• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

S5 Electronics Upgrade

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emretelci

emretelci

Member
Joined 2015
Hi,

Many things have been said here before me about upgrading the s5 electronics tube amplifiers. I have an 16LS model that I am building with upgraded parts right now, and I wanted to share my experience with you guys. I hope you will find some information useful... I also think that S5 Electronics is already fine and sounding great even without upgrading... My aim is only helping those newbies trying to upgrade the same model...

Here are all the parts (except for some resistors and the volume potentiometer)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Some major upgrades are using Edcor transformers, replacing all the capacitors with better ones, replacing the potentiometers with ALPS, and adding custom vu-meters...

I'll keep posting :)
 
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emretelci

emretelci

Member
Joined 2015
Capacitor Upgrades

Here is my solution for the capacitor upgrade. I bought all the parts from tubedepot.com in a single order.

On the picture the left capacitors are kit's original capacitors. And the right ones are the upgraded ones. Notice they are bigger.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Also bigger parts means, you may need to modify the pcb a little bit because they wont fit the board easily. Be prepared to this. Not a problem, can easily be solved...

Also here is the parts list for all the capacitors. And please remember again this list is for S5 Electronics, 16LS model and the ton control kit.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


First, I want to talk about bigger capacitors. They are called electrolytic and you can identify (on the kit) them as they are bigger, blue cylindrical capacitors.

Here are the values of them (original capacitors of the kit:)
Originally On main PCB
22 uF 250V Electrolytic
100 uF 250V Electrolytic
220 uF 250V Electrolytic

Originally On Tone Control PCB
22 uF 250V


And here is the change I made:
For Main Board
F&T Germany 100µF / 350V
F&T Germany 220µF / 300V
F&T Germany 220µF / 300V

For Ton Control Board
F&T Germany 100µF / 350V

So basically, 22 uF becomes 100 uF, 100 uF becomes 220 uF. This is the only capacitance value chance.

For smaller caps, (Ceramic Disc) I have chosen same capacitance value but bigger volts. This is ok. Same values, but higher volts are ok on capacitors. It is not an upgrade issue. The reason I have chosen bigger volts, is not because it will be better, I just could not find lover volts. This means you don't have to chose higher volts...

There are also many more options, more brands, better caps. But this list is just fine and a lot better than the kit's original capacitors. I also like Orange Drops a lot.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


I am telling again that if you own the kit, the kit is already perfect. You don't need to replace the capacitors. I am just trying to help newbies (like I was a short time ago) who wants to upgrade..

Good luck with your capacitor upgrade. :camoufl:
 
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