Squeezebox/Power Supply re-case (long, pics)

mgalusha · « **on:** 7 Oct 2007, 01:47 am »

I finished up another construction project last week for my good friend Jerry. I combined his BOLDER Cable Ultimate Power Supply and his BOLDER modded SB2 into the case that originally held the power supply.

His power supply was one of Wayne's first for the SB and has been updated several times since originally built. We were fortunate that it was fairly close to the current version of the Ultimate supply and that it was housed in a fairly large (12"x12"x4.5") case.

After obtaining a new blank faceplate from Par-Metals I machined the opening for the display and a recess for the smoked lens to cover the display. I also ordered up a few assorted parts that would be needed including an 8" long flat flex ribbon cable to connect the display to the mainboard.

One of the options presented by using a larger chassis is the capability of using pretty much any coupling capacitor desired since the case is no longer the limiting factor. Jerry sent me a pair of Mundorf Supreme silver in oil caps and a pair of .1uF Teflon V-Caps. Very expensive and physically large but supposedly of excellent quality.

His original power supply was built on two separate boards and took up too much room to allow for the SB mainboard and caps. Since I had to rebuild the PS on a new board I took the opportunity to add a tracking pre-regulator to the circuit. Note that I do not know how this would compare to the current version of the BOLDER Ultimate power supply.

An additional benefit of having the PS and SB in the same chassis is the elimination of the umbilical between them and the power jack on the back of the SB.

One area that required a bit of thought was a clean way to do the network connection. Jerry's SB is a wired only model so I had to extend the Ethernet connection to the back panel. Since I no longer needed the power umbilical and the chassis was machined for an XLR jack I recalled seeing an Ethernet pass through that would mount in the same space as an XLR jack. Neutrik makes several styles and thankfully Mouser carries them along with all the other needed parts. I made up a short Cat-5 cable for the internal connection.

You may notice an assortment of Bybee's in the photos. As the existing PS and SB had Bybee's installed they were reused. There are two of the older small units at the AC input of the PS board, two more of the small "slipstream" models at the DC output and two of the "Silver Slipstream" models on the outputs.

Since this was reuse of an existing chassis there are a few extra holes and some remnants of Dynamat that I couldn't remove but overall I'm pleased with how this project turned out. Another one that I don't want to return to it's owner.

Almost forgot, how does it sound and was the result worth the effort?? In my opinion it's quite a bit better than my SB2/PS combo, which is very highly tweaked. In particular are the mid and high frequencies, they have taken on an almost magical quality. Vocals are pretty amazing. One of the first things I played was the Fairfield Four and it was quite stunning. So stunning that my wife exclaimed "Wow" from the room across the hall, with the door nearly closed to the music room. The sound makes me want to just keep turning it up, always a good sign. The other thing that was significantly improved was the spaciousness of the presentation. Deeper, wider and very open. My current music room is a small bedroom of about 10 x 12 (awaiting completion of dedicated room) and even though I have a lot of room treatments in there I cannot get physically very far from the speakers and normally don't have much in the way of image depth. Well, the new SB/PS Combo provided a much larger presentation that I thought the room would allow. I'd really love to hear this in a larger space.

So was it worth it, absolutely. I'll be delivering this next week before RMAF so hopefully once Jerry has a chance to listen to it he'll provide some thoughts as well. He'll also be getting the Burson "preamp" I put together for him at the same time. I think he's gonna be a happy man.

Mike

Display board is mounted to small wooden pieces which are epoxied to faceplate.

Neutrik Ethernet pass through.

JoshK · « **Reply #1 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 01:51 am »

nice job. I have a silver case here that I bought off Bill Baker that I intend to transplant my squeezebox into. I was hoping to pick up another squeezebox so I can do some a/b's but I haven't found another sbII.

JDUBS · « **Reply #2 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 03:58 pm »

Looks awesome!!

Any more detail on the tracking pre-regulator you added?

-Jim

Jampot · « **Reply #3 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 04:02 pm »

I love this idea Mike.

There have been a couple of examples of re-boxing the SB in the Slim Devices forum, but it seems a longer cable to connect the display is often a stumbling block - do you have a link or details for where to buy and (very important!) how it is described be sure to get the correct thing?

I have a dead TEAC 700 dvd / receiver which I thought could very well house an SB2 and ps (the existing display window is just about the right size) and nicely match my Bolder modded Teac!

Good job.

Jim

zybar · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 04:07 pm »

Great job Mike.

Jerry, make sure to let us know what you think.

George

mgalusha · « **Reply #5 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 04:50 pm »

Thanks. I just used the info from the National Semiconductor LM317 datasheet but with Linear LT1085 regs as I had them on hand. http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM317.html

Mike

Quote from: JDUBS on 7 Oct 2007, 03:58 pm

Looks awesome!!

Any more detail on the tracking pre-regulator you added?

-Jim

mgalusha · « **Reply #6 on:** 7 Oct 2007, 04:55 pm »

The cable I used is a Molex Premo-Flex Flat Flex cable, Molex part number 21020-0219. It's available from Mouser, part number 538-21020-0219 for $4.27. This is an 8" length, 20 conductor with a 0.5mm pitch.

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=21020-0219virtualkey53810000virtualkey538-21020-0219

Searching the Mouser website it's difficult to find but since they send out a nice catalog, it wasn't too hard to find.

Mike

Quote from: Jampot on 7 Oct 2007, 04:02 pm

There have been a couple of examples of re-boxing the SB in the Slim Devices forum, but it seems a longer cable to connect the display is often a stumbling block - do you have a link or details for where to buy and (very important!) how it is described be sure to get the correct thing?

JDUBS · « **Reply #7 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 02:51 am »

Quote from: mgalusha on 7 Oct 2007, 04:50 pm

Thanks. I just used the info from the National Semiconductor LM317 datasheet but with Linear LT1085 regs as I had them on hand. http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM317.html

Mike

Quote from: JDUBS on 7 Oct 2007, 03:58 pm
Looks awesome!!

Any more detail on the tracking pre-regulator you added?

-Jim

Cool, thanks Mike. Again, very nice job!

randytsuch · « **Reply #8 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 04:16 am »

Hi Mike
Good job. Like the way the display turned out. Makes me want to try something like this, but I already have too many projects and no time.

Wondered why you think this one sounds so good, the expensive coupling caps you used? (along with all the standard Bolder mods)

Randy

Double Ugly · « **Reply #9 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 04:57 am »

As usual, absolutely superb work, Mike.

Lookin' forward to catching up with you in a few!

PS - Do you have my cell #? If not, lemme know and I'll send a PM or e-mail.

Or maybe I'll just call you again.

brj · « **Reply #10 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 03:21 pm »

Great looking work, Mike!

That project is heading down almost the same path I've been pondering for some time... a bigger, single case to house the modded SB, power supply, and a Burson Buffer. I'm really looking forward to the day that such a package gets released. I suspect that when my system gets re-assembled, it will be a single source system, so running such a unit straight to the amps ought to be something special - at least based on everything I've read and the limited number of auditions I've had of SBs and power supplies.

TomS · « **Reply #11 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 03:35 pm »

I'm there too. What a great project! My obstacle has always been the idea of machining the bezel opening in the front to look decent. I like the option of using a variety of output caps, having a single IEC/power cord for both the Burson and Ultimate PS, eliminating the little coax DC power connector, as well as a set of interconnects. Tom

JoshK · « **Reply #12 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 03:45 pm »

Machining the front panel for those without the tools, nerves or desire.....There is front panel express. Their prices seem to be reasonable from what I've gathered.

mgalusha · « **Reply #13 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 04:11 pm »

Randy,

I suspect it's a combination of the changes to the PS (tracking preregulator) and the caps and perhaps the lack of umbilical between the PS and the SB. I'm going to convert mine to a similar setup and I don't have a set of Mundorf caps so it will be interesting to hear the differences between mine and this one as they will otherwise be very similar.

Mike

Quote from: randytsuch on 8 Oct 2007, 04:16 am

Wondered why you think this one sounds so good, the expensive coupling caps you used? (along with all the standard Bolder mods)

jhm731 · « **Reply #14 on:** 8 Oct 2007, 10:29 pm »

mgalusha- nice work!

Jerry's PSU seems to be missing the little black pucks on the transformer, caps and heat sink that are in the latest BCUPS.

Do these things make a difference?

samplesj · « **Reply #15 on:** 9 Oct 2007, 12:32 am »

Thank you again for sharing your SB work!

The ribbon cable part number is so helpful (and so is the network jack passthrough). I've been kicking around the idea of stuffing my sb3 into the power supply box, but having to track down the parts kept putting it behind too many other projects.

Maybe now that I don't have to search for all the stuff I can get motivated enough to give it a try.

JoshK · « **Reply #16 on:** 9 Oct 2007, 01:00 am »

I really appreciate the ribbon part link, as its a pain to look through mouser's site...I too have their catalog...somewhere...

I knew about the Neutrix panel mount options for network connector. Markertek's site last time I looked had a whole list of them easy to sort through.

mgalusha · « **Reply #17 on:** 9 Oct 2007, 03:16 am »

I haven't seen the latest version of Wayne's UPS so I didn't know he had added some type of damping to the transformer, caps and heat sink. It's entirely possible they make a difference but since I don't know what he's using I certainly can't attempt to duplicate it and I'm not trying too. IMO Wayne would not make the changes if he didn't hear an improvement. That is one reason I mentioned that I don't know how this PS would compare with the latest BOLDER version. I don't have one and while I've heard his latest PS I don't know what's inside.

Quote from: jhm731 on 8 Oct 2007, 10:29 pm

Jerry's PSU seems to be missing the little black pucks on the transformer, caps and heat sink that are in the latest BCUPS.

Do these things make a difference?

randytsuch · « **Reply #18 on:** 18 Oct 2007, 03:58 pm »

Hey Mike
So, I am thinking about copying your idea, but may put a felicia in it too (but this sucker will weigh a ton, I have a big transformer from apex jr, in addition to the two felicia tx's)

But, I am not sure how you made the display look so nice.
Can you give some more details?

I plan to buy a case from par, and send it to front panel express to be machined. FPE can do a "cavity", where they make a hole, and then a lip around the hole. I was planning on this, but then the plastic won't be flush with the front of the chassis

I was also wondering where you bought the display plastic from?
I can get some smoked acrylic from mcmaster.

BTW, I think you caused a run on the SB display cables from Mouser. They're out of stock, with a estimated 8 week lead now

. Well, based on my history, that is about when I will be ready to use them, could be even later.

Randy

TIA
Randy

TomS · « **Reply #19 on:** 18 Oct 2007, 04:25 pm »

Randy,

I want to do the same thing in terms of a PAR case and FPE. Please keep us posted so I can follow your lead. I wondered the same thing in terms of how to do the bezel so it's real clean. My assumption is the panels are pre-anodized so any cutting and drilling gives you the raw aluminum showing, right?

Tom