Nice job, I need to give that a whirl sometime. I'm building a tube bass preamp myself at the moment (1-6SL7, 2-6SN7s), here are my first-ever attempts at doing printed circuit boards:
It will still be a while before I even start ordering and collecting the small componets for the naked double-sided Trace Elliot V8 circuit boards. I'm pretty thrilled though that the preamp is just as exceptional as the power amp. The preamp has a switchable additional gain stage and a good controllable tube compressor.
It seems to me it's not much more trouble to build two, since most of the work is in finding the parts when I already have the circuit boards. So far I have two preamp boards and one poweramp board and one set of transformers.
It seems to me it's not much more trouble to build two, since most of the work is in finding the parts when I already have the circuit boards. So far I have two preamp boards and one poweramp board and one set of transformers.
Those boards look like a great deal. Tube power amps are just not my thing really, but ...
Hey Charlie, fellow talkbass guy here. Nice PCB's! Did you do the fabrication yourself, or have them made to your design?
The turret board was pretty easy to make. Hardest part was filing down the bolt to make the swage, but that was mostly due to my crappy files and slow drill press. Came out good though, the turrets locked into their holes nicely. The epoxy coated G10 is also pretty easy to work with. Cut smoothly with a jig saw. I did the layout in Draftsight which is a free 2D CAD program that resembles AutoCAD pretty closely.
I used OSHpark for fab, who are now handling BatchPCB's order fulfillment as well. The only real downside is having a 3 board minimum, but everything else about using them is pretty painless -- not counting learning how to use KiCad or other board layout software of your choice.
Thanks for the Draftsight tip, that would've come in handy for all the custom mechanical bits I've been making.
I linked this thread on TB, by the way.
Where at? I can't seem to find the thread. I was going to make a thread for this over there once I got it done and it was worth looking at.
Might've just been in some PMs to a couple of F2B owners I know, now that I think of it. Please do post your own thread there when you feel like it though.
Finished as much as I could of the board for this project. I was short the small caps for the treble control and the bright/deep switches. I think it came out pretty good. I wasn't happy with the layout around the two big caps in the tonestack, and I underestimated the size of the high current diodes for the ground loop breaker. Not bad for my first turret board.
I also attached a pic of my other project, which includes my first PCB design. That will get a thread here as soon it's done, as well. It's a stereo, buffered volume control featuring turn-on/off muting via shorting relay and an Alps Blue Velvet volume control.
By the way, sorry for the crap photos. I need better lighting and a real camera.
I also attached a pic of my other project, which includes my first PCB design. That will get a thread here as soon it's done, as well. It's a stereo, buffered volume control featuring turn-on/off muting via shorting relay and an Alps Blue Velvet volume control.
By the way, sorry for the crap photos. I need better lighting and a real camera.
Attachments
That's very interesting; I assume that's the power transformer for the preamp? What are the secondaries' voltages and currents?
When I build the Trace Elliot V8 I intend to put it on two chassis: preamp and power amp. And I want the preamp to have its own power supply, so that the stock power transformer on the power amp power supply can handle the extra heater current (at the least) of switching from 8 KT88's to 8 KT120's. But the V8 has 7 dual-triode preamp tubes and 1 driver, then the 8 outputs. So would one of these preamp power transformers suffice, or would I need two?
I have some other big bass guitar amps I might make similar changes to, basically adding a seperate power supply just for the preamp.
When I build the Trace Elliot V8 I intend to put it on two chassis: preamp and power amp. And I want the preamp to have its own power supply, so that the stock power transformer on the power amp power supply can handle the extra heater current (at the least) of switching from 8 KT88's to 8 KT120's. But the V8 has 7 dual-triode preamp tubes and 1 driver, then the 8 outputs. So would one of these preamp power transformers suffice, or would I need two?
I have some other big bass guitar amps I might make similar changes to, basically adding a seperate power supply just for the preamp.
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