Dual-500 king of the Castle

I had a really good phone conversation with grapplesaw the other day. I forgot he was in Vancouver, British Columbia. I told him about my only visit to Vancouver in the 1980's and a side trip to drive-by the home of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart in Tsawwassen, BC.
We talked about the venerable D500 and grounding issues, wire routing techniques, and general Phase Linear trivia.
What a great guy, and smart too!
 
I had a really good phone conversation with grapplesaw the other day. I forgot he was in Vancouver, British Columbia. I told him about my only visit to Vancouver in the 1980's and a side trip to drive-by the home of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart in Tsawwassen, BC.
We talked about the venerable D500 and grounding issues, wire routing techniques, and general Phase Linear trivia.
What a great guy, and smart too!


I enjoy his calls too. We try to yap about every week. Amazing man for sure.
 
I used to joke with my (South African) co-worker…

He would put his phone under his ear muff and keep working.

The joke was: “African noise cancelling hands-free cell phone”.

It worked!
 
Seems we all have phone conversations with him, indeed, great guy to talk with..
Add me to that 'saw phone circle!
We've been working on my D500 project, or more correctly, HE's been educating me on all his knowledge gained from years of rebuilding these rare beasts. "Drinking from a fire hose" would be the correct analogy!
 
Add me to that 'saw phone circle!
We've been working on my D500 project, or more correctly, HE's been educating me on all his knowledge gained from years of rebuilding these rare beasts. "Drinking from a fire hose" would be the correct analogy!
Glen is very generous with his time and knowledge, he just helped me finish a little project. He sent me some parts to upgrade the D500 and was concerned that I didn’t have a way to safely discharge those monster capacitors, so he sent some parts and walked me through building a discharge box. It worked perfectly but after seeing a picture of his DBT, Capacitor discharge combo, I felt like I needed to up my game. 4E62F7BA-BE06-48F6-8967-A686AC72B501.jpegA69DA853-E2F5-4197-8216-01D80394936E.jpeg488F5367-33F1-4A1D-9811-10C368D6D763.jpeg
 
Glen is very generous with his time and knowledge, he just helped me finish a little project. He sent me some parts to upgrade the D500 and was concerned that I didn’t have a way to safely discharge those monster capacitors, so he sent some parts and walked me through building a discharge box. It worked perfectly but after seeing a picture of his DBT, Capacitor discharge combo, I felt like I needed to up my game. View attachment 66445View attachment 66446View attachment 66447
And up your game you did..
 
But wouldn't there be a drop across the rectifier? Mess up that precisional cabliration n shit.
I was thinking the same thing so I found this


“If we look at the basics, a bridge rectifier converts pure ac to pulsating dc with the use of 4 diodes or SCR's . That means a pair of diodes will act as a short circuit path to the negative half of the cycle and will allow us to obtain or draw the negative half as output.
Now , if we shift to dc, we shall give utmost consideration to that fact that pure dc is neither pulsating nor sinusoidal. So whatever input we apply, with whatever polarity that fancies us, our output will be just the same as input (some voltage drop is definitely there due to diodes or SCR's ).”
 
Yes, there will be 2 diode drops =1.2 volts. I don't think accuracy is critical in this application. The intent of the meter is to know when the caps are discharged. A couple volts doesn't matter.
This is definitely on my list to get done. You guys are always teaching me something new and bit by bit I am getting a great education. I am eternally grateful.
 
I learn best “the hard way” so I say go for it.

Look at that phono pre I built. Never stuffed a board prior as that thing smokes a LOT of high dollar preamps.

Good news: it may be available commercially soon.

Bad news: it won’t be from my company.

The designer (Wyn Palmer) was approached and has been working on prototypes for a “well known” company, which has not been disclosed yet.

It was directly compared to a $10,000 Pass Labs phono pre and preferred by a wide margin.
 
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