DiVision

DiVision - nuvistor vacuum tube powered direct box with an LBA-MC15 transformer.  There's 14 people on the wait list for the pre-release.  They will get first dibs.  Only 68 DiVision's will be made - each one signed and numbered.  I think I'll have the pre-release ready by next month.  One diversion from the design criteria is the enclosure size.  I wanted the DiVision to fit inside the same size die-cast enclosure as the NuVision pedal (Hammond 1590BB).  However, after completely designing the DiVision electronics I realized it simply won't fit because there's a lot more electronics inside the DiVision.  Here's a screen shot of the circuit board:   

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Its fully tested and ready to go into production.  I could have simplified the design a lot more to fit it inside a tiny little 1590BB style enclosure, but for a limited edition product featuring the last of my nuvistor tubes I really wanted to create something special.  There's power input protection for accidental reverse polarity, multiple levels of voltage control and overload protection to protect various components, there's current limiting to protect the onboard power supply components.   Basically, there are a lot of failsafes.  I set the operating point of the tube at a point were it sounds excellent, but is far enough below its max rating to allow for long life.  The filament voltage is set a little below max as well in order to extend the filament life.  I want it to last a very long time.

How big is it?  Well, its going to be mounted inside the same enclosure as the TI Box... and it just fits.  There's enough vertical room inside the enclosure to allow for some heat dissipation.  However, there is not much heat produced by this device.  I spent a fair bit of time dialing in its performance to yield the highest possible efficiency.  The exact performance was documented in a previous blog post if my memory serves correct.  I had wanted to make it so you could power the DiVision from either 9V or 12V DC, but in testing I realized there were no benefits from 12V in this design and actually it made the DiVision run hot.  So, stick with 9V DC power.  It steps that voltage up internally to around 250V DC for the nuvistor to operate properly. 

More to come as the pre-release closes in.  I'm expecting this product to sell for $299 USD.