Mini Aleph Build

[AudioSan]

thats more like it

[dmsims]

Bought my boards a couple of months ago:

[Eric]

Ha - that's a pretty funny story! Your speed of building an amp seems to match my own - seems that all of my projects span multiple years.

Congrats for finding the time (and parts from all those years ago) to get you build under way!

[slomatt]

Everybody has seen populated Aleph boards before, time to move onto the fun part of the project.

As with my Chipamps one of main components is an IKEA product, in this case a $5 garbage can. I needed a way to keep fingers out of the power supply, while still allowing for ventilation.


Abbreviated to to exactly proper height, give or take an inch or so.


Bending the edges, those are sharp and leave very nice cuts, and they are good for putting scrapes in your freshly painted parts.


The cage is about 6" tall.


To save space the power supply boards are stacked using aluminum tube and 4-40 allthread as spacers. Cutting the rod to the proper lengths was pretty time consuming.


The bottom and top are pieces of decent plywood covered in aluminum flashing for shielding (pretty sure this is not UL approved).


Here are the Signal transformers mounted to the chassis.


The cage fits over the whole thing and is centered using the four aluminum posts at the corners. It is clamped down by brackets on the sides.


All connections are through a thick aluminum plate from an old 12v power supply I had lying around.




Power will run from the power supply to the amp through a 7 wire umbilical cord that I braided together.




The wire is about 4' long so I have enough to locate the power supply the Pass approved minimum distance of 2' from the amp. The wire is 14g which should be fine for the relatively low currents involved.


- Matt

[6L6]

What a fantastic thread!!!!

I have some awesome, mil-spec connectors that you would be quite welcome to, but they are only 6-pin... I suppose you could run a separate screw lug for the ground, (similar to a phono ground) which would either look very cool or very bad, depending on execution. But your found-item engineering skills are fantastic, so you would probably make it look excellent!

I remember your Chipamp from Burning Amp, I thought it was supremely well done!

PM me if you want the connector, or more info.

[slomatt]

Originally Posted by 6L6

What a fantastic thread!!!!

I have some awesome, mil-spec connectors that you would be quite welcome to, but they are only 6-pin... I suppose you could run a separate screw lug for the ground, (similar to a phono ground) which would either look very cool or very bad, depending on execution. But your found-item engineering skills are fantastic, so you would probably make it look excellent!

I remember your Chipamp from Burning Amp, I thought it was supremely well done!

PM me if you want the connector, or more info.

6L6,

That is very generous of you, you've got a PM. Thanks!

- Matt

[slomatt]

Here's some pictures of the amp chassis.

Drilling holes in the back panel.


The ends are 3 1/2" c-channel that I textured and then clear coated.


Here's where a template of the amp boards comes in very handy.


Unfortunately I broke two different taps while tapping holes for the amp boards. On one (3mm) I was able to knock the tap out with a punch, on the other (6-32) the tap was stuck good and I had to drill a second hole. Arg. The amps are mounted on short plastic standoffs.


Test fitting with the ends in place. Thanks again to Variac for the c-channel.


When assembled there is only about 3/16" clearance between the capacitors.


Various parts for the amps.


Test fitting the connectors on the rear panel. The power connector at the bottom is really small and most likely won't work out.


Amp with the sides attached.


The top and bottom are 1/2" oak.


- Matt

[wirewiggler]

Nicely done Matt, having an eye for mechanical elegance you get 5 stars.

Bill

[Zen Mod]

you need some holes on bottom and top plate ;

plenty of them .

[slomatt]

Originally Posted by wirewiggler

Nicely done Matt, having an eye for mechanical elegance you get 5 stars.

Bill

Thank you for the kind words.

Originally Posted by Zen Mod

you need some holes on bottom and top plate ;

plenty of them .

Definitely, I'm just trying to decide on the layout. I think I'm going to go with 4 1.5" holes on each end.

- Matt