"Paint By Numbers" Amp Building

[sst4270]

By the way my ICON is a photograph of a glowing 12L6 in the very first tube amp I built in 2003. A 4W SE Stereo Power Amp that I'd seen in AudioXpress.
Was still working until last year when I gutted it to rebuild it (since everything I'd learned) I thought I could improve the layout and reduce hum. Unfortunately it now sits in a partially rebuilt state. How many partially built amps do you guys have lying around?

[Cliff Schecht]

I don't have any partially built amps laying around. Once I start a project I won't stop thinking about it until I finish it. I built 3 amps just in October and am already getting the itch to build some more stuff, although my power supply iron collection is definitely weaning. Money just came in though so I was going to order up some chassis and PT's for the extra Stancor A3801 and A3800 (for a Rocket) units that are just laying around..

I'm running into the problem of I've built everything that I "need" now, so I have a lot harder time defining new projects with what I have lying around. Aside from 100W amps and Dumble style multi-channel builds, I've worn out my options for cool existing amps to build. I have started working with friends to build them their dream amps but something like this really takes months of talking, planning, getting parts, building, tweaking, etc... I want instant action! Perhaps another Tweed or SE amp will hold over the itch until I can get the bigger projects rolling..

[diagrammatiks]

I recently built my first amp a few months ago.

I was in China visiting my parents and found an orange dual terror, cheapest amp I could find there.

I didn't have any access to a drill, turret boards, terminal boards, or any of that stuff.

I didn't even find a place that sold tube sockets for a few weeks.

I had finished reading both of the pentode-press books on the plane ride over.

[IMG682]http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt33 ... G_2827.jpg[/img]

quite as a mouse, fully stable, five stages into 2 el84s cathode biased with no negative feedback.

Electronically stable, structurally questionable.

I couldn't even imagine using a layout or a turret board anymore though. Building something like a tweed or single stage amp would bore me out of my mind.

finished this up for a client just so I could get rid of the board I had laying around.

[IMG764]http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt33 ... 78d684.jpg[/img]

Jcm pre + 1 into a single ended 6v6.

took about five hours of building with a few hours of planning before that. Played it for an hour after I turned it on the first time then had the client collect. The hardest part was figuring out how to access the chassis mounted sockets and connect the to the pcb socket mount solder holes. If I had pcb mounted the sockets the build would have taken me less then a few hours but I don't do board mounted sockets ever.

Not saying there is anything wrong with a layout turret guide...but honestly..I see all those wires going all over from the board to the sockets to the pots to the sockets and it doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.

[ChrisM]

Why hello AcousticMirror

[ericnuke]

Hey all! I'll take a bit of the heat for the OP's venting. I've built a couple kits and 1 scratch build. I've got another thread going currently asking for some help but, that's in another thread.

I just wanted to say seeing this thread and reading through it has lit an additional fire under my butt to really study the basics and try and figure stuff out before I come running to TAG for the easy answer, which I've always gotten in the past, ENABLERS

And I always try to be very thankful in the few threads I've started but if I haven't been enough, Thank you all so much! It's really been an amazing learning experience for me and has helped cement my love of building these outdated and completely obsolete things based on technology invented 77 years before I was born.

Also while I'm hear, I'm currently trying to make sense of the tube graphs that are on the data sheets. Anybody have a good link that might help me make heads or tails of those?

[martin manning]

The Valve Wizard site is a great place to get an overview of all the basics. Maybe start with the triode gain stage article, then the SE and PP power-stage pages.

[surfsup]

ericnnuke,

Not enough can be said about this great document at ax84.com

http://ax84.com/p1/P1_Theory_Document.zip

I started with this document as well. Great read.

BTW, guys, without us "noobs", who would you all talk to, complain about, and get complimented by, day after day? It'd be pretty boring around here...!

haha just kidding...!!! I'm 43, have a 15 month old, have to "assemble" and "disassemble" my workbench (the dining room table) every time I work on something and only after 7:30pm when my "bundle of joy" goes to bed (in what used to be my stoodio), all while living in a 950 sq ft townhouse with a wife and 9 other "wives" (bass, uke, banjo, two electrics, four acoustics) and all their baggage (amps, cords, recording equip., etc)

Thanks guys. TAG is my favorite site, I seem to check it 50 times a day for a new post. I google "site:ampgarage.com" every week. You guys are good! I shoulda got hooked on crack instead it'd be easier to break the addiction! Just promise me in my future divorce proceedings not to let my wife know my handle so she sees how much more time I spend with you guys!

I also have a forum (chicagokitesurfing.com is one of my websites, I have 4 websites, sigh, where do I find the time!?!) and know how forum behavior can get, believe me. One thing I've tried to also learn, and be, is patient. Older and wiser....ah, yes, how true. I am only now beginning to understand.

Built 2 amps and 5 pedals (two pedals still don't work but that's b/c I didn't spend the time to rectify the situation)...thankfully, though, none of them were "trainwrecks". get it?

Okay, stupid post, but hopefully I can at least provide some stupid humor alongside my stupid questions...

[martin manning]

No not stupid at all... There is something hard-wired into the human psyche that makes us all want to pass along learned skills. That's how we got where we are as a species, no? Besides that I think that like many people, the folks here get a great deal of satisfaction out of solving puzzles, and the noobs are a constant source of challenges. That's the adiction. Everyone learns a little bit from each experience, and the end result is more than just a filled-in grid of numbers or letters.

[Masco]

Didn't Leo Fender and Ken Bran paint by numbers?

[rdjones]

Didn't Leo Fender and Ken Bran paint by numbers?

Yes, Ken painted by Leo's numbers.

rd

[srubelva59]

I'm 51 and I've been playing guitar since I was 13. I did a two year certificate program in EET back in the mid 80s then worked as a bench tech for about four years repairing consumer audio gear. Made a few job changes from the Computer industry to Telecom and stayed there for twenty years as life happened.

A few years ago I had some spare time and spare change in my pocket and stumbled onto a couple amp building forums and thought I should bone up on my tube theory and build an amp. Read up over at AX84, Aiken and Merlins site as well as a couple amp forums.

I built my first EL34 amp from a paint by numbers kit, got it working then modded the crap out of it. I built one EL34 scratch build then one more EL84 paint by numbers that ended up getting so modded it morphed into it's own thing. I built a couple more scratch builds of my own recipe and gave those to friends. Other hobbies have taken over my spare time and spare pocket change and I mostly just read amp forums now.

After hanging around a handful of amp forums for several years I'm always amazed at the guts(?) of a new comer that has no formal electronics education diving head first into building amps. I hope they learn the basics and stay safe!

[VacuumVoodoo]

There's one tube forum out there where total beginners start with a Dual Recto or SLO clone. But these are guys whose grandfathers went on horses against german tanks in 1939. Very gutsy spirits.

[M Fowler]

But these are guys whose grandfathers went on horses against german tanks in 1939. Very gutsy spirits.

That generation were indeed pioneers and brave soles.

Mark

[topbrent]

Everyone on these boards has held the title of "Newb" at one point or another.

Relax, take a breath, share your knowledge, give constructive feedback, encourage further learning and experimentation.

Give some slack to the brave new souls who have decided to start on the path.

[Lonely Raven]

[IMG682]http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt33 ... G_2827.jpg[/img]

That's pretty epic. Even a paint-by-numbers guy such as myself can appreciate that artistry.