Amp Nation board layout for #0124

[pottedplant]

I purchased the AN offerings from a few years ago on here and haven't really gotten around to working it all out until now. I am looking at the pre board and a little confused about some of the eyelets. I can wipe the sharpie off and take another photo if something is wrong and that makes it easier for anyone to explain what's up. My main confusion is the area where v2 coupling caps and resistors are located. For ODS #124 that would be 0.01 and 0.005 and the respective 100k and 150k resistors are. I think I might be confused about how to place the components on this board or perhaps it is made incorrectly? Is this something others have already solved/dealt with?

I've got a big 12x12 sheet of non cladded board from mouser if I have to remake the board but I've never made one and don't currently have a way to cut it properly. I own a dremel but I'd rather not dremel this glass/epoxy stuff. I've heard snapping it or getting a plate metal shear works good. If I can make this board work by installing an eyelet someplace I might prefer that route just to get this build off the ground.

[martin manning]

The Amp Nation boards were copied from the patterns in the ODS Eyelet Boards thread here on TAG. Component placements for several versions of the ODS are shown in the .pdf. https://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29630

[alnight]

The way to cut your garolite or whichever board material you have, is to buy the cheapest wet cut tile saw from Harbor Freight. That and a drill press makes board building life easy.

[pottedplant]

The Amp Nation boards were copied from the patterns in the ODS Eyelet Boards thread here on TAG. Component placements for several versions of the ODS are shown in the .pdf. https://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29630

Hey Martin, thank you for creating this layout (again as I'm sure I have thanked you before). I do already have this PDF downloaded and look at it mostly every day. I think the problem is the part I'm talking about has become mirrored for some strange reason on the AN layout. I discovered this while editing the image and looked carefully at it during the drawing process. Is the layout in the darkened area going to work even with this strange mirrored OD section? I have to say thank you because the work you guys have done to provide the community with a starting point to build these wonderful amps is tremendous. I hope you can see what I mean in my image about how it's a little odd. I guess I solved the issue for myself as long as there's no unforeseen issues with going ahead and using it this way.

[martin manning]

I hadn't noticed that difference before, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Many amps have been built using Amp Nation's board.

Going back through the history, the preamp board in the full 124 layout was drawn from photos of the original amp, where only the V2a series resistor is offset to the PI side. In the JBorders version, both V2 series resistors are offset to the PI side (allowing for a longer V2b coupling cap). My version is a very close copy of that. For whatever reason, in the Amp Nation board the offset is to the input side.

[jabguit]

The way to cut your garolite or whichever board material you have, is to buy the cheapest wet cut tile saw from Harbor Freight. That and a drill press makes board building life easy.

Garolite cuts just fine on a bandsaw with bimetal blade, so it should do as well with a jigsaw - no need for wet tile saw.

cheers,

[alnight]

Having personally cut G13 with a jigsaw, while it can be done, I would never recommend it to anyone. I do suspect that a bandsaw would work quite well though.

[timrobertson100]

This looks like it might be a 124 build thread using the AN boards.

I've always cut my FR4 using a track saw.

[pottedplant]

The way to cut your garolite or whichever board material you have, is to buy the cheapest wet cut tile saw from Harbor Freight. That and a drill press makes board building life easy.

I have heard of this method too but is it okay to soak these boards in water? I know they're epoxy and fiberglass but when you cut them doesn't that expose the laminations without an epoxy seal? I don't really know how it all works and garolite is completely different composite of materials I think? Paper and resin or something along those lines? The main thing I've come across in looking for a solution are giant sheet metal guillotines used to cut PCB. They're referred to as plate shears from what I've seen. It's like those old paper cutters in school you know? Like a giant hinged machete with a platen but this is more of a raised platform with a suspending pedestal for the material to buck against as its being cut. I'm not so sure what kind of edge I'd be getting with one of these though and I don't want to take the 80-150 dollar plunge to find out but it seems like the best option for reducing exposure to glass dust

I hadn't noticed that difference before, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Many amps have been built using Amp Nation's board.

Going back through the history, the preamp board in the full 124 layout was drawn from photos of the original amp, where only the V2a series resistor is offset to the PI side. In the JBorders version, both V2 series resistors are offset to the PI side (allowing for a longer V2b coupling cap). My version is a very close copy of that. For whatever reason, in the Amp Nation board the offset is to the input side.

I'm glad to hear this will work, I've only seen the typical layout in Dumble's amps where one of the resistors is offset towards the PI and the other is straight on top of the cap. With your layout it makes sense but this one threw me for a LOOP until I looked carefully. You can see my sharpie marks and total confusion when the jumper only gives me one resistor space haha

Having personally cut G13 with a jigsaw, while it can be done, I would never recommend it to anyone. I do suspect that a bandsaw would work quite well though.

My only experience with these kinds of tools was in high school way way back. I used a scroll saw (which everyone kept referring to as a jigsaw) and thought that was a pretty damn cool tool. Like a baby bandsaw that reciprocates instead. Another cool tool unrelated was a pantographing engraver. That was damn cool.

This looks like it might be a 124 build thread using the AN boards.

I've always cut my FR4 using a track saw.

I should have searched harder haha. damn. thank you for linking me that

[alnight]

If the board material you have is indeed a glass/epoxy product similar to garolite, I would be quite surprised if it were capable of absorbing water. That said, I have not seen everything. If cutting the board would expose an element that could be affected by water, or ambient humidity, would that not seem to make it a poor choice for a circuit board?

I like using the wet saw because the water captures the dust, the guide fence makes it easy to set up and cut uniform, rectangular boards, it's fairly small and light and otherwise convenient. I think I paid thirty or forty dollars for it after examining several other, more costly options. I make no claims that it is the best way, but it certainly works well in my experience.

[pottedplant]

If the board material you have is indeed a glass/epoxy product similar to garolite, I would be quite surprised if it were capable of absorbing water. That said, I have not seen everything. If cutting the board would expose an element that could be affected by water, or ambient humidity, would that not seem to make it a poor choice for a circuit board?

I like using the wet saw because the water captures the dust, the guide fence makes it easy to set up and cut uniform, rectangular boards, it's fairly small and light and otherwise convenient. I think I paid thirty or forty dollars for it after examining several other, more costly options. I make no claims that it is the best way, but it certainly works well in my experience.

Oh I wasn't sure, that's why I was asking I suppose. I just know that laminates are typically layered and if you cut through them you expose the layers with the fibers being next to each other with the space between the circular strands offering a sort of capillary action potentially but I suppose they should be fully saturated in epoxy so it shouldn't matter (especially if they were in a vacuum and agitated when epoxied). Sorry for my questions, I truthfully just overthink things haha. I love the idea of the wet tile saw because of the dust control, my only concern is the setup. I have no experience cutting PCB as you can see so I figured the fastest way to do it keeps me from messing things up as I go along which the plate shears seem to offer. One thing that concerns me with the plate shear is the board migrating around as you push down plus what it might do to the edge of the board after cutting due to the way it cuts. Think tin snips or something along those lines, the edges might be turned down or something like that. I will definitely take your idea into consideration again. I'll head over to harbor freight and see what's up in the upcoming week or so. Here's a pic of something like I was talking about and thank you for sharing your experiences, it's something that can't really be replaced by searching the internet so I value it greatly on here.

[alnight]

We're all in this together! I must say, if it weren't for this site, I would still be getting frustrated with amps that I spent lots of money to buy, rather than amps that I spent slightly less money to build.

[pottedplant]

We're all in this together! I must say, if it weren't for this site, I would still be getting frustrated with amps that I spent lots of money to buy, rather than amps that I spent slightly less money to build.

I think at this point I've spent more on this amp than it would have cost to buy a real Dumble, mostly in shipping little parts over and over lol!

Truthfully the value is in learning though, its been a dream of mine to build an amp for over 15 years now. Kinda chose a doozy to start that journey though but it will and has taught me more than any other build probably would have. Thank you for sharing with me your experience!

[Lothy]

I used a coping saw for my first build. It took some time, some blades and it's not very accurate. But it did the job.

Screenshot 2025-03-08 063033.png

Cheers
Gerhard