Ramsey Electronics - Stereo Headphone Amplifier Kit. 1 hr 30 minutes construction time
This evening I took a break in the construction of the Elecraft K2 to put together a Ramsey Electronic kit that is a Headphone Amplifier (Christmas Present for my Father). The amplifier takes a line level audio signal and amplifies it using 2 lm389M IC amplifiers.
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Ramsey Stereo Headphone Amplifier kit |
Compared with the Elecraft K2 amateur radio transceiver that I am building, this project seems really simple. The circuit board is single sided and doesn't appear to have many components on it.
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Single Sided circuit board |
All the parts for the kit are bagged. There is a good manual that comes with the kit that explains how the amplifier works.
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Amplifier parts |
This is a shot during the construction of the kit. The sequence of parts installed on the board are from the top to the bottom going left to right. The Elecraft K2 transceiver kit components were installed (it seems) based on the hight of the component. The smallest components being installed first.
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Voltage regulator |
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LM389N amplifier ICs |
Below is a shot of the finished circuit board. Before mounting the circuit board into the case, it was tested. After checking to see that there are no solder bridges and that the parts that have to be installed in a certain position (like the IC's and the Electrolytic capacitors), it was time to power up the amplifier.
It worked the first time! Powering up a kit for the first time is always exciting. You don't know if it is going to work or not.
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Completed Circuit board |
The Ramsey Headphone line amplifier kit also includes a case. The case for the amplifier is included in the price of the kit. In addition to the kit I also purchased a AC power adaptor.
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Case for Amplifier |
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Hardware for the case |
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Circuit board mounted in the case |
Well here are the photos of the finished product. After the circuit board was mounted in the case, I hooked up the amplifier to my Directv receiver line out. Next I hooked up some Bose earbuds to test it out. It didn't take much to drive the earbuds. I barely had the volume adjusted from off cause it was so loud.
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Completed kit. Front |
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Completed kit. Rear |
I am pleased with the quality of the kit. The assembly was straight forward ( After working on the Elecraft K2). In the future I may consider building other Ramsey electronic kits.