Tír Na HiFi

Did you retain the choke?

It is there in one photograph and doesn't seem to be in another.

I would think it meaningless with the linear supply.

Am I seeing this correctly?

Jack Wong, from the cMP days would use a battery here and said as the battery lost voltage the sound got better and better. Until it stopped working. He would remove the battery for re-charging. Just have back-up batteries, easy enough.

rickmcinnis wrote:Did you retain the choke?

It is there in one photograph and doesn't seem to be in another.

I would think it meaningless with the linear supply.

Am I seeing this correctly?

Jack Wong, from the cMP days would use a battery here and said as the battery lost voltage the sound got better and better. Until it stopped working. He would remove the battery for re-charging. Just have back-up batteries, easy enough.

choke isn't needed not that I don't think it did any harm in there when I tried it

batteries constantly float charged at lower voltage works here too

Must be the day for blowing things up!!!
Seen Nige had a bad day with his DAC and the same here.

Took me a while to find my culprit but found it after loosing 2 Mother boards and another PPA V3 USB card, hopefully that is all and the OCXO for the Mobo is OK.

I was getting on well building my audio PC with the regulator and discovered taking the heat sink off the Audiowind Regulator and mounting it on the one of the big heat sink sides of the Streacom case is not a good idea...at least I think so.
It appeared as though the regulator metal body was throwing out some voltage into the Streacom case which is grounded to everything else when it was screwed home so it was upsetting supply voltages. I lost a motherboard at this point and the PPA V3 USB card.

Thinking I would just go to the second regulator with the heat sink still fitted and a spare Motherboard and keep it away from the case I installed it and had it all working OK with a JCat USB card until I started tidying it all up again and then lost the second motherboard.
After checking everything I tracked down the problem to one of the cables from the Paul Hynes supply. The insulation had been compromised at a location going through a hole in the Streacom case, there was a sharp edge in the hole I had not noticed so it shorted as I was moving things around and dumped a high current into the whole ground plane of the audio PC.

It was an expensive lesson and I will be ordering proper grommets and drilling holes in the case for feeding the Paul Hynes supply lines. Its a great supply as it has loads of amps on tap and it resets itself well after shorting but everything else in its path suffers if you mess up.

No PC now for a while until I order a couple more mother boards and cards, this time I will take my time to do a good wiring layout before I connect any power.
At least the Audiowind supply works well if you leave it with its supplied heat sink and mount it separately inside the Streacom case.
Maybe the Paul Hynes supply wire was already causing the problem on the first mother board install and it was not the Audio wind at all.
Better to find the problem now instead of after carting the whole system off to Scalford, I have been lucky so far after all the transporting of my audio PC and Paul Hynes supply that it had not shorted before, guess with all the moving around of kit to meets you really need all your wiring well fitted and protected.

Expensive lesson but onwards and upwards with PC based audio and it will make for improvements and better practice in the future....I hope.
Looking forward to a good bottle of wine this evening!
Cheers, Pearse.

Some reg chips have voltage on them
there's little pads you can get that go between the reg and the cooler along with little grommets for the hole and little plastic washers
so you'll still be able to put it in the case

if your usb card or mobo clock is broken
send them to me I might be able to repair

think we need gadget insurance

I am sorry for you Pearse as well, but sounds like it might have endend up even worse. :(
Looks like I should leave the power experiments for today, two much blown hardware at the moment. Gonna try to check a bit more details about JPlay over the weekend.

And I agree, a nice bottle of red vine might be a good idea to relax. A pity I am too far away, I would bring one

Enjoy the evening anyway
Thomas

I'm really sorry to hear that, Pearse!
Specially after the big excitement........a cold shower! :(

Hope that Master Nigel can fix some of fried stuff!

Eek! Sitting on the fence it is very easy to give advice but definitely some methodology needs to be considered here to try and mitigate this stuff happening. DaveF needs to set up a lab for the two of you and any change has to go through change management and process control!

Pearse you are sailing close to the wind with Scalford a few weeks away. Go easy on the wine and just go back to the previous position that was working ok and take the plug off the soldering iron. Otherwise you will be working in Scalford off my silver streacom with one maplin linear supply and no batteries!

Really sorry to hear what has happened to the two of you but hopefully Nigel can get the usb card going again.
I kinda know the feeling as I am still smarting over the loss of my dreaded intel board in the autumn

Hope that at least your jcat card has survived ok?

I spent last two evenings trying to make CF readers work with H87 board but with no success, should not complain.

nige2000 wrote: if your usb card or mobo clock is broken
send them to me I might be able to repair

think we need gadget insurance

No worries Nige, an order has already gone in for another V4 USB and a Mobo OCXO, painful but I have learned a valuable lesson.
Forgot to mention my Teddy Pardo 3.3v linear took a dive as well, only 2v coming out of it now, hope the Teradak survived!
If there was insurance when I started this whole process a couple of years back the Insurance company would be shut down by now!!!

tony wrote:Eek! Sitting on the fence it is very easy to give advice but definitely some methodology needs to be considered here to try and mitigate this stuff happening.
Pearse you are sailing close to the wind with Scalford a few weeks away.

Hey you....pot and kettle :-) I have the pics to prove it too!!
Anyway we never learn how it can be done better if we do not make mistakes, there is a certain buzz out of the cobbling it all together approach though but not for the faint hearted.
The good thing to come out of all of this is I now have taken the time to plan a good layout for everything inside the Zuma and how to route all the wiring, its working out well so far, loads of drilling and routing going on this weekend.
Going to settle on the Paul Hynes supply and the Teradak for all PS duties and it should work out well.
Will be tight for Scalford getting it all running and burned in but we will make it I am sure :-))
Off to the US in the morning so that will take my mind off it all for a while.
Cheers, Pearse.

Metal tabbed regulators/transistors etc always have one of the pins connected to the metal - could be in, out or ground. Best practise is always to use an isolator tab between the metal body and case/heatsink. Also make sure to use the little isolating washer with your M3 screw.

Heres the kind of thing, you also need heatsink compound either side...


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