DIY Audio....or how many solder burns have you had?

[Pete The Cat]

Back in the '80s I took a belt from the mains when I was rewiring a joint box. I'd done it many times before and knew the drill but had left the mains plugged in. Idiot!

Funny thing is how time slows and your brain tracks what's happening astonishingly well. In that split second I was able to recognise that my screwdriver hand felt momentarily stuck to the screw I was attempting to turn and I realised what I'd done, before a combination of jerking and being thrown back across the room. Good news is that the only injury was the bump from the fall.

Pete

[shane]

Last time I got a belt off the mains was replacing a single socket with a double in our kitchen. Our old house where we lived for 30 years had (very vey old) fuses for upstairs and downstairs rings. The new place has a row of fancy RCBs. I carefully switched off the downstairs ring RCB, not noticing another one marked Kitchen…

Haven’t had any notable burns recently but the forefingers and thumbs of both hands have been regularly imprinted by the hot pins of 5-pin DIN plugs in that race between the solder solidifying and the pain becoming unbearable!

[walpurgis]

the forefingers and thumbs of both hands have been regularly imprinted by the hot pins of 5-pin DIN plugs in that race between the solder solidifying and the pain becoming unbearable!

Yes, I know that one!

[Barry]

Use a table top vice. It's almost impossible to solder up connectors to cables without one.

[shane]

Perfectly possible, I’ve done hundreds. Painful though.

[Barry]

Perfectly possible, I’ve done hundreds. Painful though.

I said "almost" - OK if like to burn your fingers and/or risk 'dry joints'.

[Mr. C]

Being around soldering equipment every day, very, very rarely do I receive burns, thankfully. Although the odd cut around the lab in inevitable just a fact of electronics lab life.

With regartd to SMPS, I design a great many of these for various applications, the main pluses are PDF (Power density factory) high power for lower space, COST and for our US cousins less real estate to take up.

With the newer techniques involved with SiC & GaN switching and much better EMI supression and power distribution network (fancy way of saying psu micro controller lol) You see all of these are controlled in real time, with precise control on of input V&I, switching times, PWM lengths, current supply against output requirments. Coupled with the biggie these days efficiency if over 80%+ in many circumstances oh did I mention the cost.

This is why a few amplifier manufactures are heading in this direction, I mean even Sugden uses SPMS in their design.

Oh wait both Sugden & Pass are class 'A' that permantly on transistor current drenched electricity consuming monsters just what the world needs right now ?

[Puffin]

I don't know if Nelson Pass designs his amps with SMPSs in mind but he advocates their use with his amps...all his amps?.....well his ACA amps of which I have built 4. His ACA Mini is a seriously good amp. I use a Meanwell 5A 24vdc.

[Mr. C]

It you are happy with it Rob thats's all that matter then

[Macca]

Being around soldering equipment every day, very, very rarely do I receive burns, thankfully. Although the odd cut around the lab in inevitable just a fact of electronics lab life.

With regartd to SMPS, I design a great many of these for various applications, the main pluses are PDF (Power density factory) high power for lower space, COST and for our US cousins less real estate to take up.

With the newer techniques involved with SiC & GaN switching and much better EMI supression and power distribution network (fancy way of saying psu micro controller lol) You see all of these are controlled in real time, with precise control on of input V&I, switching times, PWM lengths, current supply against output requirments. Coupled with the biggie these days efficiency if over 80%+ in many circumstances oh did I mention the cost.

This is why a few amplifier manufactures are heading in this direction, I mean even Sugden uses SPMS in their design.

Oh wait both Sugden & Pass are class 'A' that permantly on transistor current drenched electricity consuming monsters just what the world needs right now ?

You can't leave a class A powered up all the time so I'd suggest they actually use less power than a B or AB or even a D if that amp is left powered up all the time.

Also world is moving to electric vehicles which in terms of power consumption make a big class A amplifier used say 20 hours a week look like nothing. Please don't encourage the 'green' virtue signallers who have to tell us they are abandoning class A 'For the planet'. They are so tiresome - and wrong.

SMPS have lower noise than an LPS assuming both implemented properly, is that not true?