So I went and married Thermionic Idler, have been to a couple of DIY meetups with him, and have decided to jump into the deep end of the pool by going straight to a valve guitar amp as my first project. This may be a bit ambitious, considering that I haven't even learned to solder yet, but I just work on the assumption that my dad was right when he told me I could do anything I wanted. He hasn't been wrong yet, except for an ill-advised venture into tai chi, which turns out to be a LOT more difficult than it looks.
The Amp Maker WF-55 appears to be about as simple as a tube amp can be and should be more than adequate for my current purposes. I'll be playing a Danelectro DC-3 through it (and not, at least for the foreseeable future, on stage, though I still have vague dreams of starting an all-girl Beatles cover band called "Eight Days a Month"), so I want something small, warm and fuzzy, like a kitten, only with valves and a volume knob.
Therm's already got ECC83s sitting around. The 6V6 is the recommended output valve, but Therm thinks I should go with an EL34 "because they're everywhere". Before I do that though, I thought I'd see what some people who have a clue what they're doing think. Therm only does hi-fi stuff, so he doesn't necessarily have a feel for what might work best in a guitar amp.
He says he doesn't know off the top of his head how it might alter the sound. I'm planning on a Celestion G10 Vintage driver -- love that ringing tone! Will combining the EL34 and the Vintage driver end up giving me a sound that's too bright and jangly from my lipstick pickups? I understand it's a common valve in British guitar amps, but I'm looking for a sort of happy medium between an American and British sound.
Any advice or thoughts would be very welcome.
The Amp Maker WF-55 appears to be about as simple as a tube amp can be and should be more than adequate for my current purposes. I'll be playing a Danelectro DC-3 through it (and not, at least for the foreseeable future, on stage, though I still have vague dreams of starting an all-girl Beatles cover band called "Eight Days a Month"), so I want something small, warm and fuzzy, like a kitten, only with valves and a volume knob.
Therm's already got ECC83s sitting around. The 6V6 is the recommended output valve, but Therm thinks I should go with an EL34 "because they're everywhere". Before I do that though, I thought I'd see what some people who have a clue what they're doing think. Therm only does hi-fi stuff, so he doesn't necessarily have a feel for what might work best in a guitar amp.
He says he doesn't know off the top of his head how it might alter the sound. I'm planning on a Celestion G10 Vintage driver -- love that ringing tone! Will combining the EL34 and the Vintage driver end up giving me a sound that's too bright and jangly from my lipstick pickups? I understand it's a common valve in British guitar amps, but I'm looking for a sort of happy medium between an American and British sound.
Any advice or thoughts would be very welcome.
Spend a little time perusing AX84: AX84.com - The Cooperative Tube Guitar Amp Project
Best described (my words) and open source guitar amp design. I've built many of their designs & learned a lot.
Rich
Best described (my words) and open source guitar amp design. I've built many of their designs & learned a lot.
Rich
Soldering isn't particularly hard to learn, so I'm sure you'll master it with a little experience. Just give your hands a little time to learn how to do what you're asking of them, and Bob's your uncle!
The last time I paid any attention, the majority of commercial hand-built electronics was actually built by women; it's well known in the manufacturing industry that women are typically better at doing small, precise work than men are. As for hobby electronics, it tends to be predominantly a male hobby, for reasons that are unclear to me, but clearly, they have nothing to do with ability per se, but rather, with personal inclination.
So there's no reason whatsoever why soldering or other construction techniques should pose you a significant challenge.
What worries me more is the potentially deadly nature of high-voltage valve electronics (and this is true for every person who starts out in electronics, quite regardless of gender.)
On the plus side, you have one huge advantage: you have a knowledgeable electronics hobbyist handy, and he happens to have a strong personal interest in keeping you alive and well, in addition to helping you learn your way around electronics construction! 😀
This might be really fun - both of you get to learn something new, and you get to do it together!
Well, my only possibly helpful thought is this: I would suggest focusing on simplicity (rather than perfection) for your very first project. Build the thing, get it working, celebrate. Then use your musician's ears and identify any weaknesses. Address those weaknesses in a revised and improved amp version 2, and so on.
It would help, obviously, to be able to re-use as many version 1 components as possible, in version 2. This is where hubby can start to earn his keep, as he should be able to help you put together a power supply, chassis, output transformer, etc, which can be re-used as your amp evolves.
I've never built any of the AX84 projects, but I understand some of their core projects took a similar approach - if you started with a fully punched chassis, you could do any of several different builds, of varying levels of complexity.
Good luck, and have fun!
-Gnobuddy
The 6V6 is well known in the guitarist community for its undeniable "sweet" tone----used in Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, which are the darling of bedroom guitarists everywhere.
This looks *extremely* interesting, thanks for the tip! A good variety of projects there.
Being female is the least of my worries; I was notorious in my youth for requiring men to beat me arm-wrestling before I'd go out with them (and winning frequently, although that might have been because I hung out mostly with nerdy sorts). I've never been a girly girl (despite my love of sparkly things), and if I can fix cars and plumbing and build my own computers, I'm sure I can manage a soldering iron. It's just a completely new thing for me.
Yes, and he's an *exceptionally* cautious person. It will be good for me to have adult supervision, as it were, since I'm prone to overconfidence and incaution, and a hit from 120V mains in the US was unpleasant enough -- I really don't want to mess around with 230V!
That's *exactly* what I'm hoping. He's got a preamp and monoblock project he's getting ready to tackle, so we can work side by side. Being of essentially opposite temperaments, we balance each other perfectly and always work really well together.
This is an excellent point. My first thoughts when looking at the kit in question were "how do I add reverb and tremolo?" There's a very simple-looking mod to add a tone control that I do plan to include, but other than that, I'll focus on building something very basic that works well, and I can get creative with it from there.
Obviously the thing to do is to build it in a way that will accommodate later additions and alterations. Shaun Daniels of Peak Audio built Therm's magnificent turntable and has his own machine shop, and Steve Cresswell's son is going to be building us a set of Steve's Metronome speakers soon, so I've got all the contacts I need to have panels punched and cabinets built that will accommodate any planned future modifications.
Thanks for your response, it's given me plenty to think about!
Aha! That's useful info. I generally play acoustic, so I'm not that up on amp technology (other than preferring the sound of valves in general). It's the confluence of wanting to join in the DIY fun and fate bringing my old Danelectro back to me that started me down this road.
I think, given that, that I'll stick with the 6V6 for the initial build. There will always be more valves around for me to play with anyway, as both my husband and my best friend actively collect them and can recite the specs of virtually any type from memory.
Thanks for your response!
You're very welcome, glad it helped!
I've taken a couple of 230 V shocks when I was a boy. They were quite nasty then, and I had a strong young heart. Today, one of those would probably kill me. 😱 Definitely don't shock yourself, at all costs!
I've tinkered with solid-state electronics most of my life, but only got into valve stuff recently. The high voltages scared the heck out of me, so I looked for safety information. Surely there had to be something better than the standard 1930's-era advice of "keep one hand in your pocket at all times"?
And there was. I found out that electricians are now required to wear protective high-voltage insulating gloves when they're working. I immediately got a pair these gloves off Ebay, and wear them religiously when working on valve stuff - the only exception being, when the circuit is unplugged from the wall, I've measured with a voltmeter, and know there are no dangerous voltages anywhere.
The gloves are rather awkward, but I'd rather be clumsy than dead, or worse, injured and half-dead.
I have mentioned these gloves a few times in various online conversations about diy valve electronics, but so far, I've failed to make a single convert, at least, as far as I know. Selling safety to macho diy electronics types is apparently a pretty hard sell!
At any rate, Google "class 0 electrical gloves" or "class 00 electrical gloves" if you'd like more information.
Obviously gloves will not guarantee safety (for example, one could still accidentally tip a live chassis off the workbench and into one's lap 😱 ).
But the gloves are one more layer of protection, part of the overall safety procedures I make myself follow. To me, using them is a no-brainer.
Protective eye-wear is another thing to consider, by the way. I don't want an accidental blob of hot solder or the clipped wire end of a resistor flying into my eye, and the same goes for the white-hot sparks that would fly if I accidentally short-circuited a charged capacitor - so I wear safety glasses whenever possible while doing potentially hazardous things with electronics.
-Gnobuddy
BEWARE!! When tube equipment is unplugged, it will STILL RETAIN HIGH VOLTAGES!! They remain on the filter caps for quite awhile; it's best to discharge them through a bleeder resistor to ground via an alligator clip BEFORE working an said gear.
Thanks for bringing that up, here, always worth a repeat!
I always include a bleeder resistor across every power supply capacitor, so that they discharge to safe voltages within a minute or less.
I also always include a high-brightness LED (anything over 5000 mcd will do, and 15,000 mcd is easy to find nowadays) as a warning light in the power supply. I wire it across the last filter cap across the B+ voltage, with an appropriately chosen series resistor to set the LED current.
Today's highly efficient LEDs are bright enough with much less than one milliamp of current draw, so there's really no downside to using one to warn of the presence of dangerous B+ voltage, and the additional safety warning is well worth the minor additional cost.
-Gnobuddy
Unless you are really into doing the electronic design work yourself, plus punching an appropriate chassis and sourcing all the needed parts, these Hoffman kits are the way to go, methinks:
http://hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/perl...thispage=PartsListIndex.htm&ORDER_ID=!ORDERID!
You can select the parts you think are best, and end up with a killer amp.
http://hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/perl...thispage=PartsListIndex.htm&ORDER_ID=!ORDERID!
You can select the parts you think are best, and end up with a killer amp.
My husband agrees that this is an excellent idea. So another few bits to add to my list.
You live in the UK...buy a kit from the UK. Here in NZ it is the shipping costs which just kill the enthusiasm...especially for anything from the US 🙁
I'd definitely recommend AmpMaker's kits. I haven't built the WF-55, but have made 2 N5Xs. These I used as a base to modify in to the AX84 High Octane and Single End Lead, then in to Merlin's High Gain preamp design.
If it were me, and mentioning the 6V6, I'd go the N5X route. It's a bit more complex, but will be more usable and will allow you to extend to differing preamp designs should you wish. I'd also read Merlin's website and take heed of some of the advice (particularly around heater wiring) before starting your build.
Give Barry (at AmpMaker) a call - he's very helpful and will gladly talk you through the options.
Tristan
Many of the projects I read about on diyAudio look like 20-kilo chunks of solid platinum jewelry, and they seem to cost about as much, as well. IMO most of those projects largely serve the same purpose as overpriced jewelry, too. 🙂
That sort of cost, however, is almost entirely optional. The Aussie Guitar Gearheads Forum is one source of plenty of excellent low-cost ideas (check out the Lamington series of guitar amps, the brainchildren of Roly Roper's extraordinary technical concepts, and Grant Wills amazingly minimalist implementations).
In similar vein, here on diyAudio there is "The Hundred-Buck Amp Challenge" thread. It's a long thread with rather poor signal-to-noise ratio overall, but it does contains lots of excellent low-cost ideas sprinkled throughout, as well.
I should add that "low cost" isn't, in any way, synonymous with "poor-sounding". Good engineering is actually about achieving your performance goals without spending any more than you have to.
-Gnobuddy
Suggestion on Soldering
Perhaps you've thought of this already but, I did a quick search on youtube video's "soldering videos" always a good place to search for learning materials.
Another thought I had is: You may want to purchase the Soldering Iron, and if you can afford it a good quality of Iron will be well worth the investment. Anyway, pick up an Iron and some say, 1 meter pieces of different gauge solid core wire to practice on rather then using the components that come with the kit. Practice stripping and cut the wire to various short lengths, then practice making solder connections. Purchasing the basic hand tools like cutters and strippers would give an opportunity to get familiar with those tools also- Should you not have had that chance yet. To make things a little more interesting you could also shape the pieces into, (dare I say jewelery), stick figures etc. and then solder them up.
Only a few basic principles to making a good solder joint: Keep the tip clean by wiping it on the cleaning pad in between joints, wet the tip with the solder prior to making the joint, apply the tip to the component junction and then apply the solder to the contact point of the tip and the components. Pause slightly so the liquid solder has a brief instance to completely flow into the joint. Be sure if you are using a dial adjustable temperature unit, the setting is right for the mass of the components you are soldering. When complete the solder joint should look smooth and shiny without an excess amount of solder.
The videos will go into much greater detail. Best of success to you in your efforts,
colorcat.
Perhaps you've thought of this already but, I did a quick search on youtube video's "soldering videos" always a good place to search for learning materials.
Another thought I had is: You may want to purchase the Soldering Iron, and if you can afford it a good quality of Iron will be well worth the investment. Anyway, pick up an Iron and some say, 1 meter pieces of different gauge solid core wire to practice on rather then using the components that come with the kit. Practice stripping and cut the wire to various short lengths, then practice making solder connections. Purchasing the basic hand tools like cutters and strippers would give an opportunity to get familiar with those tools also- Should you not have had that chance yet. To make things a little more interesting you could also shape the pieces into, (dare I say jewelery), stick figures etc. and then solder them up.
Only a few basic principles to making a good solder joint: Keep the tip clean by wiping it on the cleaning pad in between joints, wet the tip with the solder prior to making the joint, apply the tip to the component junction and then apply the solder to the contact point of the tip and the components. Pause slightly so the liquid solder has a brief instance to completely flow into the joint. Be sure if you are using a dial adjustable temperature unit, the setting is right for the mass of the components you are soldering. When complete the solder joint should look smooth and shiny without an excess amount of solder.
The videos will go into much greater detail. Best of success to you in your efforts,
colorcat.
That's a good site, but since I'm in the UK, the shipping would add too much expense for essentially the same result. One thing I like about the Amp Maker kit is that all the parts are British-made. I'm big on buying local; I'm going to pair it up with a Celestion Vintage 30 driver, also British-made.
That's what I've heard from my Kiwi friends. Their family has multiple bands in and around it (including the Pipi Pickers and Hot Diggity). The instruments are bad enough, but now their daughter (who also has a band with their son) has taken up DIY electronics and is having the same issue you are. Fortunately dad travels internationally for business on a regular basis so is often able to pick things up at the source.)
It's bad enough how many records I have to import from the US because the artists are virtually unknown in the UK. FLAC is all well and good, but when you've got a truly world-class turntable on hand, the vinyl is impossible to resist. (The Koetsu has been replaced with a Van den Hul Black Beauty. Flawless tracking, HIGHLY recommended. Turntable is my husband's, not mine; I'd have gone for a more minimalist look myself, but on the other hand, his is so heavy it's impossible to steal.)
The reason I want to do the WF-55 is that I've never even wielded a soldering iron before. My husband correctly pointed out that I'm chronically overconfident, and that if I start with something very small and very simple, I'll actually be able to finish it and get that sense of accomplishment that tends to lead to trying for more rather than abandoning something half-finished in a cupboard somewhere.
Even starting with this one, I can always recycle the parts into something more complex later. (I hope to eventually wind up with something along the lines of the Princeton; I plan to have the cabinet made larger than necessary to accommodate additional bits as needed.) And spare bits are always welcome around here, since Thermionic Idler is constantly working one one project or another. Nothing is ever wasted in our house!
I've actually watched a good deal of soldering (my best friend is an avid electronics hobbyist and I've spent many hours watching him put things together), so I understand the basic principles.
I won't need to buy a soldering iron at all, as my husband has an OKI induction iron, and he'll be on hand to guide my first efforts. You make a very good point about starting with bits of other things to practice on. As it happens, I already make (rather basic) jewelry, so I imagine I can come up with a variety of interesting bits to practice with. (I have a shocking quantity of spare bits of wire and bent earring hooks and other castoff bits on hand that would be perfect for this sort of thing.)
Thanks for the suggestion. I might be able to kill two birds with one stone here!
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