In addition to studying Cathode Followers, and doing a little (very little) updating of the schematic, I decided to revisit the physical (layout) drawings.
Here is the latest render:
- Render_January_2026.png (111.61 KiB) Viewed 33240 times
What's changed?
-- Power tube placement has been updated. This is mostly just correcting drawing errors, and not so much any actual design change.
-- The previous renders simply used a cut-and paste of the High Voltage cage of the 7591 amplifier. It has now been updated to show the 1000W power inverter inside an all metal cage. I used some transparency to show the inverter board's location inside the cage, but of course the cage won't actually be transparent. The top cover is not shown here, but it will be made from perforated metal for cooling, so to some extent, the HV PS will be able to be seen, and the inside of the cage will probably be illuminated with green LED's as it is on the 7591 Amplifier. For cosmetics and shielding, I would like to have the HV enclosure welded. Since the Inverter must be accessible, the HV cage will be attached to the chassis with brackets.
-- The OPT's have also moved outward a little bit. This "sync's up" the render with the top and front layout drawings. Note that there is almost 1/2 inch between the OPT's and the HV cage, and even more distance between the power tubes and the HV cage, but this cannot be seen on this 2D drawing.
-- Placement of the driver tubes has been updated for general layout optimization. The goal is to maximize room around each tube for discrete components, and to reduce the influence of stray fields.
-- Due to those same concerns, the internal "Mains" (Low Voltage) power supply has been moved to the center -- directly under the HV supply.
-- For now, I have eliminated the LED's on the front, although at least a pilot light will probably be added back.
-- The power switch has moved closer to the left side of the unit. This was mostly a drawing error as it was not in the same place on the render as it was in the technical layout page.
-- The 6Π3C-E's that I will be using are in a coin-base package as shown. However, the 6H8C (Cyrillic) are a more standard bakelite base. The render has been updated to more accurately depict the appearance of each tube type.
That's all for now. Don't expect much progress until I can procure the needed piece of aluminum for the main chassis.