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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: What are your favorite resistors for DIY projects? posted by Bill on July 1, 1999 at 19:26:14:
This is a touchy subject for me because I'm a resistor manufacturer. So, please bear with me. I want to give you some insight into the resistor world and because I'm an avid audio/music buff and now have the authority to direct resources to change the way we make resistor products and create new ones for specific markets.Keep in mind, all resistor manufacturers use the same fundamental materials and basically alter the packaging and/or processing to get the new and different resistive products out into the market.
I've been making thick film resistors for 22 years(primarily hybrid microcircuits).....it's been my career. Now I've taken a job with a major resistor manufacturer, that produces wirewound(generally NiCr) in a dizzying array of sizes and types; metal foil(NiCr) in surface mount, through-hole mount and heat sinkable; thick film resistors on alumina flats, rounds and porcelainized steel and we buy and resell carbon comp and metal films. Allen-Bradley was our source for carbon comps for decades but they stopped making these in 1996. We still have an enormous stock of values but some of the common ones are sold out now. We have replaced these with SEI(formerly Stackpole) to continue the supply. The metal films come from a well known Japanese source. Our wirewounds are available with standard wind or non-inductive winding, with power ratings from a 1 watt SMD packaged up to several kilowatt types on ceramic cores with glass, cement or silicone coatings and either air cooled(plus some conduction) or liquid cooled versions.
The major problem for audio is the fact that we have to weld the leads to the end caps and the resistance wire has to be welded to the end caps also(generally speaking). The problem lies in the dissimilar metals used for leads, end caps and resistance wire. On the posistive side, any resistor that uses NiCr, ounce for ounce, has incredible joule ratings and are excellent for momentary current surge applications. Inherently, these are good for audio, if you can get them non-inductively wound. After listening to other audio EE's, I have conceived a new product for us audionutz, for speaker crossover applications for example. This product will be available in 5W to 50W sizes and in resistor values from a few ohms up to hundreds of ohms. They will be NI wound and use one metallurgy throughout the construction. The last of the new materials will be here next week and I should have working samples soon. They will be silicone powder coated in gold silicone and the line will be known as the Audio Gold Line resistors. Can't wait to hear these in a good speaker system, this should be a revelation for the speaker manufacturers and DIY'ers.
On a different front, we just today designed an etched metal foil emitter resistor in the 0.470 ohm range (resistance range should be 0.1 to 1 ohm) that also will be all one metallurgy throughout and will be available in a surface mount package. This is significant because we figured out how to do it with no welds in the path.
We also just added a new product line that is a ceramic and carbon composition slug that has fairly low continuous power ratings in the 2 to 5W range but can handle enormous in-rush current surges up to 2800 joules of energy. This is great for power supplies and numerous other applications that need this capability.
Next on the plate is to investigate tantalum nitride and oxide resistors in thin film technology to see what we can do with these. Stay tuned.
If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to improve resistive components for audio use, please feel free to let me know what your wishes are.
You have a friend in the resistor business.....listening.
Dave B
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Follow Ups
- The Inside Scoop - Dave B 18:54:38 07/02/99 (5)
- What would happen if you had a Tantalum or Tungsten 100ga wire? (nt) - Mart 11:33:59 07/04/99 (4)
- It would break in handling. (nt) - Dave B 18:08:52 07/04/99 (3)
- Even if it were housed in glass for rigidity (nt) - Mart 22:56:31 07/04/99 (2)
- read this..... - Dave B 07:03:57 07/05/99 (1)
- sorry 4 delay, more computer problems..... - Mart 04:08:26 07/07/99 (0)
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