Posted on Friday, 18th December 2009 by Jimmy Auw

I have a short free time at the afternoon, and it’s time to test my Power Supply for my Gainclone. Powered by Talema dual secondaries, each rated at 18VAC/6.3A

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Tags: Black Gate, gainclone, power supply, talema
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Posted on Saturday, 28th November 2009 by Jimmy Auw

Finally, with the help from my girlfriend, I manage to get the Nuvotem Talema Transformer on hand within a week. It’s rated at 6.3A with 2×18V output or about 225VA. Not bad for my LM1875 huh…

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Tags: power supply, talema, transformer
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (14)

Posted on Sunday, 15th November 2009 by Jimmy Auw

It’s a cool weekend, we are entering rainy months. I continue soldering my Ultimate Power Supply. Today, I solder 8 pcs of MUR860 and 70 pcs of Black Gate F Series. Done in 3 hours, not bad huh.

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Tags: BlackGate, diode, mur860, power supply, rectifier
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Posted on Saturday, 14th November 2009 by Jimmy Auw

Some of you have emailed me asking to finish the Gainclone - Black Gate Power Supply project, and well, I’m about to complete it with some modification. Here is the “sneak-peeks”

The rectification section is made dual, total 8 pcs of MUR860 will be used here.

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Tags: BlackGate, diode, gainclone, MUR, power supply, rectifier
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Posted on Sunday, 25th October 2009 by Jimmy Auw

I’m the middle of laziness… Actually I want to finish my Gainclone LM1875 project, but it will consume a lot of my brainpower But I don’t want to waste this weekend doing nothing. So I just test my Mini Regulator for my TentLabs XO2 Reclock Module.

Luckily, I still have old transformer, rated around 1A with 15 VAC output (tested around 15.3 VAC).

I connect the Mini Regulator to the transformer and check the VDC output. The green LED lit means everything is OK The VDC measured around 11.83 VDC. A little bit lower than my expected 12 VDC output but this should be fine. I will try with higher transformer later (16-18 VAC).

Tags: power supply, regulator
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Posted on Sunday, 11th October 2009 by Jimmy Auw

Still remember my other “stupidity” here? After several hours of investigation, I finally decide that the Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube is not a good capacitor for bypassing purpose. The music will lose most of its detail. YMMV, this is based on my investigation. Feel free if you have other opinion.

On the other side, I still have the “Classic” Jensen Copper Foil Aluminium Tube. Surprisingly, this capacitor works better on the High Voltage bypass section! The price of this capacitor is only 1/3 of the Paper Tube. I will give some more listening test, but so far I would stick with this “Classic” Jensen on the bypass section. This “Classic” capacitor gives warmth sensation without losing the details.

Tags: Bypass Capacitor, Capacitor, jensen, power supply
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Posted on Tuesday, 6th October 2009 by Jimmy Auw

I do love the improvement after I finish the VCap TFTF Capacitor Mods on my Aikido Power Supply. The staging is awesome. I could “see” not only a center point, but also a little bit left/right, even more left/right, left/right (on the speaker), and far away left/right. But sometime, I feel the Pre-Amp is too dynamic (to speedy). For instrument music, it’s ok. But for mostly vocal dominated music, I think I need to slow it down - a little bit - without losing the awesome staging off course.

Since we know the “problem” is caused by the VCap TFTF, so we have to start the solution from this point also (it’s just because I have “predicted” that I have no option to improve on the other section).

Ok, what should we do?

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Tags: jensen, power supply, VCap
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Posted on Saturday, 26th September 2009 by Jimmy Auw

It’s a weekend holiday and it’s time to scratch my laziness and doing some audio DIY mods. This time, I will try a capacitor from Jensen, the 4-Pole Electrolytic.

What makes it different from standard electrolytic? Well, it has 4 poles instead of 2 of standard electrolytic (that’s why they call it Jensen 4-Pole capacitor - I wonder why 4-Pole instead of 4-Poles?) But that’s simply out of our discussion here.

Again another question, why it has 4 Poles instead of 2? Keep reading.

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Tags: Aikido, Choke, jensen, power supply
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Posted on Wednesday, 23rd September 2009 by Jimmy Auw

If before I picked Obbligato as last Power Supply (High Voltage) bypass capacitor, now I’m experimenting with Jensen Pure Copper Foil Paper Tube in this position.

The result? Well, not as significant as VCap on the first capacitor (after first Choke), but compared to Obbligato, I feel “oh so natural” sound with this Jensen. Now the Jensen is side by side with the Duelund

Tags: Duelund, jensen, power supply
Posted in DIY Audio | Comments (1)

Posted on Sunday, 6th September 2009 by Jimmy Auw

Yes, you might call me crazy! A Teflon VCap TFTF on Power Supply section?

If I need to make myself clear, this 0.47uF/600VDC VCap TFTF Teflon capacitor will cost you around US$ 150 each (depends on quantity). So we will spend near US$ 300 only for two VCap TFTF here!!!

And eventually, you will ask why do I put those caps there? Actually this is an “accident”. I bought those VCap few months ago, but it just didn’t match right with my current system (it prefers Duelund CAST PIO) - check the article here, here, and here. So what should I do with them?

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Tags: Aikido, power supply, preamp, VCap
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Posted on Sunday, 5th July 2009 by Jimmy Auw

After over 2 month of laziness, finally I finish the tiring job, soldering 60 pcs of Black Gate F Series for my Gainclone Power Supply.

Well, practically, this is not only for Gainclone. The design will be quite modular, as described below:

• Dual rail design, for positive and negative
• Each filtered with 30 pcs Black Gate F Series 680uF/65V (around 20.400uF total capacitance each rail)
• Choke Input Design
• Main rectifier is 4xMUR860 (600V, 8A)
• Snubberized Design with Mills Resistor and Russian PIO/Teflon Capacitor

With 65V working voltage of the capacitor, this modular power supply could be use for many purpose. Let’s say, a MOSFET project?

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Tags: Black Gate, power supply
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Posted on Sunday, 19th April 2009 by Jimmy Auw

Being a perfectionist is not easy (and not cheap). Still remember my ambitious project before? I want to make it perfect, so let’s start the 1st phase, testing the capacitor (I mean, the Black Gate)

I will use 60 Black Gate capacitors on the power supply. First 30 pcs for positive rail, and another 30 pcs for negative rail. I want both rails have similar capacitance (or as similar as possible). So first capacitor on positive rail will have similar capacitance value on first capacitor on negative rail. Too perfectionist?

I need to know exactly the capacitance of each Black Gate. You know that every capacitor has around 10% tolerance. So when it’s written 680uF, it may vary between 680-68 or 680+68. Who knows? The meter knows.

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Tags: Black Gate, power supply
Posted in DIY Audio | Comments (9)