Aleph-X Official PCB rev. Alpha

[hifiZen]

Hear yee, hear yee!

This is official notice to all forum members that manufacturing of the wessol / carpenter PCB design is going ahead as planned. All interested members who want to get in on the action, please contact carpenter ASAP! He will be directing the effort from here, and I beleive has things queued up to place the order about one week from today, so don't miss out!

Please note that although this board has been built and verified to work by wessol, it has not been exhaustively tested with different transistor types and rail voltages etc, so circuit changes aren't recommended unless you have the tools and ability to test and troubleshoot the circuit for stability. In all probability will work just fine, but if you're planning to build this board, you should be aware that it is an "alpha" revision.

Thanks to wessol and carpenter for their efforts in putting together one of the first Aleph-X board layouts, and being so generous as to offer it for public consumption!

[hifiZen]

Also, please note that development of a more flexible, "unified" Aleph-X PCB will be ongoing in the main Aleph-X thread. The concept right now is to come up with a PCB layout incorporating some "just-in-case" changes and some alternate circuitry on the PCB. This will be built from the ground up (or starting with one of the other member's existing designs). It will undergo a prototyping fabrication run as revision "beta", and be assembled and tested by members who elect to participate in the beta test. If found stable and reliable, the design will be released as rev1.0 and development / debugging will proceed from there. Schematic variations which use the same board will be "blessed" and added as verified configurations of the rev1.0 board as members build and test them.

The process of developing the beta and rev1.0 boards will take some time... a schedule has yet to be determined. As such, these boards will not be available in the immediate future.

[carpenter]

Hi everyone,

I'm having the artwork converted to "gerber". It should transpire the week of 11/4/02.

Quick quote prices from ECD for pcbs with standard features are as follows:

20 pcbs = $17.45 each
30 pcbs = $13.28 each
40 pcbs = $11.20 each
50 pcbs = $ 9.95 each
80 pcbs = $ 8.08 each

Because of the many developments regarding future pcb improvements, please email me if you wish to begin working with this current style pcb. For anyone who's unaware, the email link is located at the bottom of this post. After hearing the excellent sound of Shawn Wessel's AX, I'm planning on purchasing 6 pcbs for my projects.

By the way, this pcb was designed to allow for extra components used in the larger Aleph amps (Aleph 2, 3, 5). It can be likened to a pair of Alephs on a single board, ie. extra space for power resistors, off board power and ccs transistors, etc. A while back, I posted a schematic on the "Aleph X" thread depicting similarities in layout to the larger Alephs.

Thanks,

John Inlow

[carpenter]

Hi everyone,

As of today, 11-4-02, there are confirmed requests for 26 pcbs. This is beginning to look positive.

John Inlow

[carpenter]

We end this day with a total count of 32 pcbs. Excellent progress in the last 24 hours.

Thanks guys,

John Inlow

[carpenter]

We're now up to 36 pcbs.

[carpenter]

38 pcbs have been requested.

I've been in contact with a fellow at Mega Circuits. He has offered to use my artwork as "camera ready", which means I don't have to pay someone to convert it to gerber. They have given me a written quote of $5.06 per pcb for 40 pcbs. There is a tooling fee of $175.00. When split 40 ways, the tooling fee and the pcb charge add up to $9.44 per board. Now this an even better purchase than quoted by ECD.

We nearly have 40 request. So for now the cost (minus shipping) will be $9.44 per pcb. There will be a three week lead time.

I mentioned on the "beta" thread that I didn't mind waiting for the beta pcb design as long as it didn't take too long. I also realize that it's not fair to place unnecessary pressure on these guys to hurry their progress. I also mentioned that this pcb is a "treat" for those of us who want to play now. We can always purchase the more advanced pcb when it is finished. I'm listening to Shawn Wessol's AX daily and am more and more impressed with the sound. When the wife is out of town, I really crank the system up. With the Zen the sound was nice but not necessarily effortless. The AX on the other hand has power to spare. It's much brighter sounding than the Zen. I can hear details that the Zen misses. The AX is truly a design that's worth experimenting with.

[BrianGT]

How efficient are your speakers that you are running the AX with?

--
Brian

[carpenter]

I'm fully horn loaded on the left channel and horn loaded from 350hz on up on the right. The AX is running the high frequency horns (350hz to 20,000hz) which are rated by JBL at 110db 1w1m. This also explains why I get a little bit of hum from most amplifiers.



This morning, 11-7-02 I received a request for another 4 pair of pcbs. That brings the total up to 46. Yeah.........

This post will remain up another week or so and then I will place the order. This could all change if everyone emails me and request the beta board instead. Some alpha orders have been canceled in favor of the beta. Like I implied in the "beta" thread, I plan to purchase the beta pcb as well as the alpha pcb. This way, I can play very soon and still have the advanced pcb for another exercise in perfection. After the alpha purchase, I believe that we should also purchase "in mass" the beta pcb in an effort to make it cost effective for those guys. Even though the economy is depressed, most anyone should be able to come up with a spare $30.00 for a pair. This support substantially reduces the cost per item for everyone.

John Inlow

[carpenter]

Hi everyone,

Our count is up to 52 pcbs.

This is just excellent. Our price per board is reduced to $8.42 (minus shipping).

John Inlow