Stylish amp design . WIFE factor

[gmphadte]

Some discarded metal pipe musical instruments may come handy

 

[GK]

Has anyone considered building an amp inside one of those big aluminium pressure cookers? Lots of heaksinking potential in the baseplate and excellent shielding.

 

[jacco vermeulen]

usual sexist standard

Nope, but i've thought of stuffing the ex-Mrs in a giant automatic rice cooker. Many times, now i think of it.
For 7 years out of 11 'living' with that person i've had to store my audio gear in a spare room, LSPs included. Never ever again !

 

[MJL21193]

Never ever again !

I'm there too.

 

[GK]

Nope, but i've thought of stuffing the ex-Mrs in a giant automatic rice cooker. Many times, now i think of it.
For 7 years out of 11 'living' with that person i've had to store my audio gear in a spare room, LSPs included. Never ever again !

But ya know it takes two to tango. The ex is a person you did (presumably) wed by mutual agreement after considerable introspection and in depth contemplation. Condemnation of said person is as much a reflection of stupidity on your part as anything..................

 

[MJL21193]

I, for one, freely admit to my stupidity, repeated stupidity. I kick myself every month.

Me for the first 40 years:

 

[GK]

 

[gmphadte]

Take a flat bottom cooking vessel with aluminum base. Decorate/paint its upper steel vessel to your wife's taste, put some decorative flowers and use the bottom as heatsink and make a turned wooden cabinate for the amp.

Gajanan Phadte

edit: you can even water the flowers

 

[MJL21193]

edit: you can even water the flowers

With the heat produced, you can end up with a delicious simmered stock, after the flowers are cooked! Yum!

 

[gmphadte]

Oh, I missed to mention. You shouldn't put the real ones.
Other advantage is that the heatsinking ability increases since the volume goes up.
Before someone points out, I should mention, the water will evaporate, so keep feeding the water periodically.

 

[peranders]

I'm a little sensitive to these sort of threads, often being an exception to the rule.

In my household it's "husband acceptance factor"....

I think you just invented the expression Female DIY Audio people are extremely rare as you may know. With you I know four women in the whole world that has audio electronics as a hobby.

BTW, amazing stuff you have on your homepage What do you do for a living if I might ask? Everything you have presented looks really professional.

 

[unclejed613]

Oh, I missed to mention. You shouldn't put the real ones.
Other advantage is that the heatsinking ability increases since the volume goes up.
Before someone points out, I should mention, the water will evaporate, so keep feeding the water periodically.

there's a method used in the TV and radio broadcast industry that uses this principle. it's called "vapor phase cooling", and it has the advantage of a constant surface temperature on the transmitter tubes, 100C (212F). it works even better here in Denver, since at altitude (Denver is 1 mile above sea level) the boiling point of water is lower than 100C.

 

[Wavebourn]

there's a method used in the TV and radio broadcast industry that uses this principle. it's called "vapor phase cooling", and it has the advantage of a constant surface temperature on the transmitter tubes, 100C (212F). it works even better here in Denver, since at altitude (Denver is 1 mile above sea level) the boiling point of water is lower than 100C.

I put garden sprinklers on my roof controlled by air temperature and roof surface resistance sensors, so as soon as the roof is dry it's resistance is high so when an air is above 30 degrees C sprinklers start until resistance of the surface drops down.

 

[suzyj]

I think you just invented the expression Female DIY Audio people are extremely rare as you may know. With you I know four women in the whole world that has audio electronics as a hobby.

BTW, amazing stuff you have on your homepage What do you do for a living if I might ask? Everything you have presented looks really professional.

Thankyou for the compliments. I work as an electronics engineer. My work at present is mainly RF-CMOS chip design, but I've done digital design work, non-integrated RF design, some stuff with lasers and high-sensitivity photodetectors, the usual, I guess.

Audio amplifier design is really useful, not just to get nice audio gear. The amplifiers, mixers, comparators, etc in my chips are exactly the same as my audio power amps. The topologies carry across seamlessly - I use cascodes to reduce the effect of miller capacitance, and build things differentially to reject 2nd harmonic distortion etc. It's all the same, no matter that the stuff for work operates at 1.8V and functions at >1GHz, while the stuff for home operates on +/-60V, at a few tens of KHz. Electrons are electrons, after all.

Actually I confess to being over-fond of lateral FETs for audio, partly because they're essentially the same structure as the RF FETs that I use for my RF work.

I did an "outreach" thingy a while ago for my employer. Part of our remit is to get more people to study engineering and science, and I think there should be lots more women doing engineering, because it's a really good, incredibly creative career. See this for my bio.

 

[john blackburn]

From Suzys Bio

We could measure the distance between the observatory and a satellite 6,000km away to a precision of 7mm. My job was to improve the accuracy of our results

So no pressure there then! Impressive to say the least.

John

 

[ostripper]

The problem here is not one of aesthetics , but one of spending.
(on her) So my DIY hobby has gone the way of the "dumpster"
..i.e. getting my materials salvaged.

In a way this has made me refine my techniques by forcing me
to design around what is available.(used transformers,
Supply caps,heatsinks,cases) I learn more by the extra design time required and
spend nearly nothing on this hobby.(40-50$ per leach/Quasi
amp).

Children are worse than wives when it comes to DIY. You
have to make everything either hidden, breakproof, touchproof
waterproof.. (forced air amps, no vents on top).

It is good to be under the gun like this. It makes for "bulletproof"
designs and layouts,(anything I build will last for decades)
i.e. OStrippers schematic server runs 24/7,plays the music,movies
and is virtually "crashproof" It is not a "DELL"!

thank god for DIYaudio.If I didnt find this forum I'd be stuck
listening to lo-fi commercial garbage but instead now I can steal
the parts from them and make the "real" stuff.

happy tinkerin' OS.

 

[Wavebourn]

Suzy;
I believe there is no difference in cellphones where to put electrolytics, but I guess in the audio amp they could be shifted a bit further from hottest surfaces?

 

[gain]

hi,

i would really like a female opinion on this subject, if there are any females that read this board (love you guys if you actually exist)!!!

what do you all's think of level indicators? the type with 10 led's, 8 green two red that make up a VU/level meter? i wan't to put two of these on the front panel of my stereo preamp, and am just curious what my GF may think of it? what is the probability that she will like/hate it? she is a great woman who is very accepting of all of my stereo stuff and would like to please her if possible.

if not possible to please her, unfortunately she must go audio equip must stay but i don't want this. so your all's opinion would be greatly appreciated.

thank you and much respect for women who love audio!!!!!!!

 

[gain]

oh yeah guys please feel free to reply if you have input from your GF/Wife on the subject. thanks.

 

[Buckapound]

On the VU meter...

Let her pick the colors and put an easily accessible switch so the display can be turned off if it becomes annoying.

--Buckapound