If everybody gets a flu shot early then nobody will get the flu. The flu shots prevent spreading the flu around.

 

Went and laid down covered up and sweated it out. feel much better today.
Double, triple checking everything before I decide to order the PCB's.

If everybody gets a flu shot early then nobody will get the flu. The flu shots prevent spreading the flu around.

I don't know about that AG. I'm one of those one in a million that it affected differently.
I was told by my doctor yea you need this and as I said it made me so sick I felt like dying. I don't like medicine "period". Yes I will take it if I absolutely need it but I try to avoid it at all cost.

 

Just an update. Had some things I couldn't avoid go on in my life and I had to put this project on pause. Finally got back to it and have ordered the PCB's. Will get them in about two weeks. I'll start putting them together and see what happens. CROSSING FINGERS!

 

OH AG they ended up costing me $33.00 each. But it is R&D.

 

I like some Pop too. I like a little of all music, I even like some country "songs".
AG.....? at your age?

I STILL like Led Zepplin and also Jefferson Airplane and even Iron Butterfly. Rock and Roll Forever.
And the very best thing about all rock groups is that none of them sound at all like andre castilanitz and his talentless 100 strings.
One thing is really puzzling me is why I missed a few hundred postings on this thread. I think that it is still about some sort of automotive audio amplifier re-visited, but I really don't know. I haven't been sick, I did get my flu shot, but I have been busy enough to be quite distracted. It seems that GOOD handymen who actually know stuff AND are honest, are in terribly short supply. Hundreds of unskilled "wannabes" but very few "there, it's done" types. That may tend to lead a thread to wander a few thousand yards off course.

 

One thing is really puzzling me is why I missed a few hundred postings on this thread.

I also missed the pile of stuff, but I routinely do not get alerts for threads I'm watching. I've pointed it out to the mods a few times, but they have not found anything broken.

ak

 

Hi again MisterBill and Analogkid. Hopefully I will keep you all up on the updates? still everything isn't like I want it but it's better than it was.

 

So my question is, has the amplifier become more powerful? or higher fidelity? Last summer I acquired a used amplifier at a garage sale claiming 200 watts per channel in the bridge mode, which is very loud, by my standards. But then the band at our church got 4 amplified speakers at 200 watts per each. Unfortunately for us all, louder is not the same as having more musical skill. Oh Well. Then the band leader got offered a very high paying job in central Canada, almost 2000 miles away. I can't hear him at that distance.
No, those Canadians never did anything to offend me, nor was I the one who got him the job offer.

 

Don't know about it getting louder or more powerful yet MisterBill. I'm just hoping it will work. stayed away so long I had to go back and read up on my own notes to catch up. Yea I know the feeling about the differences in wattage on packages. I think in this same thread I talked about a 1000 watt system I got for my TV. I also have a stereo that only says 500 watts for 4 channels the 500 watt will make the 1000 watt sound like a toy.

 

Had a problem in my gerber files . They said there was no drill n/c file and no top silk . I'm looking at them in the zip file I sent.
Is there a good gerber file viewer to do it outside of Diptrace ? They might not use Diptrace and their viewer could not be pulling it up correctly, I don't know I've seen gerbv, viewmate, McCad and a few others. If you had to use one or have used one let me know which one you used.

Thanks

My mistake on the top silk. In my first package I sent only the bottom silk and when I reviewed and placed the order I added it back in. I guess they got confused. It doesn't change the price so I don't see a problem.

 

Many amplifiers and speakers have spec's about how many Whats they can produce which is with the volume control turned up way too high so half of the sound is severe distortion. A 4 channels car amplifier with 15 real Watts per channel is advertised at 200W to 250W.

A cheapo speaker can have a high loudness spec if it has a sharp peak at only one or two frequencies. You mentioned not hearing the lyrics when a woofer speaker makes a very loud BOOM sound. A properly designed speaker system should not make boomy sounds.

The supply voltage and speaker impedance greatly affects the amplifier's output power. Double the amplifier supply voltage then the speaker AC voltage and its AC current are almost doubled producing about 3.5 times the power. Half the speaker impedance and the amplifier power into it is almost doubled because the speaker AC current is almost doubled. But the amplifier's and speaker's heat are also almost doubled.

 

What's up AG. I was hoping you would post. I didn't forget about all of you. As I said what happened was out of my control about stopping posting. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to come back and try to catch back up where I was.

I see you haven't changed and please don't stop being AG. You, AnalogKid, MisterBill, ShortBus and I'm sure I'm missing a few helped me so much. As I also said this is like a pet project I can't put down!

I'm fixing to see what happens when I get the PCB's in.

 

You do need a drill file if you want holes drilled, and you need to specify if you want plated-through holes. Solder mask and silkscreen are optional, although solder mask certainly makes them look better and allows wave and reflow soldering to work. And a board-house should have sent you a file-format specification when you first told them that they were your choice. File format can be vitally important.

 

Not sure if I need plated holes or not. Probably might help for the mounting holes but the heat sink holes I'm at a cross road. If I place a plated hole around it, it would only give another plated surface to get hot. And I remember everybody telling me to give everything as much room between components and route lines as I could. BUT! there is only so much room you have between the pins on the IC anyways.
Yes MisterBill I know I need the drill files. It was a stupid mistake on my part.

 

Not sure if I need plated holes or not. Probably might help for the mounting holes but the heat sink holes I'm at a cross road. If I place a plated hole around it, it would only give another plated surface to get hot. And I remember everybody telling me to give everything as much room between components and route lines as I could. BUT! there is only so much room you have between the pins on the IC anyways.
Yes MisterBill I know I need the drill files. It was a stupid mistake on my part.

Mounting holes do not need plating hardly ever, so don't waste your money on that. But having solder on the lead all the way through makes an assembly much more durable against vibration. Much harder to unsolder but that is a tradeoff.

 

Mounting holes do not need plating hardly ever, so don't waste your money on that. But having solder on the lead all the way through makes an assembly much more durable against vibration. Much harder to unsolder but that is a tradeoff.

But it also makes soldering easier in some cases. If components are tightly packed, you have the option of soldering on either side of the PCB. In fact, most of my PCBs have all components on one side, but I solder them on the other. My iron isn’t encumbered by other components.

 

The way I designed it you can solder on either side but that's because of the route lines being on both sides to keep them from crossing. It's a simple 2 layer board. I'm mounting the IC and heat sink on one side and all the other components on the other.

And thanks for posting djsfantasi

 

The way I designed it you can solder on either side but that's because of the route lines being on both sides to keep them from crossing. It's a simple 2 layer board. I'm mounting the IC and heat sink on one side and all the other components on the other.

And thanks for posting djsfantasi

I misunderstood your post. I thought you weren’t plating the component holes.

 

I'm still trying to learn djsfantasi. It's my first electronic project. Just to catch you up I'm 58 and before coming to the site I knew nothing about electronics. Well I knew about components but how they worked with each other that was another matter. The guys here are the greatest!!!!
Helped where I needed it and didn't ask for a dime. You can't find that anymore.

 

I'm still trying to learn djsfantasi. It's my first electronic project. Just to catch you up I'm 58 and before coming to the site I knew nothing about electronics. Well I knew about components but how they worked with each other that was another matter. The guys here are the greatest!!!!
Helped where I needed it and didn't ask for a dime. You can't find that anymore.

I’ve read the whole thread.

You likely want to plate through all components and vias. If you’re not familiar with the term, a via is a through plated hole that connects traces on the top with the bottom without a component inserted. Useful when routing and you need to dodge another trace.

Instructables can be good. They can be awful. I’ll provide a link to one of my projects that has two different PCB layouts for the same circuit. You can read it here and see some different examples of PCB routing. Take a look at the pictures in step 5. Also note how I went from schematic to PCB.

PCB layout and design is as much part of the hobby as circuit layout and design. Personally, I find it great fun.