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Greetings! Recently "finished" my first DIY project, a gainclone (based on the chipamp.com boards) and a pair of One Pi speakers. This morning I powered the speakers up for the first time secured in the cabinets (3/4" MDF) and noticed an odd smell of a distinctly chemical nature, coming it seemed from the bass reflex port. I had previously powered them up outside the cabinet for initial testing of the amp, and hadn't noticed it then, but that could just be me. The smell had a slightly varnish-like character to it, but so far the cabinets are just MDF and gorilla glue right now. I didn't notice any smoke or anything, and when I disassembled it to feel around for heat, nothing felt warmer than ambient temperature, but it had been a few minutes. I should mention that my gainclone seems to have a little trouble as it hums a bit, which is being worked on, and when I first powered up this morning, I discovered that my source (laptop) picks up a heinous hum when connected to a monitor. It ran like that for maybe a minute before I found it was the monitor. The volume was never that loud, though. My main question here is whether the smell I'm describing is "new equipment" smell or "you're hurting me!" smell. Aside from all this, everything sounds great, even with a little hum, and will post pics when it's really finished.
Re: It's time to play... what's that smell?
New speakers always smell like sawdust and glue to me. They also smell like the finish used and these smells are pretty strong for the first month, gradually declining over the next few months. Touch your amplifier chip and feel for warmth. If it's very hot, you may have a problem. If not, it's probably nothing to worry about. One more thing to look at, but please do this with power off. Check the polarity of the capacitors. Make absolutely certain they are connected properly. An electrolytic capacitor connected backwards can explode, sending electrolyte and metal shreds everywhere. It could easily blind you if you were struck by shrapnel.
Wayne, thanks. The cabinets are raw MDF only right now so it's definitely not the finish It was an "electronic-y" smell, for lack of a more scientific term. The amp chips and heat sink temps seem to be nominal- warm but not hot by any means. The PSU caps are room temp, and I checked the polarity about eight times when installing them. On first power-up I used a face shield just to be sure. If I have a chance I may run the volume up a bit tonight and see if there's any change/increase. Otherwise, like I said, I am really enjoying these. They're going in a small studio apartment and I think have more than enough punch that I won't be able to run them anywhere near full potential.
Sounds like everything is probably A-OK.
Check whether you have a DC voltage over the speaker terminals on the amp. Remember to have the source hooked up but not playing, and just connect a DC voltmeter in parallel with the speaker terminals on the amp. 0-10 mV is normal with this kind of amp. Regards Kim
Just for the record, I've been running a few days without any problems, and the smell did not reappear after that one episode.
Sounds like it was just "new smell", like a new car.