Cydrome Leader wrote:

Phil Allison

http://cdn.avsforum.com/3/38/3836566...ach143596.jpeg

That thing looks awful.

** Its actually rather well made - Crown Audio are not mugs.

nasty silicone-looking glue

** Huh ?

and sloppy cable ties parts buried under other parts

** Not true.


It is amazing fans cost less than real heatsinks these days.

** It has always been so.



The Chinese are getting desperate.

such a crappy transformer is slightly brilliant though. Somebody took the time to try that hack.

** Yeah - I came to the same conclusion.

The Chinese guy who discovered you *could* wind perfectly usable and sellable cores using scraps welded end to end must have got a few big pats on the back - or an extra bowl of rice & fish.

BTW:

The same amp has a novel feature not seen by me before. In faulty condition, it drew about 10mA of AC current while having no DC rails and there was a faint smell of something hot.

Turns out, it has a soft start circuit consisting of a relay and a PTC in parallel. No, not an NTC - a *PTC* !!

A coin sized device made by "Epcos" that has 6 ohms cold resistance and jumps to circa 20kohms if overheated - and it can tolerate 240VAC.

So, if the DC supply does not come up in the first 100mS, the PTC goes high and that is that. Brilliant.


..... Phil