Soldering Time lapse video!

Quick post this, and I have a lot of catching up to do. Basically I soldered the preamp PCB before the weekend, and got through it with only one mistake of swapping 2 resistors round which was easily sorted (and luckily i caught it in time). The labeling of components in bags definitely helped a lot. My PCB having a slightly different layout to my blueprint cause some problems though, but managed to work round them. Anyway, here's a fun little video to watch of the whole process. I'll write up on the ups/downs another time, and there's a section on transformers and mounting hell to come (including drill bits not large enough to create a hole all of the bloody wires will fit through)

Soldering the power board

I decided to tackle the power board first, mainly as it has less components, and also to test out the new soldering iron. All in all pretty good going.

Best cool little tool for OCD ever

I used the wire bending tool to nicely bend the legs on the diodes and most of the resistors, apart from 2, where the board was obviously designed for larger fatter ones, so I kind of had to just have them with long legs. Not the nicest aesthetically, but it just needs to work at the end of the day, and it's not like you'll be able to see it once the amp is in it's headshell anyway, even if I do want everything to look neat tidy and pretty as a matter of personal pride.

Printout with components drawn on

Anyway, so I started off with the printout of the mirror image of the PCB, this to be able to draw the components on first, along with the component names, this way (seeing as the board I have is unmarked) I could refer to it whilst wiring, and also so I could grab the bags of components I previously labelled (in one of the previously described mind numbingly boring steps of preparation) and solder them on.

Going from Tony's advice I started with the shortest components first, ie the ones that will have the least height when soldered on. This makes it easier to solder on the reverse and to stop bits falling out as they're resting against the table. Makes life easier. From there moved onto the diodes, then the smaller caps and finally the 6 large ones, of which 3 needed to be mounted on the reverse side of the board.

As the PCB is meant for longer axial capacitors I was left with the dilemma of "long bit of bare wire" that I didn't like, so I cut heat shrink tubing to cover each leg to length, and then mounted the top ones. The soldered. Finally I mounted the three at the bottom.

Now as the three at the bottom were running across tracks, I was a bit paranoid after doing them, so decided to see if some cable ties would fit under them, to stop them making any contact with the tracks on that side of the board. Happily they did, and so 4 cable ties later (1 wasn't long enough to go round them all, so had to elongate by using a second, and I wanted 2 for symmetry, hence 4) problem solved (even though it is being overly cautious). Then, for looks and completionism (and probably OCD) I went and did the ones on the reverse side of the board.

Spot the glaring mistake...

Next, I went to do a test mount of the board. At which point I noticed the standoffs (20mm) meant for the power board were not going to work. Also the 40mm ones of which I had spare, they were too tall. All this because of the caps mounted on both sides. Disaster!

Then i remembered the bag of parts I'd ordered on a whim from ampbuilder which had some small (i guess 10mm) standoffs that I thought were useless. These combined with the 20mm ones actually turned out to be exactly the right height, and test fitting the board left enough clearance on both sides.Result! And also a victory for hoarding and not deciding to throw the "useless" stuff away. Not that that's a good thing reinforcing my hoarding instinct...

Reverse of the board

Mistake rectified

And then, then I looked at the board and though"that looks a bit bare and empty" and suddenly realised I'd completely forgotten to put one of the caps on. I can only imagine the embarrassment of going "why doesn't it work" later down the line, to discover something that stupid at fault.

Anyway, removed the board, put the missing capacitor on (pretty big one to miss as well...) and all was well with the world.

All in all, pretty pleased with the result. I've also come across a nice picture of an elevated heater mod, but more on that when i get down to doing the what seems painstaking work of wiring up the heaters and other fun rails across the tube sockets...

Oh yeah, also videod it, but I'll probably do the next time lapse video in with that of the preamp board, which is the enxt mission as I am not going to do any chassis wiring until I've got the transformers.

All coming along nicely! I can see this being addictive...

Finished article in the chassis

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:

Sanding down Chassis (or how to make cool sparks with a rotary power tool)

Believe it or not, I actually got something done that isn't sorting parts into bags and boxes! And it involved playing with a power tool I've never used before! Double win! All whilst under the influence of Lemsip/Beechams/Whatever trying to keep a cold I've picked up at bay. Power tools and muddled mind not always the best combination, but on the other hand you kind of lose sense of levels of what is allegedly safe and definitely experience a dip in caution, so it balances out in the end, with the man flu induced haze and lack of thought balancing nicely against being oblivious...

So, what did I do? I started sanding all the chassis parts that need the paint taking off. Why? Well, so that a lot of things like pots, input jacks and other things that people will be touching or going near will be grounded to the chassis, which will be grounded to the mains. For this I had to remove the paint and get down to bare metal behind the power, standy switches, the input jack, all the front panel EQ and switches and controls as well as the impedancve selector out back and the slave out and level.

However, the bias point, speaker outs and FX loop were not to be done. So basically, i went off and taped up all the holes not to be done, as well as around the holes that were to be done., ending up with the chassis looking like this:

Now, I also have a bit of a test before, making sure jacks fit in jack sockets, and pots fit in the places they were supposed to (just in case the holes were too small) etc. The only thing that didn't fit was the pilot light (all important blinky light) so I marked that as something to do and to widen whilst I was at it.

I also went ahead and marked where i needed to drill holes for the IEC plug earth, the star eart mount and a hole to mount the tag board for the faux centre tap (whuich finally made sense in my head as being like a transformer center tap, no idea why it took so long to register).

i also taped down the cardboard copies of the PCBs I made earlier, and lined them up so that they had enough space after having considered the placement of things like tube sockets, fuse holders, pilot lights, switches etc. The preamp board wasn't a problem really, but the power board is going to be a tight fit next to all the sockets and other big bulky stuff that will be mounted in that area.

This all done, I rigged up the go pro, and started filming, for posterity. It'll probably induce face palm moments and WTF exclamations from people that actually know what they're doing, but as I had no clue which attachments to use, well, I just kind of experimented as I went along.

I picked small sanding attachments to do the inside edges of all the holes, which went well (with the odd cool spark shower which is entertaining, although apparently I am "a foolish human being" for not wearing things called safety goggles, which I don't have either, but hey...). I then moved onto the sanding part, putting the rotary drill through each hole, then attaching a sanding disc, and pulling back through the hole to sand down a circle on the inside of the chassis. First few attempts i didn't quite attach the sanding circles properly, so they ended up flying off a few times, but I got the hang of it after that. It also means I should never ever train anyone on Health and Safety (ie, how not to do anything fun ever again). I lumbered through, and got all the bits done I needed to as a first pass.

The end result? Almost there, whilst it is easy to get rid of the paint inside the holes (the edges), actually getting a nice cleared circle behind each part is trickier, and I'll need to have more of a look at it tomorrow and see if I can have a brainwave of using a different attachment to make it better, but on the whole, it's ok so far:

As you can see needs more of the paint gone, although whilst it might be "ok" I do want to do it properly.

One thing is that it was a pain in the arse to do. I had to put the dremel through each hole, then attach a sanding disc, turn it on, and pull back on it hoping it'd get rid of the paint, not ideal by any means, but no other choice as the rotary tool was too long to fit in the chassis. I'd actually probably end up buying a real dremel if i were to do this again, and get the right angle attachment they make for it. It'd have been faster, a lot safer and I'd have more control over what I was doing as well. But, I'll soldier on with the cheap one I've got (I actually do love this tool, so so so much fun, I must stop myself from thinking of things than need holes made in them, but also means it might be worth getting a proper one of them, but I'll see)

After all the sanding, I attempted to drill the holes for the ground, but kind of discovered that in the battle of drill bit vs steel chassis that the drill bit lost. badly. The first one kind of ended up 1/3rd shorter than when i started, with it barely making a dent in the chassis. The second drill bit seemed to be making headway until it started glowing bright red like the depths of a volcano at which point it seemed prudent to stop. The chassis? No hole, just a slight indentation one side, and a raised point the other. I'm guessing I'll need a proper drill for the holes (which I have, but can't find the chuck to put an appropriate sized drill bit in it) and actual drill bits to go through metal.

So, that'll be the next job, finding a way to drill holes, and probably also countersinking the ones for the PCBs to make it look nicer overall, but first I'll need to find drill bits that don't end up losing against the might of the chassis...

As for the video, I am thinking once I have more footage I'll get all the videos and time lapse them together going from one bit to another to keep it interesting and show the whole amp from start to end.

Shit just got real!

So, the chassis finally turned up, and, well, it just added a sense of reality to this build. I think before this I hadn't really completely considered what I was doing, but now, well, shit just got real!

The chassis in it's glory!

So there it is, one chassis. So now I guess it's time to start building. I have to do some prep to the chassis first, which involves taking off some of the paint on the inside, round most of the pot holes, switches et all to create a ground, and also places to ground from the plug, and to have a central ground for stuff running of the PCBs and all that. Basically ensuring it'll be electrically safe to touch.

Then it'll be drilling holes for the PCBs to mount on (via standoffs), the holes for the transformers (so they can be mounted on the chassis), holes for the transformer wires (which will then have a grommet put in them to stop the wires chafing), putting in things like tube sockets, the pilot light, switches and jacks and thus having the chassis ready to start wiring stuff once the PCBs are done.

So, as it's been a quiet week for updates, what have I been up to?

Mainly revisiting an old foe, ordering components. Now, I did place an order with RS Components, but in rushing (again) ended up with parts which, well, just didn't look right. Whilst they were specced for the correct voltage and power rating, they weren't over specced, and so paranoia got the best of me and I did another quick order with mouser to get the exact ones I wanted. It just means that I'll have spares, and extra bits, and resistors that whilst I am paranoid about using them here will be more than good enough for a different build later down the line as I'm told they are quite common components.

I've also split the pile of components up into 3 boxes. One is Power PCB parts, one is a box of parts for the preamp board, and finally one box for all the stuff that will end up going on the chassis like pots, bias test pointsd, jacks, switches, tube sockets, well, you get the idea.

I also did a quick test run seeing how the capacitors would mount on the power PCB, again invoking some paranoia about the outer casings touching the tracks. I'll reduce this sense of (most likely unfounded) fear by either electrical tape, or having them rest on the cable tie holding the caps on the reverse side of the board in place.

And the emergency mouser order turned up yesterday I am now complete for allt he electrical parts bar the transformers which I should get some point next week hopefully.

Also, I've been discovering all the stupid bits that have been forgotten. Things like solder tags, tag strips, heat shrink wrapping, cable ties, anchors for cable ties... I've either got most of those via emergency ebay orders, or am waiting on them. Found a good place called Amp Maker (Which I've added to the links section on where to find parts) which caries loads of the really small bits and pieces and other random stuff. A good place to panic buy it seems, but I'd still recommend getting stuff from as few places as possible.

Finally I've been emailing a few places about getting a headshell made, but couldn't get further with some as didn't have the chassis, so as a result didn't have the measurements for how big it should be. I'll be getting on this again tomorrow.

So what lies ahead? Chassis prep and most likely will solder the preamp and power boards over the weekend and try to get a load of stuff that doesn't involve wiring on the chassis done, as I won't really be able to do that untill I get the transformers and have them in, as I don't want to put parts in, and then attack it with a drill followed by "oopsie" + "insert lots of swearing here"

It's going to be cool :)

Also, all the dials on the chassis go to 11, so spinal tap that it'll be one of those things that will make me a crack a smile every time i see it :)

 Next time, probably a post that isn't about forgetting stuff, or arranging things into plastic bags, time to start some actual building!

Slo Clone Build Preparation Part 3, Doing prep for PCB Mounting, aka, upcycle cardboard to make usefull stuff instead of binning it.

Yes yes, I know, all this preparation, but I've got to do something whilst I am waiting for all the bits I forgot to order to turn up (and for the chassis and transformers that I did order to hurry up, I'm getting more impatient!)

Anyway, I decided that as the rest of the components should be with me tomorrow, that that means I can start soldering, but as I don't have the chassis yet, and as it's kind of hard to press a PCB full of components against a chassis to measure where the holes need to be drilled for the standoffs (little metal/plastic poles that provide space between the chassis and the PCB) I've gone and made cardboard templates. It's like Blue Peter, except you don't need an empty washing up liquid bottle and pipe cleaners (always a major disappointment growing up, never had pipe cleaners, ever), although don't be afraid to ask for the help of a responsible adult. Also, don't run with scissors. Sage advice indeed.

Taping to cardboard

The idea here is that when I get the chassis, I can place these on it, tape them down, and use them as drill templates to drill the holes. I'm planning to do the same for the transformers. That way I can do the layout without using the physical parts and keep them well away from the destructive force of a drill (we all accidentally and not so accidentally drill things, and wielding one can induce a sense of power and slight madness typified by finding things to drill that you didn't need to, and besides, last time I drilled something important I ended up with a spare hole in the front of a guitar...).

yes, this was meant for the bin.

I also have a lot of packaging and boxes and cardboard lying around. And I need to make amends to Greenpeace after having failed to print out the PCBs from a scan in their correct size earlier. Not just once, twice, but probably 15 times. I suck at printing.

Pretty easy to do, just tape PCB to a piece of card to hold it in place, tape across the length of all 4 edges. Then with a pen colour in the holes where you're going to be drilling (ie, the big holes in the corners not connected to any PCB tracks), and then cut along the outside and voila! Cardboard shaped objects I'll be using for drilling later, when I eventually get the Chassis.

 

I'm quite pleased with this brainwave, and hope it works out as I want it to, as it means I can get on with some of the fun stuff like burning fingers, skin (and generally finding out what a cannibal barbecue smells like), setting fire to stuff chaotically lying on my desk with the soldering iron and swearing a lot. I'm looking forward to that. 

Marking the holes with a biro on the cardboard

The finished Articles

  I'm also looking forward to seeing if I can film the soldering bits, and then make one of those "everything goes really fast" videos which always look cool (with the accidental self mutilation edited out). Time lapse. That's it. Should be cool. I've got a GoPro lying around that needs some use, and I am sure I can rig up some entertaining mounting system so it'll film everything from the top down nicely.






Anyway, this is all done, my nice and toxic lead solder arrived (couldn't find my old roll, and with some of the parts I am not Rohs compliant (the government regulation for companies that requires them not to use lots off heavy metals like lead, cadmium etc) and I do prefer it as I do believe (perhaps mistakenly, enlighten me if it's the case) that it is better and leads to less dry joints.

So, a few more emergency deliveries to arrive, some more tools (a dremel, but that just needs to arrive before the chassis, plenty of time) the transformers and the chassis, and I'll be all set to start.

On another note, I'm having trouble finding somewhere to make me a headshell (the wooden box around the amp) and I have sent emails to Zilla, Modulus and Roadkill, and will probably need to find some more ideas as to places. I'd do it, but I suck at woodwork, so would rather someone did it that knows what they're doing so that I end up with something that looks as nice as the amp inside it will hopefully sound!

Right, all the non lethal prep stuff is almost all done, and I am pretty pleased at having written a bunch of stuff about essentially cutting oput some cardboard squares, and soon it'll be time to play with electricity. Et tu Victor Frankenstein?

Slo Clone Build Preparation Part2, Cross checking components (More Boring Stuff)

Exhibit B - The Source of all Truth

A long evening spent taking Exhibit A (Hence know as "The Box of Plenty") and matching all the bits in it to the list of parts needed for the amp. The list, Exhibit B (Hence known as "The Source of all Truth") is the parts list for the build.

Tube stuff, sockets, shields etc

Loads of things that need to be sorted and checked

Friday (2 days ago) I received 2 boxes of stuff from Mouser and from Tube Town along with an avalanche of screws and other small knickknacks. The point of this exercise was to take these boxes of stuff, envelopes of mystery, and to put them into the Box of Plenty, and then go through each section of the list marking off what I'd got, and hopefully ending up with a full quota of parts and not having to place any panic orders.

Calm down Screwfixphiliacs, go take a cold shower, these screws are not for you.

One mistake I made was that when I ordered, I didn't double check what I'd ordered against The Source of all Truth. Now whether down to impatience, being a bit ditsy or just overconfidence or over tiredness when placing the order, the end result is always the same, spend more time getting it right so you spend less time cleaning up the mess afterwards. But we all know that isn't fun, and quite frankly none of this is glorious or exciting, but mess this up, and it'll just lead to disappointment/panic later down the line, kind of imagine a sad faced lunatic running around in circles brandishing a soldering iron of defeat whilst muttering profanities to themselves. Not a good look.

The second mistake was that I didn't update The Source of all Truth when ordering. As it's an excel spreadsheet, there should be no excuses. I should have added a column with "part ordered". So it became the Source of almost all Truth, which just isn't as catchy. There were some things I had to find that weren't available any more, and some resistors that were out of stock and had a long restock wait. I should have noted what I replaced them with, and updated the list. This would have saved me a lot of cross checking.

Useful supplies for sorting stuff

Next mistake was that I should have taken the capacitore values on the order, and put them on the list, to save having to convert from nano to micro Farad all the time and figure out which was which. Would have made the process faster.

A few usefull things to have at this stage:
- A Pen/Marker, so you can write stuff
- Stickers, so you can stick them to bags and write on them
- A metric crapton of small plastic bags, to put a component in, and to stick a label on.

Anyway, all the "I should have paid more attention in class" stuff aside, the process went as follows:

- separate into piles of resistors / capacitors / switches / jacks / weird stuff
- start with pile of resistors
- grab a bag
- find the corresponding entry or entries on the Source of Truth
- if one component in the bag, mark the bag with resistor number
- if multiple ones, separate them into single bags, mark each resistor number on each (eg R21, R22 etc)
- repeat above process for the capacitors
- repeat for all the other parts
- whilst going through the list, tick of each component that is present.

So, after all that, I've ended up realising:

- I forgot to order some components
- Some of the resistors were only rated at 1/4w, whilst they were correct voltage rating, they should have been 1/2w or more. I'd thought they looked a bit small, which is what tipped me off, and lo and behold after consulting Tony (Henceforth referred to as "The Oracle") it transpired I needed to upgrade.
- Should have picked the power capacitors I wanted and not ended up with in some cases them in triplicate.

Everything sorted into the Box of Plenty. Almost Victorious.

I also ended up with a choice of power capacitors (the big big fat round things), with a choice between standard Nichicon from Mouser, and some rather nice F+T ones. The F+T ones are pricier, so I'll go with them and keep the others as backup. Also got a nice Mallory cap as well, so I'll be using that, as well as some sexy Sprague capacitors. I doubt I'll hear a difference, but you know, cork sniffing and all that.

Now some praise to RS Components. I've ended up ordering the missing bits from them, and they've worked out a tad cheaper, even if I had to buy some things in bulk (will just have them for the next build). It's also really easy to search on their site, so that's pleasing as well (once you get to the component type you need) with things like Voltage rating, Wattage, tolerance, all selectable. Next time I do a build I think I'll end up ordering from them, now I've got some more confidence on this. They also offer free next day shipping, which is really cool as well, so they score bonus points for that.

I also discovered I'd totally forgotten to get a pilot light. Handy thing to tell if the power is on or not, so ended up getting that from Hotrox with a choice of colours. So it'll either be purple or green. In any case, nice to have a choice.

Oh, and I forgot the IEC plug, another handy thing to get if you want to be able to plug it into to the mains power. Also stupid.

And finally, completely forgot about getting grommets. In fairness, it was The Oracle that reminded me, so I'll have to go hunting for those, as well as some isolation washers, which I also completely forgot, oh, and I am going to need some cable ties to help hold the huge ass capacitors on the power board...

All of the above things I forgot where on the Source of all Truth bar the grommets, so I really only have myself, impatience, and being slightly overwhelmed by the parts list to blame. I think this is a beginners learning curve thing though, and at least I have a Source of all Truth which has made things easier.

Tonight I am going to separate the components into Preamp, Power amp, Tube socket and chassis ones and also make a cardboard template of the PCBs, more on that later.

If I were to do this again, I'd try the follwoing tactic:
- Make a Source of Truth list with component values, arrange into sections as per the current List, of Resistors / Capacitors / Sockets / Chassis components / Pots / Variable Resistors / Light Dependent Reistors / Hardware
- Look up each part required, list the sirte to be ordered from, and the part number, and value the site displays
- Have the excel sheet do some magic where it can condense the order into X of component Y etc, to make ordering easier
- Cross check 2-3 times BEFORE placing the order
- Order as much as possible from RS COmponents, then Mouser, The Tube Town, then miscellaneous sites
- Cross check again

Other lessons learnt:
- Some of the parts are cheaper from wholesale electrical suppliers like RS, this is tru for the slo knos I got. They also sell more variety of parts as well.
- Try and order as much as possible from as few sources as possible
- Lookup all the electrical components one by one, and get the tolerance and wattage rating correct before adding them.
- Update the Source of all Truth at all times, every time something changes.

Anyway, this is almost the last of the boring bits. Once I've templated the boards as cardboard size replicas with mounting holes marked, Iand once I have all the rest of the component parts I forgot, then I can go off and start some soldering, beginning with the Power PCB as that has the least components on it.

Slo Clone Build Preparation Part 1, PCBs (aka Doing the first load of Boring Stuff)

So, I got boxes from Tube Town and Mouser today, along with an assortment of screws off Ebay (The latter is probably only exciting for those who go to bed with a Screwfix catalogue, to each their own, but please, get help) and seeing as there's a lot of bits, it's time to start planning. I made a list (we all love endless lists of things to do, and things we'd like to do, and lists are like comfort blankets) of things to do, so I am going to go through them here. I'll do this prep stuff in sections as I go along. Partially to not exceed the boredom threshold of the ADD generation, but also so it's grouped nicely into blog posts. And seeing as this bit is about organization, well, should really have some structure to it...

So, first up, the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards, those things you attach components to) I have aren't marked for components, which will make things slow going later on, and I really don't want to solder components in, get it wrong, then desolder and make a mess, I want everything to be as clean as possible. Seeing as the component (resistor/capacitor/etc) mounts on the opposite side of the board to where the tracks are (those metal lines) and as I don't posses Superman's uncanny ability to see through solid materials I came upon the idea to get paper copies of the layout so I can draw the placement of the components to my hearts content without worrying about messing up the board. I'll also have a reference for later that way as well, in case I need to trouble shoot later on, to easily cross reference the component value to the spreadsheets I have (the parts list).

So, My PCB to do list:
1) Scan Preamp PCB
2) Scan Power PCB
3) Print out Preamp PCB
4) print out Flipped version of Preamp PCB5) Print out Power PCB
6) print out Flipped version of Power PCB


 The PCBs, the larger longer one id for the Preamplifier components, the Shorter Square-ish (yes, you, the pedantic one at the back, I know, rectangular, but it's more square like than the other one) one is for the Power Supply.

 My Aim was to print out exact sized copies so I could tape one to the back to have a reference on the board.






I've abandoned this idea for the following reasons:

1 - Paper near large voltages is probably somewhat of a fire hazard. Whilst I do not fear electrocution that much, setting myself on fire would ruin my hair, and we can't be having that, now can we?

2 - For some reason I have become a technological Luddite. I can't figure out how the images won't print to the size I scanned them in. The preamp board comes out smaller, the power supply board larger.

3 - The longer attempting to fix #2, the more rage and impatience is induced. I am already impatient, and this planning malarky goes against my nature of wanting to jump in. So I have chosen sanity. For once.


So instead, I'm just going to use them to mark where stuff goes, and draw the components on.

Scanning the PCBs: 

The preamp one just about fit. However, next time I do this, I am placing the board in the middle of the scanner, as I've just wasted enough paper trying to print it out to be classified as an eco terrorist (kept cutting off the edge, rendering it useless). Anyway, for printing, a few copies of the scanned image, then save a mirror image version (flip, don't rotate) and print a few of those out too...

The power amp board scanned now as well, again, I'd place this in the middle next time. Same problem as above.







And here we have the end results, ready to be scribbled all over when i transfer the circuit component positions to the printouts. Not today however, got other preparation to do. I have, however, marked each print out as "Track Side" or "Reverse Side" to stop me confusing myself or swearing (well, swearing less) later down the line.






Same here. Pretty pleased with the results even though I am now wanted by Greenpeace.











So, that was exciting wasn't it? I know, not terribly so, but, I am going against my normally chaotic nature when it comes to building things that come as parts. Seeing as there's a lot to do, and I only have the exact number of components I need, it has seemed prudent to actually have a plan instead of jumping, soldering iron blazing, into action, I don't want to end up having to reorder a part I've accidentally put in the wrong place, or need to solder ugly wires onto parts that have legs that are no longer long enough to go where they are supposed to. Even though I'm sure there will be mistakes, I'd kind of like to minimize them...

Anyway, this bit is done. Next, seeing as I have a box of "things" from "places" I need to deal with that, but that's for next time...

Enter the Bookworm

Am adding a few bits and pieces to this blog, in sidebars, with places to get parts for builds, books that you may or may not want to read and whatever else seems like a good thing to kind of collate into one place.

Hopefully it should mean less digging for other people, with respect to both the where to I get this antiquated shit from to where do I uncover the dusty tomes with the black magic equations to make stuff work.

I've spent far too long trawling through reviews trying to figure out what books to get. So I'm going to just list the ones I've found useful. This will range from the simple to complex probably, but I will try to cut out boring ones, unless they explain something way better than other books, as I remember having a book on electromagnetics which could without fail send me to sleep within 2 pages, no matter how much coffee I'd had, or time of day, and we don't want any of those books, as the information cannot be extracted from them due to the sleep curses embodied in them (Some people might have brains the size of planets, but manage to take tedium and boredom to a new level, and have a sadistic need to inflict this upon other people).

The good thing about books is actually gaining an understanding of how the circuits work, which then means you can figure out what the bits are that you're putting together. With everything, having even a basic knowledge always helps a lot with confidence, so my plan is that as well as building, I'll be looking at what I am building, and trying to seperate it out and understand how each bit works, hence the books and references.

Did I tell you I wanted to design my own? Well, yes, that is kind of a long term goal. But I might have mentioned that already.

Gathering the Bits - Why an Amp Kit Suddenly seems like a good idea after all...

The whole thing that triggered this build was pretty much buying the PCBs. Whilst I'd enquired a few times at c3amps, the exchange rate and import duties combined with shipping pretty much meant it just wouldn't work out well for my bank account, which is a shame, as the conversations I'd had with him really made me want to just get all the parts from him in one easy shipment. However, it just wasn't to be.

Instead, I ended up buying some PCBs, one for the Preamp, one for the Power. I got them pretty cheap from the man I have been pestering for advice since he helped me troubleshoot the jcm800 i was fixing. He's been invaluable with his help, and where to get parts.

So, buying these PCBs kickstarted it, and suddenly I had component lists, I needed to find transformers, a chassis, the right wire, sockets for the tubes... In short, it's a long long long list, and it can't all be got from one place either, which makes it even more daunting. Combine that with out of stock parts, or parts that have changed part number, and it's basically a few evenings of your life trawling places like mouser, tubetown, good old ebay, maplins to find various screws, the right type of wire that can wuithstand the correct voltage/temperature, screws, high quality capacitors, metal film resistors, weird selectors, tube sockets, more tube sockets... you get the idea.

First off, finding the chassis, without finding that, well, there's nothing to build everything on. First I looked at c3amps, but again, the price was pretty high, and predrilled for the super over the top Onetics transformers, so it'd kind of mean have a clean chassis and use them, or redrill a bunch of holes. Being in europe,w ell, as before, the cost is just too high, so I left that as an emergency option.

Meanwhile, Tony pointed me to a place called Brownsound in Italy, so I got in touch with them. When I received a reply, it turns out he had stopped making chassis and headshells, but still had some chassis in stock. Vistory chassis wise, but does mean I'll have to figure out the headshell (the wooden box thing the amp goes in) at a later date. However, one chassis completed with silkscreened control markings acquired. Result!

Now onto the components. It's a bit of a long list, and took me about 2-3 days and evenings of searching via component codes and slowly building up a list to get done over two websites. The lovely people at mouser and tubetown allow you to save lists as projects and reload them, which is nice, and kind of kept things organised. Most of the resistors, capacitors have been ordered from Mouser, the more tube/amp specific stuff (like tube sockets, pilot lights, opto couplers and some nice large quality capacitors for the power supply) from tube town. I was pretty surprised at the cost of optocouplers, which actually ended up being pretty costly. I'd also never heard of them before, but now I know that theuy're used for switching channels in amps, pretty cool really looking at it, and a little bit learnt on the way. Also things like the impedance selector switch and also the right control knobs and pots, with the pots being more costly than I thought they'd be as well.

Next has been getting hold of the wire. Hookup and Bus Wire that can deal with alrge voltages and is easy to work with. I ended up taking the advice and going With Alpha Eco Wire, 20AWG for the hookup wire, and 18AWG for the bus wire. Ebay turned out to be cheaper than the other places by a significant enough amount. As a bonus, it looks like rather nice wire for wiring guitar electrics, although it being rated for 600V probably means it's overkill for that...

So, placed those orders, and realised I hadn't  got any screws, ebay to the rescue, and a whole bunch of M3,M4,M5 screws and washers and Nyloc washers ordered.

Finally I've just ordered the transformers from a place called inMADout in Italy. Kind of ended up swearing at online banking a bit after trying to use an IBAn to transfer money, then feeling stupid seeing a PayPal email, and using that, which ended up costing less in fees than the bank transfer would have. Anyway, ended up with inMADout via advice from dear old Tony (surprised he doesn't feel tortured yet) and also after being told by the guy there that the power transformer would power kt88s if i wanted it to, although only for a rating of 140w. Plenty loud. I don't plan on using kt88's as will go for 6l6's, but it's nice to know it can be done. Also considerably cheaper than the onetics transformers and more representational of the DeYoung ones the slo uses. Plus this is my first build, so going over the top, well, can do that if I make another if this works out.

Then, tools, wire strippers, lead solder, flux etc etc etc and depending on the state of my current soldering iron possibly a new one.

So, now I am just waiting for all the bits and pieces to turn up. Then I'll need to sort and label components once they arrive, and need to mark the PCBs with component names for when i start soldering (But I have a plan involving a scanner/printer for that). And make sure I have everything I ordered and that nothing is missing.

I'm sure I'll end up making an emergency run to maplins or whoever at some point as there'll be something I've forgotten, but for now, the waiting game begins.

I am really excited, can't wait to start!

In short (TLDR) if you want to save a weeks worth of free time, buy an amp kit.

Getting Started

No really, I have always wanted to build a guitar amp, from scratch, it's actually the reason I went and studied Electronics at university all those years ago (last century, if you really must know, albeit right at the tail end of it). Dissapointingly at the time they'd stopped teaching anything regarding vacuum tubes, so it was pretty dissapointing in that respect.

The I did my dissertation on vacuum tube modelling using orthogonal polynomials so as to get fast converging equations for use in modelling. The interest has always been there, but I've failed to do anything about for many many years.

But I have always wanted to, and have meant well, collecting a raft of textbooks on vacuum tube amplifiers circuits and design along the way, with the intention of one day knuckling down and getting on with it, actually just building one.

Along the way I've fixed or modded the odd amp here and there, starting with bias modding my Peavey 5150, then doing a few friends and going from fixing bad solder joints, to recently fixing up a JCM800 that had a fair few cooked components inside it. It was this last little foray that kind of set me off on this journey. I loved it, even though I had to ask a lot of questions, finally getting that amp to turn on and make sound felt like an awesome accomplishment. A new interest bloomed, a new addiction born.

So, back to the present day, and I find myself slowly collecting the parts to build my first amp from scratch. I could have gone for an amplifier kit, and tested the waters, but it felt pointless building an amp I wouldn't want to play, that'd gather dust after a few hours of glee playing through something just because I'd built it.

Hence deciding I wanted to build one of the amps I've never ever played, but always wanted to. And hence the quest to build a clone of the legendary Soldano 100w Super Lead Overdrive.

This blog I'll post updates as I go through this process, and some background posts as well as to the little things I've started with, where I got the parts from, challenges I end up facing, as well as both triumphs and mistakes made. Hopefully at the end of it, there'll be some soundclips and videos of it working and getting played through, and then probably posts on modding it.

Anyway, hope anyone reading this enjoys the ride, and I hope it ends up as both something to inspire other people to build an amp, as well as serve as a historical reference for myself