NAD: Let's try this again, Marshall Origin 50 Round 2

[Matt300ZXT]

It is sooooo satisfying to popular a board, whether it be turret or pcb. I remember years ago, I purchased one of those SLO clone kits that were real big, probably around 2006 or so if I had to guess. It was so relaxing to grab a component, bend the legs on caps and resistors and slide them into place and solder them in. I also find it very relaxing to do when I work on old video game consoles.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Clips down the road? Would be awesome to hear it.

At some point I would like to.
All my stuff to record decently is stuffed in the back of the closet for the time being and my phone doesn't do anything justice. Once I get my garage converted to my music space I'll be able to set up my mics and such permanently. I took the first big step towards that Sunday and bough a large shed. That'll become my workshop instead of the garage.

 

[PBGas]

This is a very cool mod and a great way to keep the stock board intact. I have a used Origin 50 at the store and will grab that and put my DSL20 that I was given back into our inventory. I'd rather do up a mod with this setup. Looks like a lot of fun!

 

[MadAsAHatter]

This is a very cool mod and a great way to keep the stock board intact. I have a used Origin 50 at the store and will grab that and put my DSL20 that I was given back into our inventory. I'd rather do up a mod with this setup. Looks like a lot of fun!

Yeah it was a fun and pretty straight forward project. All I needed to do was populate the board. Still need that one wire harness for the 8 pin connectors. I'm going to order some parts for a SLO clone one day this week so I'll get tack it on to that order.

Not counting the donor amp and including all tax & shipping I put about $375 into this project.
Technically I only spent an extra $175 since I had $200 in point build up to waste on something.

When you buy the board from Jason / evolveDIY you'll get the documents and Bill of Materials. Not everything had part numbers and some items were out of stock so I had to find alternates. I made my own spreadsheet to track spending and whatnot. It has prices, part numbers and where I bought everything from. I can send that to you if you want.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

It is sooooo satisfying to popular a board, whether it be turret or pcb. I remember years ago, I purchased one of those SLO clone kits that were real big, probably around 2006 or so if I had to guess. It was so relaxing to grab a component, bend the legs on caps and resistors and slide them into place and solder them in. I also find it very relaxing to do when I work on old video game consoles.

It is very satisfying as you make progress populating everything. SO far I've done a PCB, turret board, and tag strips. I like turret boards over PCB just because I don't have to keep flipping the board to solder. And I've learned that tag strips are a pain in the ass and I absolutely hate them.

 

[Devin]

Can't wait to hear clips of it kimg


Pretty much all the modded Origin clips I've heard have fucked

 

[PBGas]

Yeah it was a fun and pretty straight forward project. All I needed to do was populate the board. Still need that one wire harness for the 8 pin connectors. I'm going to order some parts for a SLO clone one day this week so I'll get tack it on to that order.

Not counting the donor amp and including all tax & shipping I put about $375 into this project.
Technically I only spent an extra $175 since I had $200 in point build up to waste on something.

When you buy the board from Jason / evolveDIY you'll get the documents and Bill of Materials. Not everything had part numbers and some items were out of stock so I had to find alternates. I made my own spreadsheet to track spending and whatnot. It has prices, part numbers and where I bought everything from. I can send that to you if you want.

That would be very much appreciated!!! Much thanks for your help!

 

[skoora]

I’ve never populated a PCB, only turret board. Are you soldering from the top? What about multi pin items like tube sockets. Do you just need to get one pin so it holds in place, then get the rest?

 

[MadAsAHatter]

I’ve never populated a PCB, only turret board. Are you soldering from the top? What about multi pin items like tune sockets. Do you just need to get one pin so it holds in place, then get the rest?

No, I solder from the bottom. Once I fit the component on the PCB I bend the legs a little to hold it in place. I tack one lead just to keep it from moving around, solder the other lead, then go back and fully solder the one I tacked. You could also use something like Blu Tac (reusable putty) to hold things in place. That works well for larger components like relays and such.

The tube sockets on this board fit pretty tightly so friction held them in place while I soldered. Otherwise just use Blu Tac to hold them in.

The pots were a little trickier since they are PCB mounted and all had to line up to fit in the chassis correctly. I mounted the pots to the outside of the chassis where they were flipped upside down of how they'd mount inside the chassis. Then fit the PCB onto them and soldered everything.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

I got my missing connector harness Thursday. I couldn't find one with connectors on both ends, just one end and open wires on the other. Since I don't have crimpers to do the open end, I bough 2 and spliced them together in the middle. That seems to work just fine.

So I got the harness situated and plugged in this morning. I fired it up, did the initial checks, got it biased and gave it a short test run. I'm happy to say everything worked on the first go round.

It's still early morning so I just dicked around for about 10 minuets to make sure everything worked. I didn't crank it or anything so I can't comment too much on sound yet. I can say low gain mode seems to sit somewhere between JTM and JCM. High gain mode sits in the JCM800 camp. The variable slope is subtle, but noticeable. The cathode bypass/fat cap boost is similar; subtle but noticeable. To my ear it adds a hint of bass and opens up the top end. Diode clipping as expected has a slight volume drop when engaged. The rest of the knobs have a nice sweep range on them.

So the amp itself is complete and fully functional, but I'm not 100% done with everything. I still need to recover the headshell. That's going to have to wait a bit because I don't have a work area to do it right now. I cleared out and took down my old storage shed yesterday to make way for a new one. So all the stuff that was in there is now crammed in my normal workshop area (my garage) all up in the way.

Anyway, this was a very fun little project. Since everything was PCB mounted and wires were harness or spade connectors, it was akin to building a large pedal. All the components are labeled where they go on the PCB so it was "paint by numbers." The biggest "difficulty" was making sure I put the filter caps and tube sockets in the right orientation.

So if anyone is thinking about building an amp, but is nervous jumping straight in to a full build this would be a good place to start. I'd definitely recommend it. And it wasn't overly expensive. Depending on how much you spend on the donor amp it should come out to $600-$700 total, not including shipping/tax.

If you do decided you want to give this project a go, a basic Bill of Materials is provided. I want to note that part numbers are given for most components, but not everything. And of course not all components are available from a single vendor. So if you're interest I made my own spreadsheet that tracks all part numbers, vendors, prices, etc. PM me and I'll be happy to send it to you.