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Optical Volume Control Professional PCB

Which soldermask colour do you prefer for future PCB´s?

  • red

    Votes: 66 13.3%
  • green

    Votes: 118 23.8%
  • yellow

    Votes: 54 10.9%
  • black

    Votes: 97 19.6%
  • white

    Votes: 52 10.5%
  • blue

    Votes: 108 21.8%

  • Total voters
    495
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george doesnt sell a kit, he sells a finished product.

i kind of wish he sold a kit, it would have made this so much easier, or at least if he would 'license' his kit to one of the guys on the forum to make it easier for diy'ers to build something on their own even if it is a kit.

That is the Optical Volume Control PCB.

Name changing was only on request of the forum admins!


Best regards,
Oliver
 
george doesnt sell a kit, he sells a finished product.

i kind of wish he sold a kit, it would have made this so much easier, or at least if he would 'license' his kit to one of the guys on the forum to make it easier for diy'ers to build something on their own even if it is a kit.


I did test the waters about 4 years ago to see if a kit was viable, not with members of this forum just from audiophiles who emailed me who wanted a production Lightspeed Attenuator but found it too expensive for them at $450 posted. They ended up spending $280 + post which is usually around $50 insured world wide postage total $330 for a complete kit which included everything even the $60 extruded aluminium chassis, and knob and Lightspeed decals.
Out of the ten test kits I sent out 6 kits came back because of ham fisted solders that cooked the quad matched NSL32SR2S and put them so far out of calibration some had to be binned, or they had no idea how to thermally couple all 4 NSL32SR2S together and pot them so they stay thermally stable. The other one was they did not have access to an oscilloscope and audio generator to do the final calibration so I had nearly all of the complaining about channel imbalance.
Now out of the hundreds of production Lightspeed Attenuators I have shipped out, to some crazy places Guam?, and Macedonia?, just to name two, not one has come back, so you may now see why I am reluctant to do kits, but hey if someone wants to give themselves a real headache give me a reasonable offer for the licensing rights do a Lightspeed Attenuator kit I'm all ears.

Cheers George
 
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george,

even if your experiences with the kit world isn't the best -i still wish to commend you for your design and even if i personally prefer to 'cook my ldr's' myself (or perhaps i'm a better solder than that) i still wish to recognize you for your work and most of all... i think you're a good man for sharing with the community.
 
I’ve tested my Lightspeed with signal generator and dual trace scope, I put the trace at the top of the other with the signal almost exactly the same as I adjust the volume pot, but before it reach the max volume, one of the signal clipped ( I really don’t care since I may not even use up to the 2/3 of the volume pot) I’m only curious what could be the cause of clipping?

I hooked to the Source and Amp and it sounds good especially on the high side. Does the lightspeed makes the sound a little bit thinner or it just boost the high?
Now, I only need to find out how can make it to work with remote and dual input..

Thank you very much George and Oliver.


Joe
 
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
I’ve tested my Lightspeed with signal generator and dual trace scope, I put the trace at the top of the other with the signal almost exactly the same as I adjust the volume pot, but before it reach the max volume, one of the signal clipped ( I really don’t care since I may not even use up to the 2/3 of the volume pot) I’m only curious what could be the cause of clipping?

I hooked to the Source and Amp and it sounds good especially on the high side. Does the lightspeed makes the sound a little bit thinner or it just boost the high?
Now, I only need to find out how can make it to work with remote and dual input..

Thank you very much George and Oliver.


Joe

Hi Joe,

i couldn´t answer your question about the clipping, but i found a real cool solution for the remote control request.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


This Kit HERE from diyclub use a 100K Alps motorized pot and has a 4 channel single end input, selected by relay.

So everything you want to have...:p

Best regards,
Oliver
 
Now, I only need to find out how can make it to work with remote and dual input..

Thank you very much George and Oliver.


Joe

Can't answer your distortion question, but I HAVE solved the remote control/multi input one. But it involves cutting a couple of traces and careful soldering.
I'm not sure if this should be in a new thread..I'll give a "quickie" overview here:
Get this remote volume/multi-input kit from Hong Kong Remote Control Volume for DIY tube Preamp Amplifer 100K - eBay (item 220428580361 end time Apr-30-10 22:47:27 PDT)
Costs $70 including shipping to USA. Cut traces with a dremel or utility knife - I have pix of the work if anyone wants to see. You can then have IR remote vol & input switching.
 
Keep in mind you CANNOT just "drop this in" and expect it to work. It won't! You HAVE to cut traces! The ground from this remote board has to be disconnected from the motorized pot. Remember, you are going to put +5V thru the pot & you'll destroy your power supply because the pot is connected to the board's ground.
Beware...but it DOES work great if you do it correctly.
Also, note that my link goes to a board that's a little different from dvb's. They aren't exactly the same, but I'd bet the other board also ties the pot to gnd. Batchme001.jpg

Batchme004.jpg

Batchme003.jpg
 
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Keep in mind you CANNOT just "drop this in" and expect it to work. It won't! You HAVE to cut traces! The ground from this remote board has to be disconnected from the motorized pot. Remember, you are going to put +5V thru the pot & you'll destroy your power supply because the pot is connected to the board's ground.
Beware...but it DOES work great if you do it correctly.
Also, note that my link goes to a board that's a little different from dvb's. They aren't exactly the same, but I'd bet the other board also ties the pot to gnd.


Hi windowman,

Thanks for the links. Do they have manual ? I read some comments from those who bought the products that the seller don't provide the manual.

Do you think that kit is better than Danzup's kit ?
Thanks,

Joe
 
Hi windowman,

Thanks for the links. Do they have manual ? I read some comments from those who bought the products that the seller don't provide the manual.

Do you think that kit is better than Danzup's kit ?
Thanks,

Joe[/QUOTE]
Joe,
Yes, there's a rather crude set of instructions in broken English with labeled pictures. But inexplicably, they don't include it with the product. You have to ask for it, and fortunately it gets sent via e-mail. It's adequate enough to get the basic job done. Note, it does NOT go into the mods needed that I'm talking about for remote LDR use.

Never heard of "Danzup's kit". Can you give some more details and maybe a link to the info?
 
Balanced LDR

Hi,
I received a set of 8 matched LDRs from Uriah and am looking for a wireless 4 gang volume control. I cant figure out if one of the kits available from DIY club will work. The 6 channel one should work but I'm not sure. I want to have remote volume control only. I dont need input selection on the remote. I have a single ended preamp Lighter Note (Uriah's design) working with reed relay input switches and it sounds great. Uriah is great to deal with and I appreiciate the effort to supply us with matched LDRs.

http://www.buildanamp.com/
 
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Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Hi,
I received a set of 8 matched LDRs from Uriah and am looking for a wireless 4 gang volume control. I cant figure out if one of the kits available from DIY club will work. The 6 channel one should work but I'm not sure. I want to have remote volume control only. I dont need input selection on the remote. I have a single ended preamp Lighter Note (Uriah's design) working with reed relay input switches and it sounds great. Uriah is great to deal with and I appreiciate the effort to supply us with matched LDRs.

Build An Amp

wrong thread !
 
I received a set of 8 matched LDRs from Uriah and am looking for a wireless 4 gang volume control. I cant figure out if one of the kits available from DIY club will work. The 6 channel one should work but I'm not sure. I want to have remote volume control only. I dont need input selection on the remote. I have a single ended preamp Lighter Note (Uriah's design) working with reed relay input switches and it sounds great.
Hi,
the 8 LEDs can be Brightness controlled by just two variable resistors.
The normal recommendation for the Udailey LDRs is dual gang 100k log law.
This is the normal output from a large number of stereo volume controls.
The remote that was posted earlier seems to exactly fit that specification.

I have ordered up two of these remotes to use with Udailey's LDRs but both for stereo operation. Swot up on LDR's operation and also on the need for exact impedance matching for balanced drive. Balanced voltage is completely irrelevant for a balanced connection. Balanced impedance is what is demanded of balanced connection.
The differential receiver simply amplifies the difference in voltage between the two inputs. they can be opposite phase identical voltage signals or they can be zero signal volts on one and the signal voltage on the other.

Since you have a single ended pre-, why are you planning to use a balanced connection?
 
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Status
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