Weber Trainwreck kit

[Thiago.zanato]

Sorry I didn't make it clear, I'll build a TW, I really don't like the voltages in the Java kit, they're way to high. What I'm planning on doing is to use a Java board on a 6m18tmb chassis because this is the only way to do it, since the chassis is a lot smaller than the chassis of a TW head. I'll preserve the schematic the exact same thing as a ceriatone kit, that's why I'm buying parts. Any suggestions? I'm not sure about which brand of capacitors and resistors, Mallory's or Orange Drops? Carb comp or carbon/film resistors?

thanks

[dartanion]

Mallory PVC caps seem to be the choice, although I really like the 150s. Carbon comps are known to have noise issues and only really add mojo to an amp if used as PI plate resistors. Otherwise use carbon films and metal oxides.

[Thiago.zanato]

what about the electrolytic caps? I can only find Mallory coupling caps but not electrolictics. Do you guys have any secret source?

thanks

[Allynmey]

a lot of people use sprague or F&T. Mallorys are available but, very expensive!

If you want to build a wreck, I have a little advice. If you want it to sound like a wreck, ditch the BBQBoy chassis and boards. The sound depends a lot on the layout! The amp is designed to operate on the verge of instability. Weird oscillations, hum and other noises happen if the layout isn't correct. Of course you can move wires a little here and there but, for the most part, you will have more success following a tried and true layout. The layout posted for the Java is not even close!!!!!

[s2]

Weber has a Dumble kit? Pray tell, what does he call it? This should be funny at the very least. I'd like to have a peek

<edit>

Hmmm... My IP seems to be banned from his site. Anyone have a schematic or layout for this "Wumble?"

</edit>

[ampman1961]

Weber has a Dumble kit? Pray tell, what does he call it? This should be funny at the very least. I'd like to have a peek

Of course he does, and whats so funny about it is by the end of this decade he will have cloned everything out there and have a kit for it. I wonder what he would call his Uberschall kit? I'm sure he and his "Engineers" will take full credit for the design too..."Hey, lets change this resistor from 100K to 91K...yea, thats the ticket. Yup, it's ours alrighty"
Weber can go pound sand.
Billy Yates

[Bob-I]

Weber has a Dumble kit? Pray tell, what does he call it? This should be funny at the very least. I'd like to have a peek

<edit>

Hmmm... My IP seems to be banned from his site. Anyone have a schematic or layout for this "Wumble?"

</edit>

Nah, not even close. I tried to make some comments on his forum quite awhile ago.... cain't say no more, his legal people will find me. I got ripped a new one when agreeing with someone else's negative comments on another forum.

He calls it the Halle, but it only vaguely resembles a Dumble. I wanted to build one and mod it to a Dumble ckt but he won't sell me anything anymore, no great loss.

[bigtone96]

I guess I'm confused. One poster complains that Ted rips off other designs, such as Trainwreck or Dumble, and then another complains that his kits arent anything like the originals. I think we should be glad that there are places like Weber and Ceriatone out there to support us. 20 years ago you were on your own with amp building. Whether you prefer one over the other is your business. ( I'm done with my soap box now)

[Allynmey]

I guess I'm confused. One poster complains that Ted rips off other designs, such as Trainwreck or Dumble, and then another complains that his kits arent anything like the originals. I think we should be glad that there are places like Weber and Ceriatone out there to support us. 20 years ago you were on your own with amp building. Whether you prefer one over the other is your business. ( I'm done with my soap box now)

Well Bigtone, I think it is customary to have more than 1 post before you try to help people like BBQBoy on this forum. Go back and tell BBQ that they wouldn't listen to you and you said exactly what you were told to say....

[ampman1961]

I guess I'm confused. One poster complains that Ted rips off other designs, such as Trainwreck or Dumble, and then another complains that his kits arent anything like the originals. I think we should be glad that there are places like Weber and Ceriatone out there to support us. 20 years ago you were on your own with amp building. Whether you prefer one over the other is your business. ( I'm done with my soap box now)

Well Bigtone, I think it is customary to have more than 1 post before you try to help people like BBQBoy on this forum. Go back and tell BBQ that they wouldn't listen to you and you said exactly what you were told to say....

Billy Yates

[Rick]

+1...
I cannot understand why a person can't handle criticism especially when he is in business to make money and develop good relationships. This is the case with Ted. On numerous occasions, when one of his products became the topic of discussion and someone chimed in with criticism, Ted would blast the forum with legal threats. Now, I can understand this because he pays for advertising on most of those forums, but his choices of dealing with these situations are very flawed. Instead of noting the criticism and trying to understand why the CUSTOMER is upset he chooses to flame that person instead. He apparently does not use this to benefit his bottom line...IE: Improve the product for future customer satisfaction or continually perfect his products from flaws that are well noted in the field. On the other hand, he has been cordial with me in the past...that is until I called him out on the gear page regarding the dangers of using his COPPER CAP. Man, I got blasted from all angles with all kinds of rhetoric but no one would listen to the message which was completely backed with tests, evaluation, and why the failure occurred. My findings were also backed by numerous highly respected amp builders who had the same results as I, but again...the same thing happened. To this day, that product is still for sale with no apparent improvement in design or enhanced safety factor. All I can say, is proceed with caution at your own risk.
I hope that this post doesn't bring down the thread or this fine forum in any way. I'm just stating FACTS and I certainly have nothing to gain from this. I hope your amp building experience is a good one but nothing is fun about a vendor who doesn't have your back. I would recommend that you shop around. If you have to spend a few more dollars on better quality backed with customer satisfaction and support, that would be a wiser investment. Just remember this...You get what you pay for.
Good luck.
Billy Yates

Come to think of it, I brought up the point about starting up new amps with a SS rectifier ( I didn't even mention anything about his recto) and the next day (on Ted's forum), that post and responses disappeared entirely into thin air. I had been having a lot of troubles with electrolytics at the time. I thought it seemed a bit suspicious,but they were blaming disappearing posts on some "ex-member or past member" or something like that. It now occurs to me that it was probably Ted that destroyed it since he runs all the forums over there.

I've had those rectifiers do strange things. I also do not understand the theory of how an overheated power resistor creates anything like the sag that occurs when a tube recto is strained and then recovers from the high peak of demand. How in the hell can a resistor do that? Temperatures within a hot power resistor in a sealed tube like that cannot be changing very quickly. It makes no sense to me...

[ampman1961]

+1...
I cannot understand why a person can't handle criticism especially when he is in business to make money and develop good relationships. This is the case with Ted. On numerous occasions, when one of his products became the topic of discussion and someone chimed in with criticism, Ted would blast the forum with legal threats. Now, I can understand this because he pays for advertising on most of those forums, but his choices of dealing with these situations are very flawed. Instead of noting the criticism and trying to understand why the CUSTOMER is upset he chooses to flame that person instead. He apparently does not use this to benefit his bottom line...IE: Improve the product for future customer satisfaction or continually perfect his products from flaws that are well noted in the field. On the other hand, he has been cordial with me in the past...that is until I called him out on the gear page regarding the dangers of using his COPPER CAP. Man, I got blasted from all angles with all kinds of rhetoric but no one would listen to the message which was completely backed with tests, evaluation, and why the failure occurred. My findings were also backed by numerous highly respected amp builders who had the same results as I, but again...the same thing happened. To this day, that product is still for sale with no apparent improvement in design or enhanced safety factor. All I can say, is proceed with caution at your own risk.
I hope that this post doesn't bring down the thread or this fine forum in any way. I'm just stating FACTS and I certainly have nothing to gain from this. I hope your amp building experience is a good one but nothing is fun about a vendor who doesn't have your back. I would recommend that you shop around. If you have to spend a few more dollars on better quality backed with customer satisfaction and support, that would be a wiser investment. Just remember this...You get what you pay for.
Good luck.
Billy Yates

Come to think of it, I brought up the point about starting up new amps with a SS rectifier ( I didn't even mention anything about his recto) and the next day (on Ted's forum), that post and responses disappeared entirely into thin air. I had been having a lot of troubles with electrolytics at the time. I thought it seemed a bit suspicious,but they were blaming disappearing posts on some "ex-member or past member" or something like that. It now occurs to me that it was probably Ted that destroyed it since he runs all the forums over there.

I've had those rectifiers do strange things. I also do not understand the theory of how an overheated power resistor creates anything like the sag that occurs when a tube recto is strained and then recovers from the high peak of demand. How in the hell can a resistor do that? Temperatures within a hot power resistor in a sealed tube like that cannot be changing very quickly. It makes no sense to me...

Rick...
That doesn't surprise me that he deleted those threads. Even some of his more ardent supporters were questioning the design and risks of using the copper cap widget. In keeping with his philosophy of public image, nothing restores customer faith better than sweeping it under the rug...POOF! Gone. Nuff said.
As for the design itself, it is a current limiter circuit. You have 4 diodes in series to a Thermistor rated at 15 amps. This feeds the two 10 watt resistors in series. These are held in place by placing a spring between the two resistors, forcing them to make physical contact with the copper tubing.
Here is the "Rub"...these components are mounted underneath a small fiberglass disk with iddy biddy traces. So what happens when current demand is at its peak? Heat baby, and lots of it. Heat rises and with no air circulation at all within, the solder becomes weakened and eventually a connection failure occurs. There are two very big problems with this design among others...Diodes do not like being in an oven and large amounts of heat will kill them. Even though copper is a great conductor of current and heat, there is not enough surface area or contact displacement to improve heat transfer from the resistors. This is very bad engineering to say the least...there are too many forces that work against each other. The one unit that I had in my shop had a spectacular failure causing the original power transformer of a 64 Super Reverb to become toast! One or more of the diodes had failed...obliterated into fragments. One of the 2 power resistors had become unsoldered, so when I opened up this "tubular wonder" this resistor was just hanging there as its lead had BURNED in half! Remember, these 2 resistors are soldered together in series. The two are then folded back against each other with the two remaining leads soldered to the disk. The spring is inserted between them to supply a pressure fit to the copper tube. With all of this series connected components having a large current flowing through them, you can imagine what would happen when the failure occurs. Evidently the transformer in my clients vintage amp did not like it...a costly and unnecessary repair that could have been avoided.
So, there you have it. I reported my findings on the gear page and I got flamed for it, because I was telling the truth. The Tone Gods and Mr. Weber almighty did not like the idea of my challenge. Of course, i'm just an amp tech...what the hell do I know?
See the attached files for a look. Sorry, one of the photos is a little out of focus. This unit is not the one that failed. The big laugh I had with this widget was when I took it apart. It was held together with a small section of smaller diameter tubing with a mild force fit. To prevent the two halves from coming apart, the Weber sticker was barely placed over the seam!
No glue, or solder...a sticker. You get my point.
As I recall, I never saw a technical paper describing the need for current inrush limiting in a guitar amplifier when a tube rectifier is being used. A 5AR4 or 5U4 has a controlled warm up period to begin with.
Rick...like you, I don't get this at all. If Underwriters Laboratory ever saw this thing they would laugh their asses off.
Billy Yates

[jelle]

Thanks for the warning!


BTW where does the name BBQ boy come from?

Jelle

[mlp-mx6]

A different company, also called Weber, sells charcoal grills here in the US. BBQ is short for "barbecue" - so "BBQ Boy" is a shorthand reference to Ted Weber without calling him by name.

Just what we needed, eh? Another TLA! (three-letter acronym)

[mlp-mx6]

A 5AR4 or 5U4 has a controlled warm up period to begin with.

Billy - you are definitely correct about the 5AR4. However - as an experiment I suggest you put your voltmeter on the output pin of a 5U4 (or any other non-indirectly-heated rectifier like a 5Y3) and then turn on the amp. I'll bet the voltage shows up more quickly and more suddenly than you expect. I know I was surprised! The 5AR4 does rise more gradually.

Regards,
Michael