DIY ACA mini

Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
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edit, after realizing that I'm answering thinking of being in completely different thread :rofl:

you must use complementary pair of input JFets


or - you can use random paired N and P channel JFets, but then only God knows what results are going to be

even if you succeed in arranging them to bias properly
 
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The one and only
Joined 2001
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The issue comes down to transconductance. The J113 and J176 as examples have lower transconductance
than the K170/J74 Jfet types, and so will have less capacity for processing feedback. Also the 113/175
examples have a quite different transconductance from each other. These issues can be addressed by
using different quantities of them in parallel and degenerated, but it's a pain in the butt. Easier to spend
a little money on the K170/J74's.
 
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Hi, folks! I'm Will & I've just joined the forums here... My ACA Mini kit is my first DIY electronics project that involves soldering, so I'm a bit anxious about it, but I can power through...
However! My ACA Mini kit's power resistors don't match what's in the Guide. I need help literally on the first step. Am I supposed to use these 3W R33's or something?
 

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Member
Joined 2002
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There seems to be a slight difference in what Will has and what the photos (in both Jim's guide and the original ACA mini article) show. Specifically, Will
has a couple of 0.33 ohm, 3 watt resistors (R33 3W) while the photos have 0.33 ohm, 5 watt (R33 5W) resistors. The 0.75 and 1 ohm resistors appear the same.

@willhouse : If you're concerned about 5W vs 3W then don't worry about it. 3 watt rating is adequate and is actually what is listed in the original article's bill of materials.
 
Hi, folks! I'm Will & I've just joined the forums here... My ACA Mini kit is my first DIY electronics project that involves soldering, so I'm a bit anxious about it, but I can power through...
However! My ACA Mini kit's power resistors don't match what's in the Guide. I need help literally on the first step. Am I supposed to use these 3W R33's or something?
is good practice to misure the resistor before put on pbc....match too
 
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Hey, thanks everybody! My ACA Mini is alllllmost complete now.
I did encounter one more issue: instead of three 6.81K resistors, my kit had just one, & then a pair of these pictured beasties. Has my measuring of all the others been faulty, or am I right in thinking that my kit's contents could have been mispicked?
 

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All the other resistors checked out just fine (not set to megs!) & the assembly was quite straightforward. I was able to catch the one problem, thankfully, so I just ordered up a few more 6.81K units from digikey according to the BOM's description.
Thanks again, good peoples!
I have a cool plan to build this into a small-footprint turntable system, btw, for the tiny lil' college bookstore where I work. Once that starts coming together y'all can expect a few choice pics.
 
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