NOISE!

[jckid649]

The weird thing is every time I bring it in the house to play it's squealing, crackly, and noisy again. What gives with that?

Yet it only seems to act like that when it's sitting on top of my Marshall cabinet. It doesn't make a sound when I sit it on any other surface. It goes batsh** crazy when I put it on top of the cabinet.

I guess you didn't get all the hair out...lol

[Reeltarded]

You have an intermitant connection. This is likely on a socket.. grid or the +. Also check your joints on the board for the problem tube that you will find by:

First look at the tubes while you play it in the dark and see if you don't get a clue there. When you get clues to where the trouble is, open the amp up and chopstick around the connections to that tube.

Could be any stage. With a little experience you can tell how much gain is before and after that kind of trouble and go right to it.

[jckid649]

You have an intermitant connection. This is likely on a socket.. grid or the +. Also check your joints on the board for the problem tube that you will find by:

First look at the tubes while you play it in the dark and see if you don't get a clue there. When you get clues to where the trouble is, open the amp up and chopstick around the connections to that tube.

Could be any stage. With a little experience you can tell how much gain is before and after that kind of trouble and go right to it.

Seems that I've narrowed it down to V1. All my other solder joints are solid. I rechecked them good. But it seems every time I tap V1 I can induce a screech, howl, and ear piercing shrill squeal. I can tilt the amp to the side and the guitar signal goes out all together then move it around a little bit and it comes back. Try to sit the bottom down on top of the amp cabinet and it starts squealing and screeching again. I've checked all the connections but everything seems fine. I can't find "ANY" loose connections or unstable solder joints anywhere.

[geetarpicker]

You will surely need the ground plate (bottom) on the amp to stack it on the cab. That said stacking the amp on the cab is hit or miss with these things.

[jckid649]

You will surely need the ground plate (bottom) on the amp to stack it on the cab. That said stacking the amp on the cab is hit or miss with these things.

The Ceriatone doesn't come with a bottom plate. I even asked Nik he said these don't come with them.

I found the problem. It was a loose connection at the input. That solved the howling problem.

But it does still have a slight squeal when I sit it down on that amp cabinet.

I wonder if there is a way to get a plate for the bottom of it.

[jckid649]

Nik said if I buy a cabinet it should come with an aluminum shield or else I will have to fabricate my own.

[M Fowler]

I buy either rolled aluminum, a small sheet of aluminum at hardware store, or get a 17 x 8 hammond or Bud bottom cover.

Your apparently not following the Express build guide which explains all these things are you

Mark

[jckid649]

I buy either rolled aluminum, a small sheet of aluminum at hardware store, or get a 17 x 8 hammond or Bud bottom cover.

Your apparently not following the Express build guide which explains all these things are you

Mark

Actually I don't remember it saying anything about the bottom plate for a Ceriatone. It stated in the build guide that if you had the Ceriatone that some of these things did not apply. Even Nik said that it didn't come with one because it would be shielded once it was mounted in the cabinet. He never told me till today that I needed to fabricate an aluminum shield.

[M Fowler]

Whether you use a home made box, ceriatone, rj, triode or allymey chassis the same thing applies: use a piece of metal screwed to the bottom of the TW type amplifier to shield from noise.

You may need to use a piece of soft foam between the speaker cab and your amp as well.

Mark

[geetarpicker]

The original Trainwrecks were build on a BUD chassis that was already setup to use with the BUD bottom plate which screws on with about 20 small screws. The bottom plate has 4 stamped dimples that act as feet, however Ken would drill these out for nutserts to then use for the 4 cabinet mounting screws. The original chassis were quite thin aluminum but that worked ok with a little reinforcement plus the screwed on bottom plate added both rigidity and shielding. Point is the original chassis were a fully closed aluminum box and it's shielding effects are essential for such a high gain amp. Most amps have shield plates, being blackface Fenders, old and new Marshalls, etc.

[M Fowler]

I used the Bud cover on one of my TW amps. Bud doesn't offer the 17x8x2 chassis anymore but does have the bottom plate used on their 17x8x3 chassis. Also, Hammond offers this same plate.

Mark