Hi Everyone,

I was the lucky winner of the most interesting amp enclosure contest. I most graciously received the 3886 amp in the mail a couple weeks back and am ready to finish up this project - I am working it into a self-contained live rig.

I've built several SS amps before, but always used a thrifted DC power supply of one sort or another. I have no idea about making a power supply.

Honestly, I've been looking at chipamp.com and I am a little confused about which amp I even have. I believe it is the 3886 mono kit - though I think the PCB is different than what he shows there as it looks like on mine the power supply is included on the board (other than transformer), and on the site it shows them being seperate boards. There is no pic of just the 3886 mono kit though, and the PDF manual for building is confusing to me, again because the boards shown there all look different from mine.

SO all that out of the way - my questions:

1. How do I know what to look for in a transformer? As mentioned before, I have never built an AC->DC power supply and don't really know much about transformers in general. I read the choosing a transformer section of the PDF manual and it was largely greek to me...

2. If I found a suitable DC power supply, could I just use that and connect it into the power inputs on the board?

3. If this is possible and I were to look for a pre-made DC supply, could it be single rail, and what type of voltage and amperage output ratings would I be looking for? I have a knack for finding things at thrift stores. Also, if so which connections would go where AC1, AC2, gnd...?


FYI, my hope is for it to be "as loud as possible" so that is what I have in mind when looking for the above components.


Thanks