F5 China Power Supply?

[bassnkeys]

tubeshunter from China lists on ebay a PS board and incomplete component compliment for an F5 power supply... any experience or opinions?
Thanks,
bass n keys

[albertNL]

Originally Posted by bassnkeys

tubeshunter from China lists on ebay a PS board and incomplete component compliment for an F5 power supply... any experience or opinions?
Thanks,
bass n keys

I have no experience with this board. I did see that someone else mentioned that their Chinese PSU board caught fire. I do not know the message# or thread. You would have to search for it to see if it is the same board.

I have decided to use a perf board for my F4's (F4 uses same PSU as F5). It is not that difficult. Enclosed a copy of my PSU. The 4 smaller caps were some Elna Silmic's that I had available, but are not needed. Just the 4 15000uF on each rail are what is specified in the manuals.

Good luck!

[Bassivus]

Originally Posted by bassnkeys

tubeshunter from China lists on ebay a PS board and incomplete component compliment for an F5 power supply... any experience or opinions?
Thanks,
bass n keys

I don't have experience with the board but I have a very bad experience with tubeshunter from ebay...

[dnewman]

I've seen the kit. The PCB looked basically correct although it didn't provide for a two star grounding system as used in First Watt amps. However, the large caps were not what they claimed to be. They weren't the ones listed in the eBay ad (Rubycon) and they were not what their labels claimed either. I don't recall if this was the kit I saw which had labels for a series never produced by the purported manufacturer OR if this was the kit which had caps from a real series but the caps were 15 mm too short for the voltage rating shown on their label. Either way, they weren't the caps they claimed to be.... [That doesn't mean that tubeshunter knew -- s/he could have been sold bogus caps by their supplier.]

Buy a PSU PCB from Peter Daniel's and source the parts yourself. They are readily available and, if you trust your supplier, then you can trust the parts.

Dan

[eyoung]

ditto that!!!

[bassnkeys]

Thanks for the great suggestions all!
I like the albertNL concept... nice point to point layout.
DB

[ianc13]

I have found Jim's Audio (no affiliation) on eBay to be really good for PCBs.

F5 PSU

The PCB is really well made and is heavy weight. It is a part kit so you need to provide the electrolytics but the diode bridges, resistors and a bypass film cap are provided. In the end I upgraded the bridges to snubbed schottky diodes (which makes a difference). Appanently IXIS do some schottky bridges that would have fit but are prohibitively expensive.

It is worth noting that this is not exactly the same as the schematic in the F5 owners manual PDF. It does not require 2 x 18V windings, but works from a single winding - I used 2 PCBs, one for each channel fed from a single 35V winding each.

[DJNUBZ]

I bought a Chinese PS and was very disappointed. The sound, compared to my bench supply, was terrible and it later shorted out and self destructed. I ended up teaching myself how to build a PS and just created a point to point PS. It's way easier then it sounds and it's how a lot of guys seem to build their PS for their F5.

[a.wayne]

Originally Posted by kakalin

why not use Lithium battery.

Kills the sound ...

Originally Posted by DJNUBZ

I bought a Chinese PS and was very disappointed. The sound, compared to my bench supply, was terrible and it later shorted out and self destructed. I ended up teaching myself how to build a PS and just created a point to point PS. It's way easier then it sounds and it's how a lot of guys seem to build their PS for their F5.

Pics ......

[bassnkeys]

Nothing to show on my F5 build yet but here is my finished and in daily use B1: