bonnie & jason

Twisted Pear Audio Buffalo 32S high end DAC

I finally finished another one of my projects. This is a build for a friend. It’s a DAC (digital/analog converter) from the folks at Twisted Pear Audio.

Here are the specs:
INPUTS:
1. Toslink optical
2. USB
3. Coax S/PDIF

OUTPUTS:
1. K1000 balanced
2. XLR balanced
3. TRS single ended
4. RCA preamp

ENCLOSURE:
1. Custom machined Par metal case with solid birch front panel

POWER SUPPLY:
1. +/- 15V Dual mono bipolar power supplies for the analog sections.
2. Dual 5V power supply for the digital sections (Toslink, 4:1 Mux, Buffalo)

MISC:
1. e24 relay circuit triggered by an LED ring Bulgin momentary switch.
2. Man hours: Probably about 100 all told.
3. Birch panel was cut and then routed for the radiused edges and milled for the center stepped hole. The hole was stained with a pecan finish before tung oiling the remainder of the piece and then sealed with a few layers of polyurethane with light sanding in between coats.
4. It sounds fantastic!

What a week!

It’s been quite a week in the Wang household. First, Alissa started preschool:

You can see her all ready to go with her lunch box and everything. She’s going three days a week and so far so good. She had a few small issues, but for the most part, the teachers said she was doing fine… and talks a lot… and wants to help with ev.er.y.thing. I think Bonnie was probably the most effected by it. Her little girl is growing up! I have to admit that I did have some separation anxiety when I dropped her off each of the three days. But I stayed disciplined and didn’t even call to see how she was doing. (Instead, I relied on Bonnie’s phone calls and subsequent reports.)

In other Alissa news, she finally made some good progress with potty training. She had a couple accidents here and there, but nine times out of ten, she’s able to tell us that she needs to go potty and makes a successful, “deposit.”

With all the success, her crayon box has become quite full. (She gets a new crayon and an M&M with every successful attempt.) The cheapo plastic box that she uses to hoard all these crayons has pretty much been defective since day one so I used some scrap wood from my other projects and a hinge I stole from a binder to make her a nice wooden box. I still need to get a latch for the front, but it’s pretty much done.

It’s mostly 1×3 solid birch and 1/4″ birch plywood. I put a 1/4″ dado on the bottom to accept the bottom panel and made the lid with some 1×2 that I ripped to about 3/4″x3/4″ with a rabbet to accept the top panel. It’s just glued together since I’m lazy and didn’t want to fill in nail holes. Plus, I figure it’s only going to hold crayons so the not insignificant strength of wood glue should be plenty strong enough for this little box. Finally, I put a 1/4″ radius on most of the edges so if/when Alissa drops it, there’s less chance of her damaging our hardwood floors. Oh, and the finish is a couple coats of Minwax cherry stain with polyurethane. Fun little project. Learned a lot. Specifically that my woodworking skills still leave a lot to be desired.

Shed and shelf are done!

The shed is finally done. I might put some more shelving inside but for the time being, I’m saying it’s done. As you can see, it basically just holds all the tools and materials that I used to build the thing to begin with. Bonnie happy I’m not getting the garage all dusty though and it’s nice to have the space back as well. I’ll probably move a bunch of other tools and “man-stuff” in there too. Put a keg and a HDTV in and I can almost live back there!

I also finished off my first attempt at cabinetry. This was kinda my learning project in preparation for making the built-ins for the breakfast nook. It’s made of 3/4″ birch plywood for the casing and shelves and various pieces of solid birch trim. The “toy chest” drawer is also made with 3/4″ birch ply and solid birch trim. I routed the top trim piece with a 1/4″radius round-over bit for a comfortable grip when sliding. It slides on bottom mounted drawer hardware. Finally, the finish is a simple hand rubbed tung oil. It brings out the grain nicely and imparts a warm, golden hue to the naturally pale birch.

Lesson #1: Don’t skimp on tools. I had originally bought a cheap stacked dado set and got crappy cuts with lots of tearout. I’ve since upgraded to a nice set from Freud and expect better results next time based on the test cuts I’ve made so far.

Lesson #2: Prep work is just as important as the actual work. Planning, measuring, tool setup, etc. all contribute to the quality of the final product.

Lesson #3: 3/4″ birch plywood is HEAVY! I almost broke my back trying to get the thing up the stairs.

Can I get a “Woot woot?!”

The roof is shingled!

Now I just have to finish the shelving inside, get the trim up, and paint the thing. For now, it basically just holds all the tools that I used to make the darn thing. And some leftover materials too. If anyone needs any roofing nails or roofing paper, let me know.

I’m sure you all are sick of my stupid shed by now. I promise, just one more post when it’s 100% done. To make up for it, here are some pics of the girls:

From rags to riches

Rags… (shingled half of the shed Sunday… hopefully finish the whole thing this weekend.)

… to riches

We visited Jef, Xiao Yi, and Gavin this weekend at their beautiful new place in Burlingame. Xiao Yi made a fantastic dinner as always. Beef noodle soup and onion pancakes. Very Taiwanese. And very tasty. Afterwards, we went for a short walk.

Alissa is getting faster and faster.

And she likes to push rather than ride in her stroller.

(I had to make her walk in the grass because the road was too steep and she would certainly have face planted on the way down.)

Gavin is so much bigger than last time we saw him.

And finally, here’s a random pic of Amanda.

The shed has walls, a roof, and doors

Bonnie’s dad came over this afternoon to help with the shed. Definitely needed a second set of hands for almost everything that got done today.

First we put the roof rafters up. They were pretty close to identical. Had one sort of stick out just a hair. Then we put the back wall up. This was pretty straight forward. Just lots of nailing. From there, we put the roof decking on. This was kinda hairy since 4×8 plywood is pretty heavy and the roof is kinda steeply pitched. In retrospect, I would have altered the plans for a smaller pitch angle. Also, it was hard to reach the second half deck panel so I had to sort of hang from the roof to get that installed.

Ok, it wasn’t that bad.

Once I got up there, I was pretty comfortable. It was getting up there in the first place that was a little scary. Next step was to get the front wall and doors in. Not rocket science, but it did take a bit of cutting and nailing and measuring. For some reason, the front wall ended up slightly out of square compared to the back wall but you can’t really tell. After some bracing and extra reinforcement in some key areas, we ended up with this:

I then trimmed the walls to the roof and here’s where things sit now.

And with some stuff already in it.

This is what Ashley thinks of it.

Then I told her that this is where she will go for time out if she’s a bad girl.

Another funny story… when Alissa went down for a nap, the roof wasn’t up yet. When she woke up and saw the shed in it’s later stages, she exclaimed, “Look at the house! Who’s house is that?”

Next steps are to get the roofing felt, shingles and drip cap up. Then I have some trim pieces to install before priming and painting. Still a lot to do but today was a productive day.

One day, two hammers, three saws, and lots of sore muscles

I took the day off today to start my shed. I’m using these plans I found for free on this wondrous thing called internet.

It’s going in the back corner. Originally it was going in the back center, but Bonnie preferred it in the corner. That meant I had to do some landscaping (trim the trees back) as well as move about a million bricks out of the way.

The build went pretty well. Lots of cutting and nailing. I got the floor (pressure treated 2×4 joists on 4×4 skids) and two of the walls done in addition to the roof trusses.

Had to stop there as I didn’t feel it was a good idea to try to get the roof trusses up by myself while holding a nail gun that can shoot 3.5″ nails through solid wood. Speaking of which, here are the two nail guns I used:

The little one is a finishing nailer that I just used for holding certain pieces in place. The big one is the work horse. There is something very gratifying about pneumatic tools… nail guns in particular.

More to come later this week assuming I’m not hobbled over in pain. I’m hoping to get the roof up Friday and perhaps get the back and front done. Then Saturday, shingle the roof and get the trim up. Then it’s time to paint and eventually move crap in!

The ultimate headphone amp – Part 1

I sold my other headphone amp in order to fund building the ultimate headphone amp. It’s just the big brother of the first one. The main difference is that it is a 4 channel balanced amp with dual power supplies. Also, instead of a cookie tin, this time I’m putting it into a real enclosure. So far, I’ve just stuffed the boards and have gotten some of the case work and wiring done.

One of the powersupplies ready to go.

Front panel of the power supply. The power button has a cool LED ring.

Rear panel of the power supply. Check out the massive 8 conductor power cord.

The four channels and the joshua tree stepped attenuator ready to be wired up.

The front and rear panels of the amplifier. I kinda screwed up a couple of the holes… I measured the wrong part for the wrong hole. Oh well, at least it’s a very precise screwed up hole thanks to my new milling machine!

Here’s another project that’s in the works:

It’s a poplar enclosure for a TBD audio project. Originally, I had made the miter cuts with my compound miter saw, but they were woefully imprecise and would not allow a tight joint. That, plus the fact that the other projects in the queue involve some shelf and cabinet making, convinced me to invest in a table saw (the big honking tool that the wood is sitting on.) So rest assured, more project posts are forthcoming!