I didn't forget how to do it or how sucky this is. It's only three measly tube sockets, and somehow it seemed more bitchy than my Deluxe Reverb, which is nine tube sockets. But it's done, it passes the continuity test. Yay! On to funner things.
I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Hey Greg, what'd you do friday night? Oh man! Lemme tell ya, it was wild. I did heater wiring!
I didn't forget how to do it or how sucky this is. It's only three measly tube sockets, and somehow it seemed more bitchy than my Deluxe Reverb, which is nine tube sockets. But it's done, it passes the continuity test. Yay! On to funner things.
I didn't forget how to do it or how sucky this is. It's only three measly tube sockets, and somehow it seemed more bitchy than my Deluxe Reverb, which is nine tube sockets. But it's done, it passes the continuity test. Yay! On to funner things.
Rebel Yell
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WhiskeyJack
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Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Lol. Looks good man.
Why is it called heater wiring?! Is that the twisted up licorice looking stuff?!
Why is it called heater wiring?! Is that the twisted up licorice looking stuff?!
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Lol yeah. The twisted wires carry A/C current to light the heaters. It's "heater wiring"....or it's called "filament wiring".WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 2:02 pm Lol. Looks good man.
Why is it called heater wiring?! Is that the twisted up licorice looking stuff?!
The filaments/heaters are the light bulb looking part of a tube. That's what you actually see in a glowing tube. When you flip an amp on and gotta wait a few seconds for it to make sound, that's the heaters lighting/warming up. They light up with current, and the heat they put off excites the cathode which is sitting there with piles of electrons stuck to it. As the cathode gets hotter and hotter, those electrons are sitting there trembling in anticipation. Then a guitar signal hits the grid part of the tube and the super hot negatively charged electrons on the cathode fly across the tube and slam themselves into the very positively charged plate. None of this can happen without the heaters heating up the cathode, and that's what those little twisty wires do.
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
A lot of work for a little progress today....
My new eyelet board, vertical reverb tank, and small odds and ends showed up today.
Part of today's task was isolating the jacks so nothing grounds to the chassis. Seems simple, and it is, but it takes some irreversible work.
First the easy stuff. Install the standoffs to position the board. This was great because they actually gave me standoffs and holes to use. On the last build I had to make my own standoffs and drill my own holes and all that shit.
And the board will live like this.
Now to isolate all those jacks. The reverb RCA jacks were easy. They are ready for isolation. I just had to isolate the barrel part with a tiny sliver of tape to keep it from touching the chassis. These are the reverb ins and outs and the footswitch jack....isolated.
To insulate all these 1/4" jacks, I had to use these fiber, shouldered washers.
For the shoulder portion to slip through the chassis, the holes had to be enlarged to 1/2". This is the irreversible part. The black mark on the step-bit is how far it has to go.
Before and after
And done. Not much to look at, but these jacks are totally isolated...verified with an ohmmeter. No continuity to chassis.
So now, the point of all this, is to use a floating buss-bar ground that collects grounds and sends them to appropriate places so there are no loops. Hum is the devil. This worked great on my last build, that amp is dead quiet, so we'll try it here too. Next we'll start populating the board and getting wires ready.
My new eyelet board, vertical reverb tank, and small odds and ends showed up today.
Part of today's task was isolating the jacks so nothing grounds to the chassis. Seems simple, and it is, but it takes some irreversible work.
First the easy stuff. Install the standoffs to position the board. This was great because they actually gave me standoffs and holes to use. On the last build I had to make my own standoffs and drill my own holes and all that shit.
And the board will live like this.
Now to isolate all those jacks. The reverb RCA jacks were easy. They are ready for isolation. I just had to isolate the barrel part with a tiny sliver of tape to keep it from touching the chassis. These are the reverb ins and outs and the footswitch jack....isolated.
To insulate all these 1/4" jacks, I had to use these fiber, shouldered washers.
For the shoulder portion to slip through the chassis, the holes had to be enlarged to 1/2". This is the irreversible part. The black mark on the step-bit is how far it has to go.
Before and after
And done. Not much to look at, but these jacks are totally isolated...verified with an ohmmeter. No continuity to chassis.
So now, the point of all this, is to use a floating buss-bar ground that collects grounds and sends them to appropriate places so there are no loops. Hum is the devil. This worked great on my last build, that amp is dead quiet, so we'll try it here too. Next we'll start populating the board and getting wires ready.
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
This makes me miss Uncle Doug even more. Nice work Greg - VERY nice work.
Cheers
rayc
rayc
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Thanks, I hope ol Uncle Doug is okay. He hasn't done a vid in a while. I'd say his vids alone have been the very best for getting me going on this stuff.
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Pro-tip: soldering irons are really hot.
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
You are going to have to use a lot more flux if you want to solder your fingers together correctly.
Another toy that helped destroy the elder race of man..forget about your silly whim it doesn't fit the plan.
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Fuck a duck. I bet that stung.
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WhiskeyJack
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Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
It happened so fast I heard the sizzle before I even felt it. I was like solder, solder, solder..."that don't sound right....FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!"
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Holy hell that made me cringe :O
This is a great-looking project so far, seared thumb aside.
This is a great-looking project so far, seared thumb aside.
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Perhaps your could name this project the Seared Reverb or the Sucked Thumb.
Cheers
rayc
rayc
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Ha yeah...Searing Reverburn!
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Cool! I will watch this thread with my eyes.
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Lol ok back to this thing....
Did a bunch of shit over the past few nights. Sealed up the burned thumb with about twenty coats of new-skin and got to work.
At this point I gotta make a call on the grounding scheme. I'm going with the multiple-star-buss-rod-lifted-ground plan. I just sort of made that up. Basically, like my amp build, grounds will be grouped by their system and run down a "river" to a slightly elevated chassis ground point. Elevated electrically, not really literally.
To lift the ground a little, I'm gonna run the final ground point through this 5w/15ohm resistor. The diodes in parallel will act as a safety shunt should all hell break loose somewhere and full wall power short to the chassis. The fuse will still blow instead of melting down the ground lift network. Should all of this be an unnecessary clusterfuck, I can bypass it with a basic piece of wire. The point of all this is to block ground loop hum potential between two chassis earthed devices passing the same signal.
This is the ground "river". It's a high-tech system, aka, a piece of wire coat hanger. This buss will float behind the pots and it's suspended by a few hard-wire connections to specific pot lugs. Almost everything will ground to this buss wire....but it touches nothing. It will terminate through the resistor lift thing to chassis as far away from the mains power as possible.
The black wires are shielded cable coming off the input jack. They will connect to stuff later, but they gotta go in now or I'll never get them in later. And a few preliminary pot connections. You can see on the right where the ground lift bolts to chassis at the end of the ground buss.
I bought one of these IEC plugs so I can use detachable power cords - like everything uses now. That big hole in the chassis is for a permanent pass-through power cord. I don't mind that, but it's a lot of cord permanently hanging off the thing. But alas, it won't work. There's just no room on the power side of the chassis to bore a big ol hole and not have wall power way too close to other stuff. Also, the back panel of the cabinet would make it really hard to actually use that setup. You can't get your hand back there. I should have checked that first. Oh well. So I'll save the IEC plug for another day and just hardwire it.
And with all that other stuff done, time to move on to this thing. It's color-coded!
Red wires - high voltage and plate wires.
Blue wires - tube grids - sensitive guitar signal.
Yellow wires - cathode and cathode bypass to ground.
Black wires - high voltage/signal grounds.
White wires - potentiometer lugs.
There's more, but they're shielded wires coming off the jacks and will pass under or through the board.
And now we're really close! Gotta get this thing in the chassis and make about ten thousand connections.
Did a bunch of shit over the past few nights. Sealed up the burned thumb with about twenty coats of new-skin and got to work.
At this point I gotta make a call on the grounding scheme. I'm going with the multiple-star-buss-rod-lifted-ground plan. I just sort of made that up. Basically, like my amp build, grounds will be grouped by their system and run down a "river" to a slightly elevated chassis ground point. Elevated electrically, not really literally.
To lift the ground a little, I'm gonna run the final ground point through this 5w/15ohm resistor. The diodes in parallel will act as a safety shunt should all hell break loose somewhere and full wall power short to the chassis. The fuse will still blow instead of melting down the ground lift network. Should all of this be an unnecessary clusterfuck, I can bypass it with a basic piece of wire. The point of all this is to block ground loop hum potential between two chassis earthed devices passing the same signal.
This is the ground "river". It's a high-tech system, aka, a piece of wire coat hanger. This buss will float behind the pots and it's suspended by a few hard-wire connections to specific pot lugs. Almost everything will ground to this buss wire....but it touches nothing. It will terminate through the resistor lift thing to chassis as far away from the mains power as possible.
The black wires are shielded cable coming off the input jack. They will connect to stuff later, but they gotta go in now or I'll never get them in later. And a few preliminary pot connections. You can see on the right where the ground lift bolts to chassis at the end of the ground buss.
I bought one of these IEC plugs so I can use detachable power cords - like everything uses now. That big hole in the chassis is for a permanent pass-through power cord. I don't mind that, but it's a lot of cord permanently hanging off the thing. But alas, it won't work. There's just no room on the power side of the chassis to bore a big ol hole and not have wall power way too close to other stuff. Also, the back panel of the cabinet would make it really hard to actually use that setup. You can't get your hand back there. I should have checked that first. Oh well. So I'll save the IEC plug for another day and just hardwire it.
And with all that other stuff done, time to move on to this thing. It's color-coded!
Red wires - high voltage and plate wires.
Blue wires - tube grids - sensitive guitar signal.
Yellow wires - cathode and cathode bypass to ground.
Black wires - high voltage/signal grounds.
White wires - potentiometer lugs.
There's more, but they're shielded wires coming off the jacks and will pass under or through the board.
And now we're really close! Gotta get this thing in the chassis and make about ten thousand connections.
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
Nice! Pretty soon you'll be ready to don your welding helmet and push the power button with a broom stick. LOl!
Another toy that helped destroy the elder race of man..forget about your silly whim it doesn't fit the plan.
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
I'm definitely getting close to that.
Soooo...the board is in and all the wires are connected.
Pot side...
Tube socket side...
Power cord....
The whole fucking shebang! Everything is done, wired, connected, double-checked, and verified. All grounds have continuity. Everything seems good to go. My color-coding the wires actually made hook-ups a breeze. Will do that again for sure. And this waxy cloth pushback wire is awesome. So easy to deal with.
Next, clean this fucking table up, and get it ready for electricity!
Rebel Yell
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
It looks pretty solid. Not having to strip all of the ends on the cloth pushback wire is a definite bonus.
Another toy that helped destroy the elder race of man..forget about your silly whim it doesn't fit the plan.
Re: I didn't get electrocuted the first time...let's try another!!!
I've used some cloth wire that's a gross frayed pain in the ass. This coated stuff is wonderful, and it's stiff so it holds it's shape if you need to route it a certain way. Anything I build in the future will use this wire.
And for the moment of truth.....workspace cleaned, light bulb limiter, variac, fire extinguisher.....and..........flip the switch.....turn up the variac.....
The pilot light is on!
Nothing is on fire. No smoke, crackles, pops, or hisses. This is good. No tubes in yet. Slowly bring up the voltage in steps to let the filter caps get settled in. Quick check of voltages in certain spots, everything seems as expected. This is good. In go the tubes, and......
IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!
First power up, and success! So far. It turns on, accepts full wall voltage, nothing has exploded. Everything seems okay so far. Tomorrow we run sound through it. There's still a laundry list of things that can be wrong with it, but just getting it turned on and lit up without a mushroom cloud is a success.
Rebel Yell