[dnewman]

Having two Chimes under my belt now, I decided to commit to writing some
of the decisions I made in building my Chimes as well as provide some friendly
advice.  Probably most of interest are some links to panel designs for use with
frontpanelexpress.com.  Since I provide a number of links to vendors, I felt it
best to present the writeup externally rather than posting directly here in this
forum.  The writeup may be found at

   http://mtbaldy.us/~dnewman/chime/

Questions, comments, and criticisms are welcome.

Cheers,
Dan

P.S. Obviously, I think highly of the Chime to have built two.

[defec]

Thanks for posting your experiences on building the Chime. If I go ahead and build one myself your page will no doubt be a huge help.  The only thing I'm worried about is doing the metal work myself.

[dnewman]

With panels from Front Panel Express, doing the metalwork is pretty simple as long as you
have some basic tools: a drill of some sort, a 3/16" bit, a stepper bit, and a nibbler.  Oh,
and something to pound a nail, awl, or center punch with.

I used the Front Panel Express tools to print the front and back panels (framework with
reference marks) onto paper.  Used those. with a mallet and awl to mark the center points
of the holes I needed to drill on the Lansing front and back panels.  I then drilled them all
with the 3/16" bit, going pretty fast.  (A couple of minutes?).  I then drilled all but the two
RCA screw holes much larger with the stepper bit from the backside.  (Maybe 10 minutes
at most?)  And by larger, I mean much larger.  I even did the USB jack that way.
Remember, it will ALL be covered over by the front and back faceplates.

The only additional work was to use a nibbler to deal with the rectangular power entry.
Again, I could be quite messy.  And, you can do your power entry using a cord instead
of the rectangular module.  (See my writeup for a suggestion along these lines.)

When you're drilling the front and back panels, the proud upper and lower edges of the
front sides will be exposed and getting rubbed.  I put masking tape over mine to keep
those edges from being scratched.  A black permanent ink marker will do a good job of
hiding small scratches on those edges.

Now, I did use a neighbor's benchtop drill press.  However, a hand drill could be used
as long as you have a work surface to support the pieces being drilled AND with a
hole 1/2" or larger for allowing the stepper bit to pass.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Dan

[robertwstephens]

Hello!  Excellent write up.  That gets my vote for DIY'er of the month.  It makes me want to build one.  I am just finishing up my Clarinet.  I sent the top plate out to get punched by someone who really knows what they are doing.  My wife just got an Ipod.  I am not real savvy on how everything works yet being a vinyl guy myself.  If I get a docking station for the Ipod, could that connect into the Chime?  My computer is nowhere close to my main stereo set-up.  Peace.  Robert

[dnewman]

Thanks for the kind words Robert.  As to iPod OUTPUT, I'm not an iPod user but
my very limited understanding has always been that the overall system is
(intentionally) weak in the output arena.  I did a quick google and could only
turn up analog output and analog and s/pdif inputs for iPods, iPod docks, and
iPod hifi systems.  Again, I have a very limited grasp of what is available in
the iPod marketplace.  At any rate, do some web searches and see what you
find.

Of course, the computer you use to download music to the iPod can be used to
feed music to the Chime via USB.  (Unless you are in the odd situation of having
a firewire capable iPod and no USB on your computer.  While possible, highly
improbable these days.)

While I could feed my Chimes using USB -- and I have done that to test the
USB sections -- I instead use S/PDIF.  I have my CD's all ripped to a lossless
format on my server (a Mac) which runs the opensource, freeware SlimServer.
I then have Squeezeboxen and a Transporter getting music from the SlimServer
and then feeding them via S/PDIF to the Chimes.  (And the Chime is far better
of a DAC then the Squeezeboxen and Transporters: I've compared them quite a
few times and there's simply no comparison.)

Best Regards,
Dan

[jcmjrt]

Dnewman,

I'm pretty ignorant with regards to digtal outputs and associated toys. I was thinking of using a Mac G4 laptop that for various reasons isn't getting much usage into a music server and am hoping to learn more. You can send music (such as apple lossless) using itunes thru the USB port to a chime and then on to a preamp, etc. Why are you using slimserver/squeezebox/transporter to a chime and then on to a preamp I presume? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

BTW Robert, I'm sure that you'll enjoy your Clarinet. I know that I'm loving mine. The tubes, caps take some break-in....a frykleaner might come in handy!

[dnewman]

Dnewman,

I'm pretty ignorant with regards to digtal outputs and associated toys. I was thinking of using a Mac G4 laptop that for various reasons isn't getting much usage into a music server and am hoping to learn more. You can send music (such as apple lossless) using itunes thru the USB port to a chime and then on to a preamp, etc. Why are you using slimserver/squeezebox/transporter to a chime and then on to a preamp I presume? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

Your G4 should work just fine.  I use a more complicated setup as I wish to concurrently feed multiple audio streams
to different parts of my home while only having to keep one copy of all the audio files.  Using USB to do this over
long cable lengths is not practical so I instead do it over my wired network. Yes, we could run multiple computers
sharing the same hard drive (e.g., network attached storage), but I have to manage computers as one of those
things not in my job description and so I try really hard to minimize the number of machines in my personal life
which I need to manage.  Net, net, using SlimServer to feed different music feeds about my residence works great.
I can even have it securely stream music over the Internet to remote audio equipment (with my laptop as an
intermediary).

The squeezeboxen are a nice transport to get the music off of the server to the point of listening
with a display and a handheld remote enabling searching of the library and whatnot.  I have a Transporter
also as my wife wanted one device which had knobs on the front so she could select music without having
to find a remote or go to a computer with a web client.  A very expensive way to get knobs, admittedly.

Since the Chime incorporates a tubed preamp, I have it's output go directly to an amp.  Since the squeezeboxen
have digital volume controls and the Chimes have analog volume controls, getting the desired sound level out
of the speakers is never an issue.

So, in short I use SlimServer and Squeezeboxen so that I can have a distributed, multi-tasking digital
audio system throughout my home.  Getting the same results with iTunes would require additional
computers and not have the same ease of use.

Cheers,
Dan

[jcmjrt]

Dnewman,

Thanks so much for the informative reply. I have been fairly well planted in the analog world but digital is finally getting good enough to be acceptable for the convenience and a music server sure looks convenient.

I don't know that I'm ready for another project just yet...or maybe that's my pocketbook crying from Christmas...but the chime sure looks like an interesting project.

[Braden]

I just finished my Chime yesterday, only had a couple glitches. The main one that I didn't know the secondary transformer T400 had sides. All the pictures I saw of chime innards showed the label of the transformer facing the front so I went with that. Little did I know there was a clear plastic labelling of 1,2,3,4... on the face of it! No problem, just blew a few fuses tracking that one down. The other was the select knob. For the jumpers on the volume control the manual shows installation while looking at the board from one direction, but the jumper listed for the selection knob was from looking at the other side of the board. No biggie. I did a couple small changes, put in the fast/slow rolloff switch as mentioned above, and put the heater LED on the front panel. Everything is working great so far. Now I just wish there was some kind of downsampling device I could install inside so I could run my dvd player through the chime.

Also, I was shocked how good the sound was through usb. I'm using a half-decent creative labs external device which I thought sounded okay, but this blows it away!

Here's a really bad pic taken with my camera phone:

[dnewman]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and the picture.  I'll add a "heads up"
section to the write up I did mentioning your two gotchas and any others
which come up.

Enjoy your Chime.  It'll sound even better after you put 100 hours
or so on the tubes.

Regards,
Dan

[Braden]

Thanks for your write-up, really helped with a DIY users perspective of the construction process.

The only other thing I didn't mention is that my selection switch doesn't respond to the signal in the 11, 12, and 1 'o clock positions, instead it's at the 12, 1, and 2 positions. I don't know if this is something I did, a fault with the switch, or something I can adjust, but it's no big deal either way. But one idea is to not insert the pins into the selection switch until you've found out exactly where the switch responds to the signal.

Thx,

Braden