Millett "Starving Student" hybrid amp - Page 187

I'd be worried about the fan being noisy

Nah .. in the past few years there are excellent fan selections that pop up for computers and are exceptionally quiet. Those sinks look like they would do very well with even a little airflow so you can make it practically inaudible.

i dont mind the noise, it will be next to my gaming computer anyways which isnt really a silent machine anyways.

Cegras, when you said "those sinks", were you referring to mine or the black fin sinks everyone uses?

I'm not sure how effective airflow will be with it just flowing over a plate, but overall it apparently takes a good amount of hours for it to get 'finger-toasty' hot, so I'm confident you will be able to keep the heat under control.

yea i was thinking the same thing. Its basically the same thing as a CPU heatsink setup. Thanks

Hey guys. I've got a quick noob question. How are the pins on the transistors numbered? Left to right? What I'm trying to ask is if I'm looking at the front of the transistor, is the farthest let pin no. 1? Or do they correspond with the schematic, as in middle = no. 1?

I dont know if this will help you, but this diagram labels which pin is what


GL

v3nom is faster than me.

When describing MOSFETs, it's convention to refer to Gate, Drain, and Source - Gate, Drain, & Source ... 1, 2, 3. So if we look at the pic of the IRF510, we have this:


And if we look at Pete Millett's schematic for the Starving Student, we have this:


So:
Gate = 1
Drain = 2
Source = 3.

lol, i have great googling skills

btw tomb, did u catch my fan and heatsink setup on the previous page? do you think that will suffice for both mosfets on that same panel?

Thanks Tomb! That's exactly what I needed. Hoping to finish my starving student by the end of this week. Pics to come!

To be honest, I don't know. I think most people try to stay away from fans with headphone amps. The signals are so small and amplified so much in some circumstances that noise may become an issue ... and it's not the noise of the fan ... it's motor noise picked up by the amplifier circuit, from what I've heard.

That said - give it a try and let us know. It may be a good solution.

hmmm, i never though about the motor noise getting into the circuit. I guess i will give it a try, keeping the fan as far away as possible.

That's the noise I was worried about

Not the actual noise of the fan blades moving. I was concerned it would introduce noise into the signal. If you had a separate power supply, it might be fine. I definitely wouldn't try to run it off the same power as the amp.

yea, i knew what you meant. I was already planning on running it from a different power supply anyways. I have 2 power buttons that i am using (one for amp one for computer) and they both have 24v leds. I was going to extend a molex power connector from my computer to my housing to power them, so i was also planning to wire the fan to that as well.

should i also use shielded wires just in case? or would that not even matter.

I'd be more concerned with the fan vibration transmitting to the tubes as they can be very microphonic and a fan may start them ringing in your ears. Using the fan offboard would be more advisable if you don't use tube dampers.