Sunday 21 February 2016

More Chassis work, drilling and mounting little bits here and there

Today has been spent getting metal drill bits from Screwfix (so exciting, first time there, I was beside myself with euphoria) and then finishing off the drilling and some of the sanding, attaching the star ground, the mount for the faux centre tap, IEC plugs, fuse holders and a few other bits including the sockets.

Not terribly exciting, and I'll priobably need to remove some of the parts to do some wiring (like the fuse holders and bias points) but I just wanted to see it look more like an amp.

Also added the preamp shields, which are a kind of black but more dark grey (can always paint them later) but it's looking cool so far

I guess I'll start soldering the boards next, and eventually when I get the transformers do the drilling to mount them as well, but that can wait.

I tried countersinking the holes for the PCB mounts, and it didn't go entirely to plan, so I'll need a better attachment for the dremel for that (and countersunk screw heads) but it's not terribly pressing. I am learning as I go along, and also I need some paint anyway as I accidentally removed the paint for the input jack which was one of the holes I shouldn't have done. Live and learn, no big deal, and it's just the inside that'll get painted, so once i get some white model paint that'll all be OK as well.

So I guess next up is either the soldering of the boards, or if the transformers get here mounting those, drilling holes to put the grommet in for the wires and attaching a bunch of stuff on the chassis, in which case I'll do the heater wires, B+ supply, faux tap and all the fun resistors across that power valve sockets as well as adding wires to the preamp tube sockets and marking them read to be attached to the boards.

So one of the two things, but both will involve cracking out the new soldering iron I treated myself to, which will hopefully be better than the one I have been using that's sort of falling apart.


I also did a neat little time lapse video of the whole thing, using the gopro on a mount and edited it with all the work done so far. It's come out kind of fun, so I'll definitely keep doing this as it's fun to see it happen! I also wish I could move that fast, but alas I can't... Anyway, enjoy:


Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Unknown23 February 2016 at 08:35

    Hi,
    I've been following the series with interest. I've thought of doing something like this myself, but I've got no idea how much the whole thing would end up costing in parts to see whether the idea's just laughable or whether it's worth a go. Can you give me a rough idea of what it's cost?
    Cheers,
    Ian

    ReplyDelete
  2. James McIlroy29 February 2016 at 15:48

    Hey Ian, it all depends how far you want to go with components etc and how many tools you already have. If you want to pop me some questions on facebook or whatever I am more than happy to answer. The hardest part is sourcing everything and not messing up orders. In any case, depending on the quality of the parts, you are still looking at about 1/4 to 1/5th of the price of actually buying a new one. all in including extra tools and initial outlays on hookup wire and other sundries. The transformers and power caps were pretty expensive, but the worst cost was 8£ for optoisolators of which I got 4 which are required for channel switching. I think they are parts which are no longer RoHS compliant, so cost more and you need to find them.

    you can find me on facebook if you want more info:

    https://www.facebook.com/james.mcilroy.372

    just send me a message and I'll be happy to answer any questions

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)