[ilikemonkeys]

I"ve only ever used a 12VDC, I reversed the polarity once and fried a pice of the board, but just soldered a piece of wire around the fried part. I guess I was luck that way.

I've used the same T-amp for over a year now and almost daily for at least 6 hours at a time. I've never had any trouble with it. 12V is the way to go in my book. If this board is sensitive, I've never seen that. I've treated it pretty bad with no problems so far.....and I do treat it pretty bad.

B

 

[ilikemonkeys]

Oh yeah, I use a 300ma wallwart that came with an answering machine I no longer use. These power Paradigm Titans to levels so that make my neighbors hate me.

 

[michaelconnor]

I haven't tried the RadioShack supply before, but you may want to measure the actual voltage it's putting out without a load. Most PSU's are about 1-2 volts above their rating when not under load.

Personally, I'd recommend using one of these 12V PSU's. They're are highly regarded for use with tripath amps. I use one with my Amp3 to power a pair of particularly inefficient Advents without any problems. If your Athenas are bookshelf speakers, I wouldn't worry about stepping down to 12v.

 

[classicalguy]

Thank you Michaelconnor for the suggestion of an inexpensive regulated supply for the t-amp. I've been looking for something like this. I have a T-Amp and have been running it off of the SLA battery in my tire inflater. It will be interesting to compare this with the 3-A power brick. I ordered three of them, along with 3 more T-Amps to play with. Great suggestion!

 

[michaelconnor]

You're welcome. I also bought three of them just because it's handy to have some decent 12v supplies lying around for random projects.
N'joy!

 

[flashbackk]

I was pugging different supplies into mine and now all I get is clicking. Is it toast?

 

[michaelconnor]

Hmm, you can take a look at the circuit board for burn marks. The screws are beneath the rubber feet.

 

[ilikemonkeys]

I fried mine, but was able to fix it by bypassing the fried part.....and I"m no electrival engineer.

B

 

[flashbackk]

Anybody see anything?



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ackk/tamp1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ackk/tamp2.jpg

 

[michaelconnor]

Well, everything is there...but unfortunately it's difficult to see much from the pics. One of the signs of an overpowered component is that it will appear toasted or burned. In ilikemonkeys' case it sounds like there was a circuit trace that burned up from too much current in the wrong place. This is just one way it could have broken, however.

The tripath chips are quite vulnerable to overvoltage, so if you supplied it with more that 13.8V, it would simply cease to function with no visible symptoms. If you want to verify this, you can test the power supplies you tried with a multimeter. Again, although a supply says 13.5V, it may actually be putting out ~14.5V when not under load.

Good luck!