Chinese Iron

[ArcticBreaze]

well the new transformers arrived yesterday, unpacked em this morning and in a philosophical mood thought "Hmmm how many 50 watt amps can you make from a used toyota"

Hope these turn out to be good

I normally use classictone or weber ( either of which i wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone with less shipping costs) pt and ot from weber $139 shipping to Nz $198

mableaudio pt and ot + choke $117 shipping $79 , oh and once they got it in the box (think they may have had them made to order) 3 days delivery time.

 

[djgibson51]

Oh boy. I am watching to see how these turn out. Hoping for the best. Those shipping costs...

 

[ArcticBreaze]

yeah and those prices are in US dollars so add on another 3rd for the exchange rate and we have a very expensive hobby lol, but i do love it
only previous experience with mableaudio was my very first build a 5e3 kit currently priced @ $230, its a strong we amp, since modded almost to death.

I once did a really stupid thing and put metal case 6l6's in it. the way i had to tube sockets wired this put a dead short on the B+ lots of smoke billowed out of the Pt before i could switch it off. But I let it cool off, put the 6v6's back in, way it went no probs.
I suspect the rectifier was the saving grace here. still, strong little trany.

 

[ArcticBreaze]

so i spent most of Saturday building my new work bench (see photo's) amazing what ya can do with an old 3 leaf table.

Sunday rolls around and all eager to start the new amp project. Cant find my wee anvil and staking tool for riveting the turrets, hadn't used it in six months and old workshop is in a mess since I started doing woodwork in there.

Finally found em 3 hrs later where I had already looked 5 times (must of had my eyes shut). so sit down at the new bench slip a turret into the anvil, put the board on top and it isn't long enough.
3mm board and they sent 2mm turrets argh !!!!

 

[MitchMev]

I love the speaker cabs as the legs for the bench!

 

[ArcticBreaze]

I love the speaker cabs as the legs for the bench!

Yes and the work too.

Further to the turret saga : Imagine my embarrassment when I went to get the valve sockets out of the box and found a bag of 3mm turrets. after sending off 3 emails to china telling em they packed the wrong ones. just sent an apology.

 

[JMFahey]

Don´t you have a transformer winder left in Australia?
There used to be many before the cheap import onslaught.
All those great Oz amps used locally sourced iron.
Classic ANZ Valve Guitar Amplifiers
Even if nominally higher prices, you´d save a ton on shipping charges, plus it´s cool to have a local custom supplier you can b1tch with your own personal demands.

 

[ArcticBreaze]

Don´t you have a transformer winder left in Australia?
There used to be many before the cheap import onslaught.
All those great Oz amps used locally sourced iron.
Classic ANZ Valve Guitar Amplifiers
Even if nominally higher prices, you´d save a ton on shipping charges, plus it´s cool to have a local custom supplier you can b1tch with your own personal demands.

Hi there
don't know about OZ, but here in New Zealand there are no commercial winders doing amp stuff, the markets just too small. and getting a one off or even a small run is just out of my price range.
unfortunately the world has moved on. and the likes of Red fern radio, David Reid and now even Ozzy Dick Smith have gone for good. Such a shame really I have several amps with Red Fern transformers and they were really well made and sound good.

Thinking about winding some of my own for a future build, maybe fun

 

[JMFahey]

You should

 

[ArcticBreaze]

Ok Guys here's an update after being set aside for months I put the amp together this weekend, but during power up tests soon realized my Pt must have a 110 volt winding. and I live in a 240 volt world. all secondary voltages are almost double what they should be 11.2 volts on the 6.3 volt heaters and a b+ of over 600 (my meter tops out at 600) runing into my 500 volt caps amazinglly nothin went bang but am abit pissed about it

 

[djgibson51]

Bummer

 

[ArcticBreaze]

GOOD NEWS it was my dvm (now thrown out the window in disgust).
Been running on a 230/110 step down tranny and wondering why i could only get 1/2 a watt from what should be a 40-50 watt amp.

brought my good dvm home from work to follow the ac sig thru the amp and found all voltages (heaters, B+ etc) to be 1/2what the other meter said. So I chucked away the step down and rebiost the 6l6's now its throwing the 50 watt meter hard over at 1/2 volume, seems my preamp may be a bit hot lol .

 

[djgibson51]

Much better

 

[gingertube]

Just a hint on digital multimeters.
When the battery starts going flat, the reference voltage for the built in analogue to digital converter drops and this means it starts to read high.
If your multimeter is reading high, try a new battery before launching it out the window.
I've been caught out this way before.
Cheers,
Ian

 

[ArcticBreaze]

yip I knew about that. unfortunately this one read real high about 189% high and on a brand new battery which I checked and saved before throwing dvm out window. Oh and Its lawn mowing day tomorrow lol that'll fix it!

now if i can just find the parasitic oscillation this amp will be cool.