Post pics of your builds.... - Page 246

chobint, what will you do with those towers? will they be mounted vertically?

Really great work! Both wood, and I am sure internal work..
Go Girl!

Ya, the original design concept was intended purely for fashion and not so much for performance or functionality. I wanted to make something unique and vertical, but tall and skinny didn't work very well in that regard so they just sit flat on the table. If I had a chance, I would redo my Bijou in a more typical, symmetrical fashion. That design, subsequently, ended up being a match made in heaven for the Buffalo. The stacking mounting plates in conjunction with stacking PCB's allows for the shortest signal path possible, less than the short side of a dollar bill.

my first pimeta build (pics)

lots of pics of my build. hope you enjoy or find them useful.

the parts arrive:



I do a test placement to see if the board will really fit:



sort out the parts before we begin assembly:




some fine soldering has to be done, though: some surface mount chips need to be soldered to their chip-carriers. I'll do these in a little while:



first stuffing: place all small height components on first, bend leads, clip and solder:



check underneath for solder bridges and cold joints:



now solder the rest of the board components:



we still need to solder those REALLY tiny chips to the chip carriers. we start by tinning one lead on the board and moving the chip (by hand) over that wire and joining them iwith the iron (upper left 'elevated' chip platform with silver colored solder near the yellow circle, index-mark):





and now, one chip is fully soldered:



and now the last one is soldered in place in a similar fashion:



another check to see if the box still fits around everything:



and we do a test run after power it on:



I am using this usb-spdif dongle to feed audio from my pc:



and here's my work-at-home setup with my old trusty DAC and the new pimeta on top.



construction took about 5 hours for the first time, which included a lot of photo taking, double-checking parts and being extra careful about neatness whenever possible.

a really enjoyable project that went together flawlessly and worked the first time!

cheers,

--
/bryan

Flickr: linux-works' Photostream

Welcome to Head-Fi linuxworks, and an awesome first post. Your photography skills are fantastic, and your organisation skills are just as good

Very nice and clean looking build, nice photos as well.

Hey linuxworks, where did you order all the parts and casing?

Also, would that be a difficult build for a beginner?

Soldering SMD chip is not a good start for beginner.

No need to do SMD to do a Pimeta.

thanks beefy

I took twice as long building this since I had to setup the camera on a tripod, play around with lighting (such as it was) and do a few test/review shots. part of the fun *was* the photography

/bryan

thank you

the lower 2 bags in silver are from tangent (one is a crossfeed kit that I have yet to even build). the other contained an order that included a couple of pimeta boards, a pair of the $3 volume controls (that are meant for this board; or vice versa) and a bunch of chip carriers. also, important, was the matched set of 'it just works' transistors. they were cheap ($2 or less) and so were a no-brainer and obtainable via tangent's shop.

it looks like I got the last (boo, hiss!) of the buf's from digikey. I went to place another order today and they are out ;( I'm going to try using that LM part and see if its usable. I hate the fact that parts go in and out of stock - that's just nuts.

other than the BUF chips, the rest was standard stock digikey. even the case is digikey standard. (my next one will be the same case but in translucent blue or red or something - they now have that style - and so I can hide the 'power-on' led behind the bezel and have the whole case light up (slightly) as a power=on indication)

as to how hard it was - the info on tangent's site is *very* good. it really is all there, but you have to look a few times and keep a few browser windows open to make your way thru assembly. I've been building electronic diy things for almost 40 yrs now but I don't do hardware for a living, if that means anything

the surface mount stuff was not super easy, to be honest. but you don't *need* to use the soic parts - I just did since it was the easiest and 'most known' config to start with.

.bl

for the very first build, I followed tangent's instructions exactly. down to the set of chips to use. they seemed to be only in soic form, though.

what would the next pick be, in dip8?

Are all the parts on tangent's website? I only see the boards, volume knobs and a few other bits and pieces.

I want to start learning DIY audio builds once I finish my uni exams, and was considering building a home amp since I need something to drive my K601s properly. Then again, I could look at a high gain mini3 if they aren't too hard.

Parts sourcing is an absolute bitch in Australia though......

that's about it - mostly the boards, volume pots and for me, chip carriers are slightly of interest. the rest comes from elsewhere (all else came from digikey, in my case).

I was looking at some boards for an active filter and its sourced from oz. I decided not to go for it due to expense of shipping, so I hear you ..