• These commercial threads are for private transactions. diyAudio.com provides these forums for the convenience of our members, but makes no warranty nor assumes any responsibility. We do not vet any members, use of this facility is at your own risk. Customers can post any issues in those threads as long as it is done in a civil manner. All diyAudio rules about conduct apply and will be enforced.

Group order of switched ladder attenuator? Anyone interested?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Jump to Latest
#202
When Brian and I get the serial resistor order together I'll bet you sell the remaining serial switches..

I was hoping to to use a shunting arrangement for the first 11 positions as Frank confirmed would work, then change to series for the rest, but I can't figure out how to do it.

Sooooo. The choice is shunt or series. I'm now leaning towards the shunt because it is the same thing as a goldpoint ladder for the positions that one would normally use for listening I THINK.
At louder positions the impedence changes, but is that so important on th loudest positions, that aren't used that much?

Waddayou think Brian?
 
#203
I just wanted to let everyone know that there might be another group buy of only the ladders this time if the interest is high enough (25+). CBMC has posted a thread on head-fi.com and there seeem to by quite a few people interested. So post here if you missed out the first time or want a couple more.

--Ferdi
 
#206
Right now I am trying to organize another group buy of the ladders(I missed out on the first 😡 ) Right now I have about 17 people interested in ladders and need about 8 more before I go through with the order which will hopefully be within the next week or so. After that I would be interested in doing a vishay-dale resistor group buy if people can agree on the values. I saw that many wanted 25k so that would probably make the most sense. If people are interested i would be happy to orchestrate it. Anyone intersted in it let me know. Also if you missed out on the first group buy you can get in on the second one just pm me.
 
#208
How do you plan to implement

Will these be series shunt or the ladder type configeration and regaurding the resistor type's will the vishiy be used only on the shunt or be used in some other manner I purchased the series type from the previous group order and would like to impliment this according to what can be seen on the Goldpoint web site http://www.poldpt.com/schm_shunt.html link useing the 20K or 25K charts will be putting this into Brian's gainclone Kit
 
#210
rpafenberg said:
Ferdi,

I will take one of the serial attenuator's if there is still one left.
Is the pricing below correct?

Serial $54.00
USPS W/$50 Ins. $5.15
Total $59.15

Roy
Click to expand...
Sorry for not posting here before, but they were both sold a couple days ago. You could always jump on the second ladder group buy done by CBMC.

--Ferdi
 
#215
Re: How to build this thing?

hpasternack said:
I was wondering how people build these things up. Do you take apart the decks to get the resistors in, or just bend the leads?

-Henry
Click to expand...

I spoke to the guy at Goldpoint, who designed the switch for Elma before starting his own company. He said that he had a couple of jigs created for making these, as he had assembled a whole lot of them. Here is what he told me for the ladder:
-don't disassemble the switches at all.
-cut the resistors to be just over the size needed. He made a cutting jig for this
-position resistor in and hold while soldering. He made a jig for holding the resistor centered while soldering
-repeat

I tried taking mine apart to assemble it and it caused more trouble than it was worth.

As for the soldering, be very careful to insert the resitors correctly, as he told me it is almost impossible to reconfigure it later if you mess up.

As for the series unit, it is quite a bit easier to assemble, just by bending the resistor, cutting, installing and soldering. This is my motivation for going with the series unit, as I had a bi*ch of a time assembling my ladder unit.

--
Brian
 
#217
Re: Re: Re: How to build this thing?

Peter Daniel said:

Do you mean here the orientation of resistors with regards to their directivity?😉
Click to expand...

Of course 😉 Directivity is the most important piece of bullsh*t that you should keep in mind. I would love to see someone sit and listen to each of the 96 resistors on the attenuator to find the proper directivity of each. I heard that after drinking a full bottle of scotch, it is really easy to hear the differences. I am not discounting that any directionality exists, but I certainly have a lot of other more important things to worry about. The most important aspect of a resistor to me is to determine whether you pick the right value, as being off by an order of magnitude can greatly effect the results.

Back to the subject at hand:

I am referring to the order of which you place the resistors on the pcb. With regards to my ladder attenuator: I only did a single channel, which works perfectly, BUT I soldered them in reverse order, so when it is full clockwise, it is in the off position, and it is fully counterclockwise, it is full volume. I basically have it sitting on the shelf, since I am so disappointed with this mistake. It looks very nice, as I spent about 2-3 hours soldering one channel of it. Positioning and soldering 48 resistors per channel isn't exactly an easy task.

I look forward to assembling my series attenuators, which only use 24 resistors per channel.

--
Brian
 
#218
Brian, on your ladder you could wire up the second channel in reverse also, then have the switch shaft face the rear of the chassis, but inside and close to whatever it is to be hooked to.
Then have a shaft through the chassis and out the front panel with a knob. Inside, hook the shaft and the switch shaft together with a toothed belt and toothed pulleys. Some surplus places sell 'em. Also Small Parts inc. I think. If you position the switch right, I'm sure you could even convince yourself (and others easily ! ) that the backwards approach with belt allowed you to get the switch closer to the components it should be close to. Anyway- I'm trying!! 😉

EDIT : here's the non-surplus way, and it really isn't that expensive:

http://www.smallparts.com/products/descriptions/rcs.cfm
http://www.smallparts.com/products/descriptions/rcp.cfm

BUT I understand very well that you really don't want to look
at it for awhile
:bawling:
 
#219
Variac said:
Brian, on your ladder you could wire up the second channel in reverse also, then have the switch shaft face the rear of the chassis, but inside and close to whatever it is to be hooked to.
Then have a shaft through the chassis and out the front panel with a knob. Inside, hook the shaft and the switch shaft together with a toothed belt and toothed pulleys. Some surplus places sell 'em. Also Small Parts inc. I think. If you position the switch right, I'm sure you could even convince yourself (and others easily ! ) that the backwards approach with belt allowed you to get the switch closer to the components it should be close to. Anyway- I'm trying!! 😉
Click to expand...

I very well could do this, but I am still so disappointed that I lost motivation to finish the second channel for now. I will get to it eventually, whether I decide to sit at the desoldering station at the school for a long while, or do them both backwards.

Anyway, I have the chinese ladder switch, with the same resistors VishayDale on it, so I can compare this with with my Riken Ohm series attenuators when I get them done.

--
Brian
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom