MF A1, Kudos to Tim de Paravicini, Ode to my Youth, Babelfishing

[Sorenm]

That's shaping up nicely!!

 

[ggetzoff]

Nice work Jim!

 

[ggetzoff]

Did someone say fire??

 

[Zen Mod]

 

[ggetzoff]

Haven’t seen that one since maybe the 80’s 😂😂😂😂

 

[Zen Mod]

excerpt from Zen and Motorcycle maintenance, R. Pirsig:

Today now I want to take up the first phase of his journey into Quality, the nonmetaphysical phase, and this will be pleasant. It's nice to start journeys pleasantly, even when you know they won't end that way. Using his class notes as reference material I want to reconstruct the way in which Quality became a working concept for him in the teaching of rhetoric. His second phase, the metaphysical one, was tenuous and speculative, but this first phase, in which he simply taught rhetoric, was by all accounts solid and pragmatic and probably deserves to be judged on its own merits, independently of the second phase.
He'd been innovating extensively. He'd been having trouble with students who had nothing to say. At first he thought it was laziness but later it became apparent that it wasn't. They just couldn't think of anything to say.
One of them, a girl with strong-lensed glasses, wanted to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, and suggested without disparagement that she narrow it down to just Bozeman.
When the paper came due she didn't have it and was quite upset. She had tried and tried but she just couldn't think of anything to say.
He had already discussed her with her previous instructors and they'd confirmed his impressions of her. She was very serious, disciplined and hardworking, but extremely dull. Not a spark of creativity in her anywhere. Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, were the eyes of a drudge. She wasn't bluffing him, she really couldn't think of anything to say, and was upset by her inability to do as she was told.
It just stumped him. Now he couldn't think of anything to say. A silence occurred, and then a peculiar answer: "Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman." It was a stroke of insight.
She nodded dutifully and went out. But just before her next class she came back in real distress, tears this time, distress that had obviously been there for a long time. She still couldn't think of anything to say, and couldn't understand why, if she couldn't think of anything about all of Bozeman, she should be able to think of something about just one street.
He was furious. "You're not looking!" he said. A memory came back of his own dismissal from the University for having too much to say. For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. She really wasn't looking and yet somehow didn't understand this.
He told her angrily, "Narrow it down to the front of one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick."
Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, opened wide. She came in the next class with a puzzled look and handed him a five-thousand-word essay on the front of the Opera House on the main street of Bozeman, Montana. "I sat in the hamburger stand across the street," she said, "and started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn't stop. They thought I was crazy, and they kept kidding me, but here it all is. I don't understand it."
Neither did he, but on long walks through the streets of town he thought about it and concluded she was evidently stopped with the same kind of blockage that had paralyzed him on his first day of teaching. She was blocked because she was trying to repeat, in her writing, things she had already heard, just as on the first day he had tried to repeat things he had already decided to say. She couldn't think of anything to write about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before. The narrowing down to one brick destroyed the blockage because it was so obvious she had to do some original and direct seeing.

That's what Pa is teaching us all these years - start small, try to understand it, try bigger ...... and think with your own head, having your own fun.

I'm sending one Babelfish A1 kit tomorrow, to Bozeman, Montana

 

[Demonkleaner]

My copy is showing it's age. Given to me by a friend's father in my youth.

 

[Igor]

yes, progressing...

 

[Zen Mod]

 

[Guiness]

Looking really nice Igor... I am working on mine too.

 

[Igor]

Well, yesterday I collect parts from ball blasting and anodizing. Another reminder how difficult is to get perfect surface/finish. Company who did this is also doing the same job for Karan Acoustics...They are amazing! Amount of efforts I'm putting into this project is quite significant. Of course, without Zen support it will not be possible (first and foremost, i still have his primordial A1 and I was also able to evaluate new amp.

Can't wait to finish it!

 

[ItsAllInMyHead]

^ WOWZA! That's pretty.

 

[Igor]

Still think that powder coating is much better option; cheaper and more durable. To anodize aluminum, alloy has to be the right one. Then, surface has to be somehow machined (few different options available). But properly done, anodizing is just more...posh or exotic. Satin glow is simply nicer. That's all... Choice is all ours...but again, there's nothing wrong with the powder coating (PC). If I didn't have entrance to this company, I will be very happy with PC...

Of course, anodizing is only for heatsinks and optional for the front plate. You don't want to powder coat your precious heatsinks 😉 Wondering is there any scientific work how much efficiency of heatsink is reduced after PC?
Another important point: inner surface of heatsinks were not blasted. We want polished surface to increase contact area with transistor.

Now, I have to determine how much this heatsink can dissipate power. Dimensions are 400x200x30 mm per channel.

 

[Zen Mod]

Amount of efforts I'm putting into this project is quite significant.

my heart is warm just thinking how much you're enjoying in every step of it ....... so that helps to see it as nice and gorgeous looking, even with chimney heatsinks

first and foremost, i still have his primordial A1

so, it's finally found

I lost count where it is ....

 

[byongho]

The parts were ready, so I did some soldering over the weekend.
The large capacitor in the photo is a 1000uf film capacitor that I bought very cheaply at a flea market.
I bought it to use it to reinforce the power supply, but when I received it, I was surprised at how big it was.
The capacitor is marked as IEC-61881-1, and I looked it up and it's for railway use. Is motor-run for sissy? 😀

However, I have some questions.
There is no suffix indicated on bc546/556 in the schematic, so can I use either b/c?
Actually I have 546b/556b and 550c/560c in my drawer. I am wondering which one is better.

Also, is hfe or vbe matching not necessary between N/N and P/P?
Since you didn't mention it, I think it doesn't matter, but since there is no point in the circuit to adjust the DC offset, that question arose.
I know this is a stupid question. 😆

 

[Zen Mod]

BC critters, any suffix is good

do not bother with matching

 

[Igor]

Finally some progress...

Bottom plate is 6mm aluminum. CNC milled pillars (20mm) are holding everything together...heatsinks, top and bottom, front and back panel.

 

[Igor]

Since there are virtually no tolerances, after powder coating was impossible to finish the box assembling. Solution? Remove the powder coat. How? By the laser of course....Doing this I also secure electrical connection between all sides of the box.

 

[Igor]

Power supply has dedicated compartment box. It is independent from the main chassis --> it can be assembled separately and inserted as a finished module into the main chassis. I also used heat tolerant foam as a base of PS module. That's the white thing on the bottom plate

I hate messy wiring and since I'm not so good in neat wiring, this was easiest way to hide my lossy work

 

[Igor]

At the end, Julian The Cat was too tired but still happy with the work we did