,

http://www.thlaudio.com/indexE.htm

A lot of choices and really nice looking chasis. The only problem is there's no prices posted but I'm sure it's pricy plus the shipping and handling, which will cost more money because of the weight. I haven't tried inquiring but I might try if I get a chance.

This is the reason why I'm asking if anybody knows of a store here in the US that sell these hardwares' which might be cheaper than buying it from other countries. Would somebody has a recommendation?

[jackinnj]

Well, you are in Cali which is the bone-yard of used equipment -- you can quite often purchase a used Crown, SAE, Phase Linear amp used by some stoner-guitarist, gut the thing and you have a half decent chasis and power transformer. All you need is some sand paper and auto primer to get first rate stuff.

Also -- in the test equipment and medical equipment sections of EBay you have perfectly good cabinets and chasis for stuff made by defense contractors -- these are often "one-off" so there is no residual value save that of the aluminum. I have a couple of pieces of AIL equipment from their time on Long Island -- bought for next to nothing -- and it is better quality than anything you're gonna find in some distributor's catalog.

[Möter]

You might as well take a look at the Front Panel Express. You can get chassis there, too. But no heatsinks.

[DECKY999]

http://eshop.diyclub.biz/

Very good boxes for very little money and reasonable shipping.

[fredlock]

Thanks for your suggestion Jackinnj, I did found some but its mangled and dented. Painting it will be a good idea but still it won't look nice, unless it cure with an automotive putty. I will probably try ebay as you suggested and see what I can find. Where do you buy your heatsinks by the way?

Moter, I already visited that site and I was planning to customize my front panel with an nice looking design and logo on it, once I get the chasis that I want to have the panel hooked up. Thanks.

I'll look up on tha eshop link. Are they selling chasis too?

[jackinnj]

Originally posted by fredlock
Where do you buy your heatsinks by the way?

For some of the smaller projects I have used surplus SCR heatsinks I purchased from Electronics Surplus in Cleveland. They have sinced moved to Mentor so I don't know how much of the inventory they took with them. The last several amplifiers I have built, however, have been carve-outs of Crown's, Audio Research, Hafler, Pioneer etc.

In your neck of the woods check out Apex JR -- they have a warehouse in La Crescenta, near Burbank: http://www.apexjr.com/Sinks.htm

[DECKY999]

DIY club has several very nice boxes. Steel ones are around $50 - big power amp box is ~100, and some very nice aluminium ones are 150. Shipping to Australia by air is ~40 for pre-amp steel boxes, for big steel one is ~100.

They come with all connectors but these are not realy good quality. Also rear panel is pre drilled and front panels have minimalistic features and some of them are blank or just with a power switch hole. They also include knobs and an Alps push-on power sitch.

They are very reliable bunch of guys. I had three orders so far and all of them were delivered very fast and without any problems.

[DECKY999]

ALso the boxes from thl audio are not expensive for the quality. Here are some of the quotes that I got of them:

1x PRAL-2 AL chasis, nt$2500/pc
1x PWAD-A40 Alum. Chassis for power amp, NT$3900/pc

shipping to Australia:

by EMS for PRAL-2 at NT$1130
also ems for PWAD-A40 at NT$1480

prices are in New Taiwan dollars 1USD=30NT$

so the price for A40 is $US180 with shipping.

[fredlock]

Thanks Jack for the info. La Cresenta is not that far from me, I'll try to visit Apex warehouse one of these days but appointment is needed, since it's a one man operation. There are also some good stuff that are on sale. I probably need the heatsinks for testing only. I still consider buying a chasis with builtin heatsink because its easier to work on and I can customize the front and back panel. I'm talking about the chasis without the predrilled holes.

DECK999, I visited the eshop.diyclub website that you suggested and it took a while to open the page. The website was very slow but I think they have good chasis in there too. I just didn't take my time looking for more because I'm so impatient. I took a snapshot of one of the chasis and I think it's for a preamp. See attached. Is this a Honkong based store?

I think there's a difference on the quotation they gave you at THL compared to what they emailed me on the first item.


PWAD-A40 Alum. Chassis for power amp. ......NT$4300/pc ..US $143.00

PRAL-1mo Pre-Amp Alum chassis case(modified 1 unit size) ....NT$2500/pc ....US $83. 00

PWAD-A40HS Alum. Alloy Heat Sink ......NT$900/pc ... $30.00

PWAD-01 Case for transistor power Amplifier....NT$5400/pc ...$180.00

The prices seems okay and I won't argue with it. I'm not sure if the shipping and handling would be the same for USA. Do you think this applies to all countries? or it depends on the distance from where to be shipped? What is EMS? Is this like UPS or Fedex?

[JJGross]

I've built chassis out of old PC cases. The steel is just the right thickness and comes already painted. California has probably a million of these going into lanfills every day and if you're even anywhere near Silicon Valley, a quick dumpster dive in any industrial park will get you enough sheet metal to build a lifetime's worth of amps for free. Heck - you'd probably score enough resellable stuff to pay for all the amps you'll ever build in one night of diving.

I miss living there.

Cheers,
- JJ