From Scratch Amp Building Chronicle - 6/13/10 UPDATED!!

[Death by Uberschall]

Steve, please set the DMM to read 1000V AC and measure what comes out of the PT on the high voltage side (where it goes into the bridge rectifier). There's not enough volts - or you loose somewhere too much.
Please measure the whole B+ line too - somewhere is an error . . .

Just an examples: the CF cathode should have 180-200V, not 134V.

For sure, I'm losing something before there - I see that that is way too low...

sorry, I'm cooking for the kids - not too much time atm . . .

No problem - I'm at work anyway and I appreciate any thoughts you have had the time to give on this troubleshooting...

Steve

WAIT, WAIT!!!!!! Before you try all that, have you tried a good swift kick or bang on the chassis a little bit?

 

[cyndicate]

Steve, please set the DMM to read 1000V AC and measure what comes out of the PT on the high voltage side (where it goes into the bridge rectifier). There's not enough volts - or you loose somewhere too much.
Please measure the whole B+ line too - somewhere is an error . . .

Just an examples: the CF cathode should have 180-200V, not 134V.

For sure, I'm losing something before there - I see that that is way too low...

sorry, I'm cooking for the kids - not too much time atm . . .

No problem - I'm at work anyway and I appreciate any thoughts you have had the time to give on this troubleshooting...

Steve

WAIT, WAIT!!!!!! Before you try all that, have you tried a good swift kick or bang on the chassis a little bit?

This definitely fixes things

 

[TheMagicEight]

Steve, please set the DMM to read 1000V AC and measure what comes out of the PT on the high voltage side (where it goes into the bridge rectifier). There's not enough volts - or you loose somewhere too much.
Please measure the whole B+ line too - somewhere is an error . . .

Just an examples: the CF cathode should have 180-200V, not 134V.

For sure, I'm losing something before there - I see that that is way too low...

sorry, I'm cooking for the kids - not too much time atm . . .

No problem - I'm at work anyway and I appreciate any thoughts you have had the time to give on this troubleshooting...

Steve

WAIT, WAIT!!!!!! Before you try all that, have you tried a good swift kick or bang on the chassis a little bit?

This definitely fixes things

I believe the technical term is "percussive maintenance".

 

[Doubleneck]

You must have the patience of a saint, I can't even imagine doing this.

Hope it kicks butt when it's done.

 

[Anonymous]

So... I just got back from spending the afternoon hanging with Mark Cameron. I went to his place to pick up a cab from him and I asked if he'd help me troubleshoot my amp and he said, "Sure, no problem. Bring it up!" Very cool of him...

I learned a ton today about troubleshooting. I'll have a much better set of tools to work with on my next build!

Bottom line is that going back and forth between the amp, layout diagram and schematics, there were a few things wrong that needed to be fixed. Not too many though really! Now the amp works as designed! All the switching works, the loop works, the 3 modes work as well. Only issue is that when my Jose Master is engaged, the regular rod mode master is as well. We discussed several ways of handling that and I'll work on that soon...

Amp sounds really cool in all three modes, but Mark suggested that I run shielded wires in more places than I have now and there is a little stuff we did today that needs to be cleaned up. I need some time to do some tonal tweaking, but the amp is really starting to sound like what I expected it to in the 3 modes! Plenty of gain in the rod mode and even more in the Zen mode and the plex mode really sounds nice and Super Lead-like!

Thanks to Mark for being an awesome dude and a real wizard on troubleshooting! I'm going to take all of his suggestions and implement them!

I know, I know... CLIPS, CLIPS, CLIPS!!!!! - but give me a chance to play the amp a bit, get used to it, do a little tweaking, clean some stuff up, get all the shielded wire in, etc... I need to update my layout with the things that were fixed today as well (eventually!)...

Here are some pictures of the amp in action, so you can see the LEDs in the different switching modes:

I need to get around to building the foot switch as well!

Steve

 

[jcj]

Very cool. Can't wait to hear it

 

[dstroud]

So... I just got back from spending the afternoon hanging with Mark Cameron. I went to his place to pick up a cab from him and I asked if he'd help me troubleshoot my amp and he said, "Sure, no problem. Bring it up!" Very cool of him...

I learned a ton today about troubleshooting. I'll have a much better set of tools to work with on my next build!

Bottom line is that going back and forth between the amp, layout diagram and schematics, there were a few things wrong that needed to be fixed. Not too many though really! Now the amp works as designed! All the switching works, the loop works, the 3 modes work as well. Only issue is that when my Jose Master is engaged, the regular rod mode master is as well. We discussed several ways of handling that and I'll work on that soon...

Amp sounds really cool in all three modes, but Mark suggested that I run shielded wires in more places than I have now and there is a little stuff we did today that needs to be cleaned up. I need some time to do some tonal tweaking, but the amp is really starting to sound like what I expected it to in the 3 modes! Plenty of gain in the rod mode and even more in the Zen mode and the plex mode really sounds nice and Super Lead-like!

Thanks to Mark for being an awesome dude and a real wizard on troubleshooting! I'm going to take all of his suggestions and implement them!

I know, I know... CLIPS, CLIPS, CLIPS!!!!! - but give me a chance to play the amp a bit, get used to it, do a little tweaking, clean some stuff up, get all the shielded wire in, etc... I need to update my layout with the things that were fixed today as well (eventually!)...



I need to get around to building the foot switch as well!

Steve

Awesome man! I will also attest to Mark's coolness - I had a picture up on Myspace of an amp I built and he sent me a message telling me some better ways to run the wires. Told me he'd help me out if I had any wierd oscillations.

 

[Anonymous]

Very cool. Can't wait to hear it

Soon man!

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome man! I will also attest to Mark's coolness - I had a picture up on Myspace of an amp I built and he sent me a message telling me some better ways to run the wires. Told me he'd help me out if I had any wierd oscillations.

Yeah, very cool of him to share his knowledge!

Steve

 

[Khoi]

Awesome man! I will also attest to Mark's coolness - I had a picture up on Myspace of an amp I built and he sent me a message telling me some better ways to run the wires. Told me he'd help me out if I had any wierd oscillations.

Yeah, very cool of him to share his knowledge!

Steve

now if only he could treat his business the same way

Just kidding, I love his work and I'm sure he's been hard at work with his stuff!

But anyways, great to see this finally done! I remember reading it from the beginning and slowly seeing how it was coming together, really awesome man

 

[jcj]

Very cool. Can't wait to hear it

Soon man!

Steve

Wish I knew you were heading up.

Next time

 

[stephen sawall]

That is very cool that he spent the time to get you along. I am sure he saved you a lot of learning on your own.

 

[mentoneman]

rock

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome man! I will also attest to Mark's coolness - I had a picture up on Myspace of an amp I built and he sent me a message telling me some better ways to run the wires. Told me he'd help me out if I had any wierd oscillations.

Yeah, very cool of him to share his knowledge!

Steve

now if only he could treat his business the same way

Just kidding, I love his work and I'm sure he's been hard at work with his stuff!

But anyways, great to see this finally done! I remember reading it from the beginning and slowly seeing how it was coming together, really awesome man

Thanks man! It's working, but still some stuff to do to perfect this...

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

That is very cool that he spent the time to get you along. I am sure he saved you a lot of learning on your own.

What he actually did was accelerate the learning. Watching Mark troubleshoot showed me a different approach than what you can read about...

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Very cool. Can't wait to hear it

Soon man!

Steve

Wish I knew you were heading up.

Next time

Definitely - I should have gotten in touch. It was also a matter of knowing I was gonna be there for a lot of time. I got there at noon and left about 6:40...

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

rock

Steve

 

[Gainfreak]

So... I just got back from spending the afternoon hanging with Mark Cameron. I went to his place to pick up a cab from him and I asked if he'd help me troubleshoot my amp and he said, "Sure, no problem. Bring it up!" Very cool of him...

I learned a ton today about troubleshooting. I'll have a much better set of tools to work with on my next build!

Bottom line is that going back and forth between the amp, layout diagram and schematics, there were a few things wrong that needed to be fixed. Not too many though really! Now the amp works as designed! All the switching works, the loop works, the 3 modes work as well. Only issue is that when my Jose Master is engaged, the regular rod mode master is as well. We discussed several ways of handling that and I'll work on that soon...

Amp sounds really cool in all three modes, but Mark suggested that I run shielded wires in more places than I have now and there is a little stuff we did today that needs to be cleaned up. I need some time to do some tonal tweaking, but the amp is really starting to sound like what I expected it to in the 3 modes! Plenty of gain in the rod mode and even more in the Zen mode and the plex mode really sounds nice and Super Lead-like!

Thanks to Mark for being an awesome dude and a real wizard on troubleshooting! I'm going to take all of his suggestions and implement them!

I know, I know... CLIPS, CLIPS, CLIPS!!!!! - but give me a chance to play the amp a bit, get used to it, do a little tweaking, clean some stuff up, get all the shielded wire in, etc... I need to update my layout with the things that were fixed today as well (eventually!)...

Here are some pictures of the amp in action, so you can see the LEDs in the different switching modes:

I need to get around to building the foot switch as well!

Steve

That is simply AWESOME!!!!

 

[duesentrieb]

Thats really great news, Steve !

 

[yngzaklynch]