Finished Dumblelator #2

[talbany]

UHOP

Great looking build love it!!.. I'll bet that took a while.. Congrats and solder on

Tony

[Drumslinger]

Nice score on the tranny UHOP! I'm looking for two d-lator transformer candidates. I have all the parts except the trannies! (patience grasshopper) lol

[jelle]

Oh, I gave a NOS transformer in orig box away a couple of months ago. This one? California, right?

[UltraHookedOnPhonix]

Thanks Tony! Yeah, it took some time getting all the "right" parts together but the soldering part was pretty painless...with the distinct exception of having molten solder connect with bare skin.

"Solder in shorts and you'll get torched!"...I can't rime for %$@#

Oh, I gave a NOS transformer in orig box away a couple of months ago. This one? California, right?

California, yes. This one, no. I could be wrong but I believe B.Y. still has it?

[argonaut]

Outstanding build, Phonix. I really like your boards and the details on the face. It must have been awesome to find an original tranny. That's beyond cool. Congrats!

[Structo]

Thanks fellas!

A local ham radio guy was selling a bunch of stuff and he had a NOS R-2C for $10! The bell of the transformer even had a protective sleeve made of paper around it. They sure don’t make em’ like that anymore!

[IMG855]http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb17 ... n/R-2C.jpg[/img]

After noticing the date code on the transformer, my hopes for a non-smoking start-up faded rather quickly. But in the end, 42 years of solitary confinement was all it needed to start up without issues.

Triad made the R-2C for VTVMs and produced them for 41 years (1951-1992). Given that it was produced for so long I would think they'd still be around in abundance on the used/surplus market. Probably being horded somewhere!

Thanks again for the kind words!

Man I love getting old boxes of goodies like that.
There used to be an old electronics store here in my town where we would go and snoop around. We were kids so we didn't have much money.
The old man was pretty cool and let us mess around with stuff.
I'm not sure what happened, either he died or somebody bought the inventory and sold it on ebay.
That is pretty much where stuff like that goes anymore.
I would love to stumble onto a cache of tubes and components from the 50-60's. I could spend all day just looking at junk like that.

That is more appropriately a replica of a Dumbleator. Very nice construction and attention to detail.

Just curious, did you have any ground loop noise like problems when you first fired it up?
I had one cable that I had to snip the ground on, not sure what it was about but since that killed the noise I just went on with it.

[jelle]

I suppose the one who likes to walk barefoot still has it.

I did not need it as I build these units into my amps. Works for me.

[Structo]

Hey this question is for you guys that ground your cable shields to the back of the pots like HAD did.
How in the heck do you get that shield trimmed so nice and neat back away from the center insulator?
Not sure is UHOP used Teflon cable but if not, how do you keep the center from melting when soldering?

I'm simply amazed at the work being done here.....

[Zippy]

Thanks Tony! Yeah, it took some time getting all the "right" parts together but the soldering part was pretty painless...with the distinct exception of having molten solder connect with bare skin.

"Solder in shorts and you'll get torched!"...I can't rime for %$@#

Been there, done that. Now, if I'm struck with insomnia and feel a need to solder 'round midnight, I at least put on some pajama pants.

[Structo]

Yeah, I still have a burn scar on my left thigh from a blob of solder.

[UltraHookedOnPhonix]

Outstanding build, Phonix. I really like your boards and the details on the face. It must have been awesome to find an original tranny. That's beyond cool. Congrats!

Thanks Argonaut!

Drilling the dots on the face plate was pretty nerve-racking because those front panels will set you back about $25. I was pretty psyched about the PT because it was unused and looked right with that grey bell.

Just curious, did you have any ground loop noise like problems when you first fired it up?
I had one cable that I had to snip the ground on, not sure what it was about but since that killed the noise I just went on with it.

No, not on this one thankfully! The previous one I build had the in, send, return and out jacks all grounded to the chassis as well as the pots (like the real one). Your solution seems to be what Dumble did on the one Funk posted pics of. You can clearly see that the coax shield for the recovery inputs wiper is not connected. I could probably have done the same thing instead of insulating the jacks and grounding them at the pots but it worked nonetheless.

I suppose the one who likes to walk barefoot still has it.

I did not need it as I build these units into my amps. Works for me.

Ha Ha!!! TOWLTWB!!! Hillarious!

Hey this question is for you guys that ground your cable shields to the back of the pots like HAD did.
How in the heck do you get that shield trimmed so nice and neat back away from the center insulator?
Not sure is UHOP used Teflon cable but if not, how do you keep the center from melting when soldering?

I didn’t use a wire stripper because I’ve found that the one I have is not so reliable with thicker AWG cable. I used an X-acto knife to expose the shield layer, then I “fan-out” the braided shield for the length I’m going to use while being careful not to push or pull on it. Then, simply trim the excess off.

Yeah, the center conductor yellow insulation is Teflon.

Been there, done that. Now, if I'm struck with insomnia and feel a need to solder 'round midnight, I at least put on some pajama pants.

Heh Heh…right on!

[angelodp]

Whats a beauty. Can you comment on the sonic differences in this build ( I have a near clone of your first build ) and which components you varied.

cheers Ange

[UltraHookedOnPhonix]

Whats a beauty. Can you comment on the sonic differences in this build ( I have a near clone of your first build ) and which components you varied.

cheers Ange

Thanks!

Sonically, it is very similar. I'm having a hard time hearing any difference at all between them. Of course I can hear a difference in the bright cap values since those are different and given that the tapering of the recovery pot is different, it "feels" different but other than that the diffs are really inconsequential. YMMV though...

Everything is the same as the "Funk" version with these exceptions:

C-1X choke in series with 15K dropping resistor
A50K drive pot with 300pF bright cap instead of A250K with .001uF BC
No input recovery pot (fixed 220K resistor)
Recovery pot is B250K instead of audio taper with a bright cap measuring 500pF instead of 270pF
Main filter caps are 60uF instead of 47uF

That's it.

[Guitarman18]

Phonix,

I thought that the quality of your BM build was outstanding, but this build beats that. I can't recall seeing a more authentic D'clone, in all the years I've been at TAG. A fantastic achievement, you should be very proud.

The only downside to seeing your work, is realising that I need to 'up my game'.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Paul.

[UltraHookedOnPhonix]

Phonix,

I thought that the quality of your BM build was outstanding, but this build beats that. I can't recall seeing a more authentic D'clone, in all the years I've been at TAG. A fantastic achievement, you should be very proud.

The only downside to seeing your work, is realising that I need to 'up my game'.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Paul.

Thank’s Paul, that’s very nice of you!

It’s strange, as much as I like building and playing with these things, I enjoy equally as much engaging in the necessary detective work to find the same parts used by HAD while at the same time trying to mimic his build style.

It’s fun! First step involves (to coin a term), “archeotronics” and the second, “monkey-see-monkey-do-shenanigans-whilst-not-trying-to-electrocute-myself”.

I post pictures like this for others to see because, for me personally, pictures were of great importance in the learning process. I figured that I would probably never see the day when I have a Dumble in my arsenal so I might as well fire up the soldering iron and get to it!