I am working on a system. Here is a 3d model of it.

To start off there will be:
2 B3`s with sidecar and sp-dif switch 1 BNC, 1 RCA and 1 Optical
1 Exau2s (4th pos on the switch module selects the external i2s source on the sidecar)
2 Legato 3.1`s with buffers
2 Placid HD BP (with taller heatsinks)
2 LCDPS (one to power control systems etc, the other to the dac`s)

Later on a couple Ventus might find its way into the case so I want the case to be designed with that in mind (2x ventus boards and additional Placid`s).

Hifiduino based control and lcd (not during first tests though).

I have kept the wires as short and kept as far from each other as possible by mounting the modules horisontally. Power at the bottom and i2s and signal at the top of the case.

Here is the preliminary model. It will be a work in progress for quite some time and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance :)

Thank you for the feedback. I am for the time being looking at other control options. I would have preferred it all to be Twisted Pear so if the AC2 is nearing it`s completion or at least at the near end of the test phase then I`ll use that. I think I read it in a thread at diyaudio that you are done with the hardware part of the ac2. So I`ll hold off on the arduino based control part untill I see what you come up with.

As for the dac itself there are a few things I am thinking of atm.

1. Are the boards in my model too close together (noice issues)?
2. Can I mount the tridents that close to the board with only about 5mm clearence or will this cause issues?


Digital and analog part:
http://sketchup.google.c...80d810a177a6ddd614bc0906

Power and control:
http://sketchup.google.c...7bb5a4fb77a6ddd614bc0906

Edit: updated the model

Edited by user Saturday, March 10, 2012 4:36:15 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Some testing. I have put one half of the dac`s together. This will eventuelly be the right channel. So far I have tested it with TTL level optical input and it lock on signals ranging from 16bit 44.1 up to 24bit 96 just as expected.

All dip switches are set to off atm.

The heatsink closest to the camera is hot as .... too hot to hold for any lenght of time, but not hot enough to leave a mark (note that my fingers are hardened from playing guitar as well as from testing blood sugar for the last 30 years).

Will place a temperature probe on it later on, when I can place it closer to my computer (with it`s temp probes that can be logged).

V3 Tridents are better than V1.1 in many ways.

The Placid heatsinks run hot. It's fine. Expect to see up to a 50-60C heatsink in operation. That's a typical idle temp for a Class-A amp, so it's not crazy (it is atypical in digital circuits).

50C is usually estimated as 2-3 seconds touch to the heatsink before you need to pull away (though we actually measure with a IR probe in testing :) ).

My AC regularly sits at 252v, I always wondered if this was an issue.

Power supply section more or less up and running (still need to fit the AC in properly). The transformers are underneath the plate that the placids are mounted on. The "sinks" are bent 4MM alu that is perfectly aligned to transfer the heat to the top lid. Everything is powder coated jet black.

mms_20151104_063542.jpg (82kb) downloaded 57 time(s).

Edited by user Wednesday, December 23, 2015 9:14:37 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks,
With the top lid on the entire case becomes a heat sink (since everything is powder coated and transfer heat well). But I need to cut some more holes in it as there are currently no holes above the PSU section. I will add a fan on the left rear of the case to draw some air out when the case temp reach 40c or so.

Got rid of some hum from the transformers by adding a soft start from hypex. I have to route the AC wires properly, I hope I get the time to get it done in the next few days.

Nice work gwikse! Four years now and my dual mono BIII resides in the rack. Some folks have brought DAC's over to knock it off but haven't succeeded.

Nice start! I was about to build a music server when a great deal popped up on a used one.

A fanless Signature Series Sonore with Deux power supply music server. Intel dh77df motherboard, i5 2.7GHz cpu, 8GB Corsair xms3 DDR3 ram. 3TB WD Green. Hard drive isolation, SoTM USB card, SoTM sata power filter, two custom power supplies for PC/USB card. I upgraded it with an 80GB msata SSD boot drive that I closed (no storage) and increased from 3TB to a 6TB drive giving me some space to grow into. Had Vortexbox 2.2, I used the new version 2.4 with 64bit Fedora 23.