Samwha is middle-of-the-road, and the price you're paying is OK. You should consider Nippon Chemicon KMH 4700/50v for approximately the same price, if your application allows the lower voltage rating - the KMH is recommended highly on these forums for its all-round performance and is available off-the-shelf at Swastik in Chennai and Pooja in Bangalore.
From memory, I paid ~Rs.72 for a 12000/63 Nichicon LS (average sounding) and about Rs.9 for a 470/80 Nichicon PJ (an excellent low ESR series). I'd extrapolate and say ~Rs.20 to 40 is about right for a high-quality 2200/63 or 2200/80, if they're available. Arunkumar in Chennai had Nichicon RS 4700/25 for ~Rs.10 each, which is an excellent deal for low-rail applications like Class-A amps. I haven't seen Panasonic FC at voltages higher than 25v locally, and I paid ~Rs.8 for 2700/25 at Chetan in Bangalore about a year ago. Panasonic M (85c, general-purpose, marked Kenwood for audio) is available in 4700uf/68v for ~Rs.25 at Arihant, Bangalore. It's worked OK for me, but YMMV. I have observed that some vintage Technics amps use Panasonic M for the main rectifier filter caps with no apparent ill-effects.
If you're buying 50 units, you can expect to get a price break of 10-15% over single-digit quantities.
From memory, I paid ~Rs.72 for a 12000/63 Nichicon LS (average sounding) and about Rs.9 for a 470/80 Nichicon PJ (an excellent low ESR series). I'd extrapolate and say ~Rs.20 to 40 is about right for a high-quality 2200/63 or 2200/80, if they're available. Arunkumar in Chennai had Nichicon RS 4700/25 for ~Rs.10 each, which is an excellent deal for low-rail applications like Class-A amps. I haven't seen Panasonic FC at voltages higher than 25v locally, and I paid ~Rs.8 for 2700/25 at Chetan in Bangalore about a year ago. Panasonic M (85c, general-purpose, marked Kenwood for audio) is available in 4700uf/68v for ~Rs.25 at Arihant, Bangalore. It's worked OK for me, but YMMV. I have observed that some vintage Technics amps use Panasonic M for the main rectifier filter caps with no apparent ill-effects.
If you're buying 50 units, you can expect to get a price break of 10-15% over single-digit quantities.
tcpip said:
Has anyone actually had any luck with Salzer by the way?
And, by the way, I'm not an American.... I actually just googled Plitron and India (looking for dealers) and found a press release from them saying they'd set up a partnership with an Indian firm... and from there found Salzer.
Disappointing though if they are not being helpful. Perhaps an attempt at a group buy may be in order, otherwise I'd be happy to try and get in touch with them on behalf of a member here.
navin said:
Are you on the lookout for OPT's? Me too....
Since seeing that Lyrita Audio get their OPT's from Delta in Delhi, plus mentions of Delta in other threads, I sent them a mail asking if they do small orders. They replied very quickly with a quote and seemed very happy to help out. I'm going to try and go over to see them in Kirti Nagar on Saturday to do an order (just 2 OPT's and 2 PT's), and will post back here with impressions.
My hunt for tubes in Delhi, however, has so far proved fruitless although I'm sure, somewhere, there must be a huge warehouse full of colonial-era NOS gems....
I went through the era when tubes were fading away. I don't remember anyplace which had tons of tubes and they got rarer as the years went by though their prices didn't go up by a lot. The range of tube types also seemed to be small compared to what I see mentioned 'now' on the forum. Sometimes some small shops do have a few tubes but never in large quantities.
A few years ago I searched all the shops in the electronics market in Delhi and at two places they said they would "get" me the tubes. That for sure meant restamping the numbers. Most tubes I have seen have been pulled from old equipment and almost never in the original boxes. A few triodes I got were not too good.
If you have luck then maybe someone might have a box of forgotten NOS tubes somewhere . It's exciting looking for them however. I still do that when I go to Delhi !
Cheers.
A few years ago I searched all the shops in the electronics market in Delhi and at two places they said they would "get" me the tubes. That for sure meant restamping the numbers. Most tubes I have seen have been pulled from old equipment and almost never in the original boxes. A few triodes I got were not too good.
If you have luck then maybe someone might have a box of forgotten NOS tubes somewhere . It's exciting looking for them however. I still do that when I go to Delhi !
Cheers.
It seems the Panasonic FC series does not come in sizes greater than 2200uF if I want voltages of 63V. At 100V, the max value is even lower. So for Panasonic I'm forced to shift out of FC to their large value series if I want higher voltage+value combos.
I have no familiarity with what's on offer from Nichicon, thanks for the pointers. I'll check with the chaps on L.Road whether some of the bigger guys are interested in supplying good caps if I order 50+ in one order.
For that, however, I'll have to do my homework first and specify the exact make and type.
I have no familiarity with what's on offer from Nichicon, thanks for the pointers. I'll check with the chaps on L.Road whether some of the bigger guys are interested in supplying good caps if I order 50+ in one order.
For that, however, I'll have to do my homework first and specify the exact make and type.
Heatsinks from Precious Electronics
Guys, I have good news. Yesterday I visited Visha, and they said they can supply pretty much any heatsink from the Precious Electronics catalog. You have to look up the catalog, note down the model number (e.g. PI-37), and call up Visha. They'll tell you what they'll charge per centimetre of that heatsink. The PI-37 is about Rs.6.50 per centimetre, as quoted to me yesterday.
When Visha gives a heatsink, they cut it to the length you want, file the edge to remove burrs, and anodise it black. All this is part of the price they quote.
I've been buying heatsinsk from Visha for some time, but now I have two new reasons to celebrate: I can see the dimensions and diagrams for all the models, without carrying a measuring scale to Visha, and secondly I can do all this without visiting Visha.
Visha will of course be willing to ship wherever you are.
Guys, I have good news. Yesterday I visited Visha, and they said they can supply pretty much any heatsink from the Precious Electronics catalog. You have to look up the catalog, note down the model number (e.g. PI-37), and call up Visha. They'll tell you what they'll charge per centimetre of that heatsink. The PI-37 is about Rs.6.50 per centimetre, as quoted to me yesterday.
When Visha gives a heatsink, they cut it to the length you want, file the edge to remove burrs, and anodise it black. All this is part of the price they quote.
I've been buying heatsinsk from Visha for some time, but now I have two new reasons to celebrate: I can see the dimensions and diagrams for all the models, without carrying a measuring scale to Visha, and secondly I can do all this without visiting Visha.
Visha will of course be willing to ship wherever you are.
An interesting PCB fab shop
There's an interesting PCB fab shop in India, which Angshu pointed me to. This is www.pcbpower.com.
They have an online price calculator which gives you prices in rupees.
They can do single-sided, double-sided, 4-layer, 8-layer, and 10-layer PCBs, and they stock 35um and 70um copper clad boards in both SS and DS FR4 substrates (70um will be nice for power amp related stuff).
Prices are not as low as the ones I get from Balaji Hertz in Andheri, but are not exorbitant (much lower than what we see from int'l fab shops). I am sure there are cheaper options all over the country, but none which have an online price calculator and which are willing to deliver at a distance, AFAIK.
They can take Gerberfiles and deliver you the finished PCB in a max of 10 days. Their express service can deliver in one working day. They are happy to do even a single PCB.
Interesting.
There's an interesting PCB fab shop in India, which Angshu pointed me to. This is www.pcbpower.com.
They have an online price calculator which gives you prices in rupees.
They can do single-sided, double-sided, 4-layer, 8-layer, and 10-layer PCBs, and they stock 35um and 70um copper clad boards in both SS and DS FR4 substrates (70um will be nice for power amp related stuff).
Prices are not as low as the ones I get from Balaji Hertz in Andheri, but are not exorbitant (much lower than what we see from int'l fab shops). I am sure there are cheaper options all over the country, but none which have an online price calculator and which are willing to deliver at a distance, AFAIK.
They can take Gerberfiles and deliver you the finished PCB in a max of 10 days. Their express service can deliver in one working day. They are happy to do even a single PCB.
Interesting.
I managed to drop by delta transformers in kirti nagar in Delhi -- they're very friendly and showed me around the factory, which is immaculate. They are making a couple of power and OT transformers for me, based on Hammond specs. They said their happy to take small orders when and if they have time, but at the same time don't really like to deal with all the admin workload involved so would probably not appreciate a flood of diyers....! So best thing is to send them a mail or give a call...
Also been in touch with be3ampifiers -- planning to get some celestion drivers from them.
Also been in touch with be3ampifiers -- planning to get some celestion drivers from them.
ssmith said:
ssmith said:
Right now I get my transformers from Singapore. I email the specs to my brother in law who then gives them to someone called Stephen Tay. I met Stephen once and he seems capable and reasonable.
Still an Indian supplier would help. A group buy would make sense but since everyone needs for an OPT are different this might be diffcult to arrange.
Do you mean output transformers or toroidal power supply transformers? And does he make them to order? Your news is very heartening, because this is the first data point I've seen of someone supplying toroidal txfmrs in retail quantities in Bombay. Till now, we only knew of Delta in Delhi and Miracle in B'lore.jethari said:
ravslanka said:
I find it's pretty much impossible to get anything decent in Lajpat Rai market.
From Delta, for a PT (EI core) of 275-0-275V, 120mA + 6.3V, 4A (the rough equivalent of a Hammond 270EX, except 240V) , I was quoted Rs.2400 per pc exc. VAT. I ended up going for higher voltage and secondaries.
From looking around their production floor. the quality of their work looks to be very very good. But keep in mind their priority is dealing with big contracts (vending machines, educational institutes... etc) and while they are happy dealing with diy-ers, they don't want or need a deluge of requests, dithering and haggling over price, and extra legwork and so on, otherwise I'm sure they'd just sooner give it a miss. After all, every job involves somebody putting the design together and supervising the work.
A group buy is a nice idea -- or even a group tube amp project that somebody could coordinate?
I believe Delta runs a shop somewhere. Angshu was telling me he'd visited their shop once, and it stocks a lot of standard value transformers, both toroid and R-core. I guess if we want standard-value power txfmrs, Delta will be able to deliver without any trouble. By "standard", I mean one of the standard VA ratings and one of their standard secondary voltages.ssmith said:
Visited Delta Transformers
Visited their factory at Kirti Nagar Industrial Area, Delhi.
Very nice people. They say they are quite willing to make one-off transformers for individual customers like me, provided we give them sufficient lead time to allow them to find a vacant slot in the midst of their bulk orders. This could mean even a two or four-week lead time. Personally, I don't have any problem with that.
One of the members of their management team is a reader of diyaudio, and has read my posts. He has built many amps, and is also a friend of the founder/designer of Lyrita Audio. I heard very good things about Lyrita Audio, most of which I had also heard earlier from Angshu and one or two others. (Apparently, the Lyrita Audio valve amps are not just top-notch, they're also quite affordable. No Cadence Canasya for $25,000 per channel here.)
The R-core transformer I got is the first R-core I've ever seen from up close. Literature on the Net indicates that this geometry is superior to toroids, with even tighter stray EMI and tighter performance. Let's see. Am going to put it into a chassis for a stereo P3A-based power amp. It is expensive, though. I paid almost Rs.4K for the 270VA thing. However, to be honest, I'm seeing prices almost twice as high as what I'd expected on all fronts where there is (i) copper or (ii) steel. I'm getting a Dinrack chassis made for Rs.4.6K! Earlier products from them with broadly similar spec but with Al top and bottom instead of steel, had been Rs.2K.
Can't write all the details of the interesting chat I had, but it's really good to know that we have one really excellent transformer maker willing to take retail orders.
Heard about one development which we need to keep away from. There's now heavy-gauge wire which is Al core with Cu jacket. This means that even if you scrape off a few microns from the surface, you will not be able to detect that it's actually Al wire. It'll look like Cu because there's Cu on the surface. But the core is Al. See here:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/RE28526.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper-clad_aluminum_wire
And an interesting note on the differences between Cu and Al for wiring, here:
http://www.dotznize.com/electric/?a=al
Apparently, a lot of transformer makers are silently switching pure copper wire with this, so that they make their buck. You wouldn't even know, unless you're experienced enough to notice the drop in weight.
Visited their factory at Kirti Nagar Industrial Area, Delhi.
Very nice people. They say they are quite willing to make one-off transformers for individual customers like me, provided we give them sufficient lead time to allow them to find a vacant slot in the midst of their bulk orders. This could mean even a two or four-week lead time. Personally, I don't have any problem with that.
One of the members of their management team is a reader of diyaudio, and has read my posts. He has built many amps, and is also a friend of the founder/designer of Lyrita Audio. I heard very good things about Lyrita Audio, most of which I had also heard earlier from Angshu and one or two others. (Apparently, the Lyrita Audio valve amps are not just top-notch, they're also quite affordable. No Cadence Canasya for $25,000 per channel here.)
The R-core transformer I got is the first R-core I've ever seen from up close. Literature on the Net indicates that this geometry is superior to toroids, with even tighter stray EMI and tighter performance. Let's see. Am going to put it into a chassis for a stereo P3A-based power amp. It is expensive, though. I paid almost Rs.4K for the 270VA thing. However, to be honest, I'm seeing prices almost twice as high as what I'd expected on all fronts where there is (i) copper or (ii) steel. I'm getting a Dinrack chassis made for Rs.4.6K! Earlier products from them with broadly similar spec but with Al top and bottom instead of steel, had been Rs.2K.
Can't write all the details of the interesting chat I had, but it's really good to know that we have one really excellent transformer maker willing to take retail orders.
Heard about one development which we need to keep away from. There's now heavy-gauge wire which is Al core with Cu jacket. This means that even if you scrape off a few microns from the surface, you will not be able to detect that it's actually Al wire. It'll look like Cu because there's Cu on the surface. But the core is Al. See here:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/RE28526.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper-clad_aluminum_wire
And an interesting note on the differences between Cu and Al for wiring, here:
http://www.dotznize.com/electric/?a=al
Apparently, a lot of transformer makers are silently switching pure copper wire with this, so that they make their buck. You wouldn't even know, unless you're experienced enough to notice the drop in weight.
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