Hi all,
I have just go my SSE up and running on the bench and it sounds absolutely great.
Thanks to all here and George for the help, I am just over the moon at the moment..
I had couple of issues in getting it running:
I followed Ty Bowers checkout procedure without the tube in and all the resistances checked out perfectly but when I went to measure the voltages I found the the fuse was popping as soon as I plugged in the power transformer.
After checking over the board and seeing nothing wrong and disconnecting filament wires etc., I decided to pull out the hexfreds and sure enough, that sorted it out.
One of them was reading a short in both directions and the other seemed to be reading a 0.3v drop in both directions.
I did not have the SS rectification switch or jumper wired and I had no rectifier tube in so they weren't really being used
So what did I do to blow them?
Could I have heated them up too much when I soldered them or can static blow them ( they do come in an anti-static bag)?
The voltages are:
Line voltage 243vac
B+ 442 vdc
Traffo 388 vac
12at7 filament 6.8vac
12at7 plates 304,309 vdc
5ar4 filament 5.7vac
As you can see, the filament voltages are a bit high but I did it at work and the line voltage at the factory is high at 243vac
The line voltage at home is only 228vac so that should be just fine.
One thing that concerns me is that the 12AT7 flashes brightly for about half a second around the base of the tube when the transformer is plugged in and then after a few seconds you can see the heaters slowly glowing up at the top of the tube.
Is that the heaters or is something arcing over at the bottom? It doesn't happen at the top where you can see the filaments sticking out.
Is it the high voltage?
Do I need to get a CL-90?
(Another 20 euro delivery charge on a 2 euro part, I've had a few of those already!)
Thanks again for all your help.
George
I have just go my SSE up and running on the bench and it sounds absolutely great.
Thanks to all here and George for the help, I am just over the moon at the moment..

I had couple of issues in getting it running:
I followed Ty Bowers checkout procedure without the tube in and all the resistances checked out perfectly but when I went to measure the voltages I found the the fuse was popping as soon as I plugged in the power transformer.
After checking over the board and seeing nothing wrong and disconnecting filament wires etc., I decided to pull out the hexfreds and sure enough, that sorted it out.
One of them was reading a short in both directions and the other seemed to be reading a 0.3v drop in both directions.
I did not have the SS rectification switch or jumper wired and I had no rectifier tube in so they weren't really being used
So what did I do to blow them?
Could I have heated them up too much when I soldered them or can static blow them ( they do come in an anti-static bag)?
The voltages are:
Line voltage 243vac
B+ 442 vdc
Traffo 388 vac
12at7 filament 6.8vac
12at7 plates 304,309 vdc
5ar4 filament 5.7vac
As you can see, the filament voltages are a bit high but I did it at work and the line voltage at the factory is high at 243vac
The line voltage at home is only 228vac so that should be just fine.
One thing that concerns me is that the 12AT7 flashes brightly for about half a second around the base of the tube when the transformer is plugged in and then after a few seconds you can see the heaters slowly glowing up at the top of the tube.
Is that the heaters or is something arcing over at the bottom? It doesn't happen at the top where you can see the filaments sticking out.
Is it the high voltage?
Do I need to get a CL-90?
(Another 20 euro delivery charge on a 2 euro part, I've had a few of those already!)
Thanks again for all your help.
George