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Unless your measurements are deviating from the transformer specs significantly (11.6V +/-5% open-circuit), there's no problem. 'Loading' is a relative term - a 50mA load on a transformer rated for 500mA isn't going to affect output much, it will still be close to the no-load rating. What are...

How are you measuring the AC voltage? Technically, a true-rms meter should read the same voltage before and after the bridge-rectifier (no smoothing cap), but you should measure it directly at the transformer winding to be sure. I'm not entirely sure what's happening here, even if it's below...

Yes, you need a capacitor here, it needs to be rated for greater than the peak voltage you will encounter. If you have a 120V -> 10V transformer, 10V is actually the rms value of the waveform - when you rectify the 10Vrms, the actual DC peak voltage will be 14.1 - 2*(0.65) = 12.8V, which is the...

iQ10 in walnut ;) (if you don't mind open-box) http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/KEFIQ10WLN/KEF/Iq10-Two-Way-5-Bookshelf-Speakers-In-Walnut-Pair/1.html Kef continues to make some great speakers to this day, but I don't think the C3s are one of them. Your money will be better...

Any sort of budget ranges here?

This is at the top end price-wise, but the Hsu HB-1s are available for $150 each. http://www.hometheatermag.com/compactspeakers/307hsu/index.html http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/hb-1.html Then there's also the kef iq10 at $289 (wall mounts available), which seem to be $450 elsewhere...

That HT-RC160 is a great receiver, but it gets very warm at idle - you don't want to be running it horizontally. Are the bookshelfs for fronts, rears, or both?

The FJ/FL option came from recommendations in a thread on badcaps (2nd link in my last post). Evidently, those lines were only sold directly to OEMs, so availability will only be overstock being sold off in rare cases; I probably shouldn't have included those in retrospect (guess I should've...

I've always used mouser myself, and digikey for anything mouser didn't have. I tend to stick with Rubycon MBZ caps for the VRM (>1000uF, 6.3/10/16V), and Rubycon YXG for the lower-priority/smaller filter capacitors dispersed around the board (typ. 1000uF 6.3/10V types) which I buy on ebay...

Those are known defects from what I've read at badcaps over the last two years. http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2469 http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4654

Pioneer vsx-519 is a good starting point imo - $200 and will decode hdmi audio (useful for a future home-theater with a blu-ray or htpc), although only 5.1 as Jhalf said. If you can wait until April, the new vsx-520 coming out for $230 and will support decoding DTS-HD/Dolby TrueHD formats and...

Now that's what I call a double-whammy :eek: Those caps are not part of the capacitor plague, per-se, which was caused by the flood of board makers moving to cheap taiwanese caps (Elite, OST, Tayeh, Fuhjyyu, Chhsi being some of the most well known brands). Most of those in the pics are Nichicon...

I was hesitant to initially recommend this receiver, but I think the pioneer VSX-519 could fit the bill for only $200 new. It will decode HDMI LPCM streams, so you can avoid having to run digital connections from each source, and still be able to take advantage of lossless formats (providing the...

Well that's unfortunate; does it still do the same if you try to bitstream plain DD/DTS via HDMI from the dvd/bdp? I read about a similar problem on anandtech with another user's tv only outputting stereo via the digital output from the HDMI inputs, guess this is more common than I thought. In...

Yeah, you'll be giving up lossless (and 7.1 capability in this case), but you'll end up with a much better sounding system in the end. If you're still open to going used, you could snag something like a Denon AVR-2307CI for $200-240 (ebay going rate) and get a better overall unit (beefier amp...

Sure you linked to the right one? That link points to a 2in/1out HDMI receiver. The RX-V465 is the cheapest current yamaha that will decode HDMI audio directly. If you want the TV to decode the HDMI audio so you can loop it back to the receiver, any receiver with digital optical/coax inputs...

If they were marked FZ, they were just disguised as solids: http://www.phenos.nl/Elco/FZ%20Series.pdf

Solid electrolyte caps don't have vents, those aren't solids. As already stated, the Sacon FZ are known to fail frequently, they're just regular crap-quality aluminum lytics with clear sleeves.

How exactly would an MOV protect from an over-current condition? :confused: They basically work exactly opposite of a fuse. From what I've seen, a lot of manufacturers like to put their fuses in heat-shrink, since there's no holder for them (soldered leads). OP: anything from a semiconductor...

Try mouser ;) I love their site organization & online catalog, probably why I'll always look there before digikey. http://www.mouser.com/search/Default.aspx

If length isn't of any concern, you can buy a psu that has two PCBs stacked on top of each other and unstack them. This would only be ~40mm tall, but twice as long (or wide). The DPS-700FB (cheap on ebay) is one model in particular that I know is built like this...

What makes you think something heated up the board enough to desolder them? It looks to me that it's a bad solder job in the first place. See the bare copper? It is usually covered in solder completely; my guess is that the solder didn't stick to the capacitor legs very well, seeing how it...

What do you have the crossover set at on the sub & receiver? Adding 6dB with the tone control only boosts 100Hz, so it'll just make it sound more boomy.

I got to the 'choose shipping' page a half-dozen times, after that the java thing for payment would always time out. After 50 mins they had only given away $15k, so I went to shower/eat (figured something might improve); an hour later, it was all gone - talk about non-linearity :(

Depends on how hard you're looking for an excuse to get a new one :p I think you should take it somewhere and tell them to replace the 4 relays (they cost about $2 - $4/ea, depending on brand); it's really hard to botch re-soldering the binding post pins, not exactly a job requiring a huge...

So who got some free stuff? This pretty much sums up my experience.... http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk149/FML_01/spfreeday.jpg but I won't hold it against them.

I think there was a bad lot of relays used by pioneer at some point. I came across an 816 once that would work intermittently on different channels (only 1 channel worked 100% of the time), I replaced the four speaker relays and that fixed it. Unless you've been switching wires a lot since it...

I had the same issue with an old psu & mobo, it worked like this for at least a few years, I just quit using that machine for gaming (it was stable otherwise). The cause was the metal sockets in the ATX connector were loose/spread appart and the system would crash under load (and increasingly...

Convergence problems are common on projection TVs, usually with units that use STK392-110 chips (or similar). You can replace the resistor, but it may be a symptom of a failed chip, in which case it will just fail again. What you need is a flameproof resistor - you'll notice the resistor that...

If you want a general assortment of capacitors, I bought a set from westfloridacomponents on ebay; its high-quality stuff, mostly name-brand (Panasonic, Rubycon, Nichicon, UCC, Illinois Capactior, Sprague). At least one of the smaller cap sets were Taicon, which I won't use, but otherwise a...

Stereo receivers are becoming more and more of a niche market (reduced demand), and as a result are more rare & expensive. The cheapest I could find is a sony for $123. Most stereo receivers today are just stripped down 5.1/7.1 units with the rest of the channels missing. My advice would be to...

Unless you designed whatever you're handling, the only way you'll know is to put it in and see if it works. Modern LSI/VLSI components often have ESD-diverting mechanisms built-in to provide inherent protection, although this only works so well (a large enough voltage would still cause damage)...

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/775/1 http://www.mogami.com/e/cad/wire-gauge.html The above link provides 1.5mm/1.2mm diameters for 16/18AWG stranded wire, add an additional ~0.8mm to each (insulation) for an estimate of 2.3mm/2mm diameter.

It's not any different. Most ESD wrist-straps today have a cord that is resistive to prevent discharge like you experienced; they're typically 1MΩ, which is still low enough to drain off accumulated charge quickly.

Tips wearing down is one of the last problems I have with my current iron, although my dad's iron (my old Dalco) eats them in no time. Mine is basically a chinese hakko 936 knock-off, uses the same tips as the 936 and I've never had any of them wear down with frequent use of the same tip. Both...

Yes I agree with you here after seeing a better view, guess I wasn't looking too closely at the smaller component soldering job. The larger wire solder joints pictured are what I've come to expect in run of the mill equipment nowadays, maybe I'm wrong on this. Maybe it was designed to fail...

Looks to me from the pcb bottom view that it's a dropper resistor for running the LED indication circuitry. This unit is probably just the victim of cost-cutting, a too low wattage resistor caused the thermal fuse connected with the load to blow, as you indicated. Or they did not account for...

If you're using a simple mono RCA->1/8" adapter, you probably need to use a stereo adapter. I suspect your LFE signal is being sent to the center channel amp instead of the sub, you can test this by connecting a speaker to the center channel output of the sub. I can't imagine how the speakers...

Transistors: you can use 2N7000 if it only has to handle the current of a few LEDs (in parallel) - maybe 3-5, depending on their current draw. Alternatively, you can use bigger fets (as in his RGB driver schematic (it uses the same code as the other project)) in order to drive several LEDs in...

Assuming you only need to generate one color at a time, all that is required is 3 adjustable power supplies for each color (RGB). Whether software or manually controlled, the supplies will adjust the intensity of each color, either by changing the current or the voltage of the source (for...