Help needed ressurecting X10D

[dawg]

Hi folks, I do feel bad asking for help on my first post but I found this site looking for X10D information and I havnt found what I need.

A VERY long time ago I was into modding everything HIFI, (almost 20 years) to cut a long story short I am slowly looking at getting back to having a half decent front end, I have a bag of bits to make Peter Daniels clone amp and I have just dug out my X10D, now, when I was into building power supplies I must of thought it was a good idea to replace the one in Musical Fidelity, trouble is I do remember that it was a bit noisy when I fired it up so I am looking for a resolution. Either I replace all the bits I took out, (I have no idea where or what they are) or I try to find out what went wrong and make a decent power supply. I know there are power supply upgrades avail but from what I can tell they are all just transformer replacements, I dont know what voltage I created but my Linear Tech regs, popular once, are prob a dead give away. They are variable types and I think they where capable of about 35v max, please feel free to tell me what an idiot I was, after reading some posts here I may have missed the required volts a bit, strange though because I am sure I would of measured the points where I have connected my supply and I must of matched the voltage.    I will have to find my meter tomorrow and measure the voltage. Any help greatly appreciated, I havnt done any modding or proper listening to music in a long time but Im making moves. 

Alan

[dawg]

Ok I have been looking at other avenues to get this running again, I did find this schematic and if anyone can confirm its accurate then I can order the parts I need, it looks pretty accurate to me?

[PinkFloyd]

May 20, 2015 22:41:03 GMT dawg said:

Hi folks, I do feel bad asking for help on my first post but I found this site looking for X10D information and I havnt found what I need.

A VERY long time ago I was into modding everything HIFI, (almost 20 years) to cut a long story short I am slowly looking at getting back to having a half decent front end, I have a bag of bits to make Peter Daniels clone amp and I have just dug out my X10D, now, when I was into building power supplies I must of thought it was a good idea to replace the one in Musical Fidelity, trouble is I do remember that it was a bit noisy when I fired it up so I am looking for a resolution. Either I replace all the bits I took out, (I have no idea where or what they are) or I try to find out what went wrong and make a decent power supply. I know there are power supply upgrades avail but from what I can tell they are all just transformer replacements, I dont know what voltage I created but my Linear Tech regs, popular once, are prob a dead give away. They are variable types and I think they where capable of about 35v max, please feel free to tell me what an idiot I was, after reading some posts here I may have missed the required volts a bit, strange though because I am sure I would of measured the points where I have connected my supply and I must of matched the voltage.    I will have to find my meter tomorrow and measure the voltage. Any help greatly appreciated, I havnt done any modding or proper listening to music in a long time but Im making moves. 

Alan

Hi Alan,

Apologies for not replying within 24 hours but "real life" commitments take precedent, especially when that big orange thing in the sky pokes its head out from the clouds 6 days a year.....

I don't know what you were trying to do with your X-10D mate, maybe you can explain your train of thought / what you were attempting to achieve all those years ago?

It clearly didn't work and it doesn't look good so the best thing you can do is go back to the stock configuration and take it from there / start again. That schematic is "pretty" accurate and all you have to do is retrofit the C32725 transistors (NPN / PNP), the 1000uF / 35V caps and the 1N4007 diodes and you are back to the stock X-10D buffer.

It's always best to start from scratch rather than revisit and old idea that you can't remember.

All the best,

Mike.

[PinkFloyd]

By the way Alan, when I said "it doesn't look good", I wasn't referring to your soldering skills or technical prowess.... I was simply saying "it doesn't look good" laid bare out of the "Can"

[Deleted]

May 21, 2015 20:24:52 GMT dawg said:

Ok I have been looking at other avenues to get this running again, I did find this schematic and if anyone can confirm its accurate then I can order the parts I need, it looks pretty accurate to me?

You had better double check your filament wiring, as you would have converted it to work from those regulated DC supply rails.

I  presume that the original idea was to get away from the voltage doubler rectifiers, and supply say a regulated + and -24V supply from perhaps a 25-0-25 CT transformer, bypassing the capacitance multiplier sections, and supplying the filaments with lower noise DC  too.

Higher capacitance values for C4 and C8 may be worthwhile too. Transistors C32725 and C33725 are likely to be BC327-25 and BC337-25 , where the 25 indicates their HFE range.

Alex

[dawg]

May 21, 2015 21:23:10 GMT PinkFloyd said:

By the way Alan, when I said "it doesn't look good", I wasn't referring to your soldering skills or technical prowess.... I was simply saying "it doesn't look good" laid bare out of the "Can"

 Thanks for the replies guys, Im on leave at the mo so thats why I have been digging out stuff and trying to get my head on again, same as you with the sun Mike, BBQing is more of a hobby than hifi right now. I listen mainly to the radio but I still have the bug.
You are both spot on, Alex you hit the nail on the head thanks and Mike my technical prowess still leaves a lot to be desired, even though I know a lot more now than I did then I had zero knowledge of valves when I did the X10D. Since then I have done quite a few valve projects but I never revisited the X10, I have other plans for it now......
Alex thats what the problem was, I knew nothing about heater supplies and there where no schematics around, I completely missed the fact that it was taken from the AC way before I intercepted the DC. As Alex said Mike I was all about higher quality DC, bigger trx's, (I think I used about a 500VA on the X10) 11dq10's, precision regulators, eventually I moved to Tom Evens boards. I was obsessed with cutting into power supply sections on everything because the music just got better and better, I went as far as pulling apart a Pioneer stable platter player and mounting the guts on a slab of marble so I could fit all my power supplies in it and there was a lot! 
So that was my train of thought Mike, the X10D was my first taste of valves and it didnt escape my insane desire to rip things up!  Im surprised I still have it, must be 12 years since I stopped modding. 
What I want to do now is as you said Mike, return it to stock but it wont be going back in its can, the front end is missing, the back end is a bit of a mess and I have always hated adding more interconnects, one of the first things that got me into modifying hifi was when I cut down an expensive cable between my CDP and Amp, it was only 1mtr but I cut it in half, I was blown away by the improvement, since then short signal paths have been ingrained in my very existence even though I dont have the same freq range in my hearing now. 
The main concern on rebuilding it was the resister values, does "pretty" accurate relate to these or the general circuit?

I am sourcing parts to build an Audiosector LM3875 Gain Clone, I have 4 premium kits to build a dual mono bi-amp and Ive read they work better with a buffer, the X10D pcb will sit in the amp case, my source will either be my squeezebox or my pc but I have just ordered a little DAC that seems to be under the radar at the mo, My good friend, (the guy who left the review) has reported that using J-River and upsampling to 384kHz this DAC has him enjoying music again. 
Apologies for rambling, I think the bug is starting to take over , now i must start ordering resistors for the X10D.........