It looks like one of the many Palomar clones.
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Italian linear?
- Thread starter Pman62
- Start date
It looks like one of the many Palomar clones.
The builder just received the pcb in those recently and they utilize the latest Palomar mosfets. Nice little boxes and he even backs them with a nice warranty. I've got some pictures of the internals I'll share soon. The pcb's are clean and the traces are really nice compared to other mass produced you see these days. Output is generous too. The cases are the same ones that have been used for years by several of the "Palomar" clones but they're sufficient in dissipating the heat produced. I personally know the fellow that builds them as he's a fellow Texan as well, good honest guy trying to make a living most of us.
With all the transistors sharing a single fin on the heat sink and the remainder unable to dissipate any heat, I was wondering if he had considered selling the board separately so it could be installed on an appropriately designed heat sink or if he had any plans for a better heat sink in the future?
I have one of those "Palomar" clones here for repair and the way this one is laid out is fine. Some knuckle head took this brand new amp and hit it with 100 watt drive signal and really smoked it. It knocked the plastic potting compound clean off of the FET's.
I took pictures of it and submitted the report to my customer(Not the amp owner) and cited abuse as the cause of failure. The amp owner raised such a stink my customer replaced it. The new one came back with the same problem, again pictures and the report were the same. Extreme abuse caused by over drive input signal. I asked them what should I do with it and my customer said recycle it. They did not replace it with the same type of amp, they instead sent a high drive unit from another manufacturer.
This was a "Palomar" clone was labeled as a "Black Cat". 4 watt maximum input drive for the black cat. I still have this amp here as an example of what I will not bother to fix.
That's a good way to be, I suffer from too many dumbcussions though and therefore, I'll tackle anything, even when I know better. Which results in more dumbcussions..
I have had some real garbage come in and people were hoping to fix it cheap. When you smoke one this bad you almost have to replace every single semiconductor in the unit. Hell even the LED's are smoked.
I been trying to find a wholesaler to get these things from, both Rocket Box and RM, no luck yet though. Texas Star isn’t hard to acquire but those little boxes seem to be.
Try buy from Palomar. The inside of the box pictured above has a bunch of flying wire inside which can cause reliability problems. Things should be bundled and tied back.
What's worse is when they say I don't care what the cost is fix it because it was a gift from my Grannykins and then they crayfish when you present the invoice.
Yeah I'm gonna try buying direct, maybe that'll work out, we'll see. I know exactly what you mean about someone saying fix it regardless of cost and then they stand there looking at you like you're an alien or something when you give them the repair ticket. I mean, don't rip people off but don't give your time and knowledge away for nothing, even if it's limited knowledge.
That's a problem for sure. The wife's hobby is one that is difficult to sell the finished product. She weaves scarfs and shawls from prime materials. Alpaca, fine wool and sari silk, and the items are perfect. Alpaca yarn cost between $15 and $50 per skein and some of these shawls take three skeins. Add her time even at minimum wage the shawls will cost around $600.00 for the top tier product.. The shawls are truly woven on a triangle loom and each thread is hand placed. The scarfs are done on a traditional loom and does nott take that much time to weave, but you have make your warp and draw it through the loom and then wind up on the supply roller.