Let's build an amp! Greg's journey to electrocution

[liv_rong]

Baller.

[Greg_L]

Now shit's getting real....

With the filter caps installed, I ran a few power supply wires that need to go down before the board goes in. My wife got me some of those command strip things. I found a way to use them.

This shows three of the major power supply ground connections. Bias supply, center taps, and first three filter node grounds. The red wire running across is the "A" power node coming right off the rectifier socket to the first filter caps.


This is the other ground point. This grounds the preamps, everything on the ground rod, and the reverb tranny.


So with that "layer" done, it's time to get to this thing...


It's A LOT of little tiny bits and pieces, and they have to be done perfectly. There is no room for error with this part of the build. I just started one at a time from right to left.


Little more...


This is as far as I got and I had to call it for the night. This part of the board pretty much covers the normal channel, some of the vibrato channel first stage, and some of the reverb driver. Still a long way to go....but so far so good.


And right on cue, the tip on my soldering iron is starting to erode away. It's still working but this is no time for anything less than fully functional. So tomorrow I'm gonna go find another tip. That's enough for today.

[Minerman]

Wow Greg, this is looking great man, & considering it's your first build, I think it looks phenomenal....

Very impressive, & I really like how you're explaining how it all works as you go along man...

Really, really cool man...

[Greg_L]

Wow Greg, this is looking great man, & considering it's your first build, I think it looks phenomenal....

Very impressive, & I really like how you're explaining how it all works as you go along man...

Really, really cool man...

Thanks miner. I think maybe this week we'll see if it works....

[Lt. Bob]

just an aside ..... those little dinky filter caps ain't gonna kill ya' ...... that's more with the big huge can caps some amps use ....... which I also don't believe are lethal seeing as how you can't find any articles about someone dying from them.

You've seen me dispute this before ....... those caps'll bite ya' pretty good and also make you damage your hand when you jerk back and slam your hand into something ...... but I personally believe the "OMG you're gonna die!!" thing to be way overblown.

As it has been from the beginning .... you're doing great work and it's fun to watch ....... you're rolling right along.

[WhiskeyJack]

Good job Greg that thing is looking pretty amazing! Forgive my ignorace but the turret board you are building looks like it is some sort of paper or cardboard kind of looking stuff. Why not the green PCI board or whatever ?

[JD01]

Greg - are you going to take a video of the very first time you turn this on and try and play a chord?

[WhiskeyJack]

Greg - are you going to take a video of the very first time you turn this on and try and play a chord?

I asked him already and the answer was a pretty clear no.

[Greg_L]

just an aside ..... those little dinky filter caps ain't gonna kill ya' ...... that's more with the big huge can caps some amps use ....... which I also don't believe are lethal seeing as how you can't find any articles about someone dying from them.

You've seen me dispute this before ....... those caps'll bite ya' pretty good and also make you damage your hand when you jerk back and slam your hand into something ...... but I personally believe the "OMG you're gonna die!!" thing to be way overblown.

As it has been from the beginning .... you're doing great work and it's fun to watch ....... you're rolling right along.

Thanks man.

I think the filter cap shock thing just depends on how it gets you. If the voltage goes through your hand to ground, it'll just jolt you real bad. If for some reason it has to cross your chest to get to ground, then that can potentially fuck up your heart rhythm. That's why they say to do your tinkering with a live amp one-handed. A medical heart defibrillator kicks out between 500 and 1000 volts. An amp's power transformer can put out 600-700 volts...or more for some amps. That's well within range to jockey with your heart rhythm if it hits you right.

Good job Greg that thing is looking pretty amazing! Forgive my ignorace but the turret board you are building looks like it is some sort of paper or cardboard kind of looking stuff. Why not the green PCI board or whatever ?

Fender amps came with these hard paper like fiberboard things. It's like plastic infused compressed paper with steel eyelets. It's fairly rigid. I suspect the Weber people wanted to keep it authentic to the original Fender amps. It's not hard to deal with.

[Greg_L]

And for today's update....


....a little more...



....a little more....



....and done!!!!



The ugly backside...



So now I'm going to go over it again with a fine tooth comb and make sure I didn't miss anything. I think I got it right. But we'll see. I know my solders are very good. My wire lengths should be more than sufficient for hook up. I used Marshall colors for the tube side wiring. Blue - plates. Green - grids. Yellow - cathodes. But I ran out of wire 3/4 through so I just freelanced the colors after that. Lol. I'll have to go through and make some notes.

So next up....a lot of wire hookups.

[Lt. Bob]

That's why they say to do your tinkering with a live amp one-handed. A medical heart defibrillator kicks out between 500 and 1000 volts. An amp's power transformer can put out 600-700 volts...or more for some amps. That's well within range to jockey with your heart rhythm if it hits you right.

I wasn't talking about a live amp ..... you'd best be careful of you're tinkering with a live amp ...... in that case you even have the possibility to get bit by wall voltage ...... which definitely can kill you although, as you said, it'd have to pass thru your heart.
I will fool with a live amp but I'm uber careful.

I'm just talking about undischarged caps when the power is off ..... almost by definition it can't go thru your heart because you have to short the leads of the cap with your skin ..... butthere is a full-blown OMG reaction about those caps even with power off and I say it's a way overreaction

These are nice pics man ..... easy to see what you're doing

[rayc]

All as clear as mud for my mind - so much so that the only question that came to mind was - why right to left?

[Greg_L]

I wasn't talking about a live amp ..... you'd best be careful of you're tinkering with a live amp ...... in that case you even have the possibility to get bit by wall voltage ...... which definitely can kill you although, as you said, it'd have to pass thru your heart.
I will fool with a live amp but I'm uber careful.

I'm just talking about undischarged caps when the power is off ..... almost by definition it can't go thru your heart because you have to short the leads of the cap with your skin ..... butthere is a full-blown OMG reaction about those caps even with power off and I say it's a way overreaction

These are nice pics man ..... easy to see what you're doing

Right right right. I can juggle these filter caps and nothing will happen because they've never been charged. I can touch them all I want. Once they've been charged though, they store that charge for a little while. They'll slowly discharge by themselves or you can discharge them with a jumper wire, but they are pretty "hot" right when you turn an amp off. And that's when you have to be careful with them. Like say you're diagnosing an amp, you play it a bit, and turn it off to get to work. Those caps will be charged. They can bite you pretty good. They discharge on their own pretty quickly though.

[Greg_L]

All as clear as mud for my mind - so much so that the only question that came to mind was - why right to left?

That's just the way I had the amp oriented. The signal flows from right to left the way it was sitting on the table.

[einstein magoo]

Man you have populated the shit out of that board! Nice work!

[Greg_L]

Man you have populated the shit out of that board! Nice work!

Thanks. I'm in the home stretch.


This morning's work...

The board is in and ready to be connected. Lots of wires....



This is where things get maddening. I took great care in being organized and thoughtful and keeping things nice and tidy. Then the board happened. This jumble of wires are from the rectifier to the "A" node, to the standby switch, through the choke, to the "B" node, and the output transformer primary is in there too. All of this shit needs to connect on the end of the board. I tried to keep it as organized and tidy as I could. I could have shortened the wires some, not much, but I wanted that bundle to be "flexible" enough to allow the board to be lifted while it's all still connected. But it's all there, all hooked up. The orange and purple wires are the power tube grids. The lime green is the screen.


And the rest of the tube sockets.









The location and layout of the board leaves me with no choice but to have some tube socket wires crossing each other. I don't think that will be a huge problem as real Deluxe Reverbs look like a blind five year old wired them up inside, but we'll see. As long as nothing is crossing heater wires, I should be okay. And nothing is.

So now I've definitely got to get a new soldering iron tip. So I'm off to Harbor Freight for that thing. All that's left now are wiring the pots and shielded cable for the input jacks, and maybe by tonight, I'll be ready to fire it up!!!!

[WhiskeyJack]

Thing of beauty buddy boy.

[JD01]

That looks amazing, Greg.

[Minerman]

Wow Greg, that looks great...You're very organized & I appreciate all the explanations, along with the labels with the masking tape dude...Very nice...


There's something I just can't quite get my head around though, the faceplate & knobs on that thing look very strange for an amp of yours...I'm so used to seeing the gold faceplate & knobs, it's gonna take some time for me to get used to it...

Super job man, I'm actually excited & wanna hear that thing man...

[Greg_L]

Thing of beauty buddy boy.

That looks amazing, Greg.

Wow Greg, that looks great...You're very organized & I appreciate all the explanations, along with the labels with the masking tape dude...Very nice...


There's something I just can't quite get my head around though, the faceplate & knobs on that thing look very strange for an amp of yours...I'm so used to seeing the gold faceplate & knobs, it's gonna take some time for me to get used to it...

Super job man, I'm actually excited & wanna hear that thing man...

Thank you guys. Yeah it looks not bad. Let's hope it works. I'll take ugly and sounding great over pretty and non working. Lol.


And with that said....I just soldered my last wire (I think. I hope).

Wired up the front of the chassis this afternoon. Smoking pots....






And here it is.....complete gut shot. Everything from input jack to speaker jack, connected.



I've visually inspected every single solder joint on this thing. It all looks good. I'm gonna take a few hours off and go back over it with the schematic to double-check and make sure all the wires are going to where they need to go.

Maybe tonight, probably tomorrow, it gets the juice. I have a checklist/procedure to fire it up to check voltages before tubes go in and sound hopefully gets made.