The Hundred-Buck Amp Challenge

Back to the amp. Almost looks scary to wire up. Built a jig to make it easier than to work in a box.

5E318Wattjig01.jpg
 
Almost looks scary to wire up.

It looks far too neat and clean. You need some wires to mess it up a bit.:)

Long term plans is to convert a computer power supply for the heaters and for the high voltage.

I have done some experimenting on PC power supplies. They really go bang in a big way when things go wrong due to the stored energy on the primary side. Avoid the PFC supplies for now, they are just too complicated. I used an ordinary PC supply running the heaters off of the 12 volt source directly. I took a power transformer from a similar supply and connected the winding that creates the 5 volt supply in parallel with the 5 volt winding on the working supply. I then rectified the primary to get about 300 volts of DC. You must use ultra high speed diodes. Ordinary 1N4007's or even UF4007's will melt. Fairchild Stealth doides work.

Experts on pine?

100 year old barn wood.....guess I'll leave it sitting around for a while. I like the way those pine Fenders sound. I never knew that they existed, but I don't look at expensive guitars.

I don't think my woodworking skills or knowledge is up to making a neck yet, but I will get there eventually. New Fender licensed replacement necks from Mighty Mite can be found for $50 to $75 if watch Ebay long enough.
 
It looks far too neat and clean. You need some wires to mess it up a bit.:)

Oh it will get messy.

I have done some experimenting on PC power supplies. They really go bang in a big way when things go wrong due to the stored energy on the primary side. Avoid the PFC supplies for now, they are just too complicated. I used an ordinary PC supply running the heaters off of the 12 volt source directly. I took a power transformer from a similar supply and connected the winding that creates the 5 volt supply in parallel with the 5 volt winding on the working supply. I then rectified the primary to get about 300 volts of DC. You must use ultra high speed diodes. Ordinary 1N4007's or even UF4007's will melt. Fairchild Stealth doides work.
No plan on doing it for a while, more for when I need a challenge. Suggested to my brother doing it with the transformer in the way you mentioned, he was not too keen on it. Mind you, he has designed high power UPS supplies and speed drives at work and comes at it from a different direction. I just want to get the end result cheap and dirty with the least amount of effort. We'll see what comes out of the idea.

100 year old barn wood.....guess I'll leave it sitting around for a while. I like the way those pine Fenders sound. I never knew that they existed, but I don't look at expensive guitars.

I don't think my woodworking skills or knowledge is up to making a neck yet, but I will get there eventually. New Fender licensed replacement necks from Mighty Mite can be found for $50 to $75 if watch Ebay long enough.
The originally used pine to mock up a guitar as it was cheap wood at hand. No need to use 100 year wood, just hard for them to charge a lot if it was cut down yesterday. My first introduction to a pine guitar is the Fender Squire Telecaster, went with a G&L instead.

Classic Vibe Telecaster® '50s by Squier® Guitars


The neck, just a lot of sanding, a fret saw, and more sanding.
 
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check out this pine semihollow build over on ultimate guitar.

That is absolutely cool, and far better looking than anything that I can make. Not a lot of details about the sound, but it must be good if he is making 6 more!

Suggested to my brother doing it with the transformer in the way you mentioned, he was not too keen on it. Mind you, he has designed high power UPS supplies and speed drives at work

I have very limited experience with limited success in switching power supplies. I have made some 12 powered boost converters for car audio amps and mobile radio equipment, but most of my attempts with line powered supplies have ended with fried silicon, often quite violently. The two transformer jury rig at least worked for the most part. If your brother knows what he is doing, then by all means, follow his advice because I am not a SMPS guy.

I was thinking of a two tube amp running on 12V, a 6AK6 for power and a 6AK5 for the preamp
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I was researching tubes for a battery powered guitar amp and arrived at the 6AK6 because it has the most power capability for the least heater power. Less than 1 watt of heater power for almost 3 watts of plate dissipation. A pair in P-P should make 4 or 5 watts. A bit bigger tube is the 5686 2.2 watts of heater power allows 7.5 watts of plate dissipation. A pair does make about 12 watts without meltdown. A boost converter and a LIPO battery pack from the model aircraft hobby shop should power it for several hours.

The originally used pine to mock up a guitar as it was cheap wood at hand.

I got a broken Hagstrom guitar from a friend in middle school. I screwed the neck, bridge and pickup to a pine board I got from a neighbors wood collection and made sound. It was suprisingly good sound, so I made a better body for it (like a flying V) in high school. I had that guitar for about 20 years.

Two "experts" told me that pine guitar was a stupid idea, but the posts here have convinced me that they were like many audiophiles. They never tried it themselves, so it was a dumb idea.

I have been sitting at a swap table at the Dayton Hamfest for the last 4 days, talking to lots of people. One had also built a pine guitar and reported good results. I will proceed, but not spend much effort making the first attempt pretty. If it works, then I'll try to improve it.

2012 TDPRI Tele Build Challenge - Telecaster Guitar Forum

Don't have the time and patience to read this now on slow hotel internet. I'll read it when I get back to West Virginia.

When I was about 14 years old I used to hang out at the Lafayette Radio Electronics store (and the slot car track next door). They had a guitar with a transistor amp and a small speaker inside it. If you cranked it all the way up, and placed a booh just right on the speaker opening, it made some cool feedback / infinite sustain sounds. I want to find out if my memory is bad, or it really is a good idea, since I haven't seen anything like it lately. I remember that it wasn't very loud, but you could also plug it into an amp.

One more day of hamfest....turning my warehouse junk into cash......more funds for toys!
 
100 year old barn wood

We drove out into rural West Virginia to look at a piece of property that may go on the auction block. It includes an old barn that is at least 100 years old. There was enough scraps of wood laying around to make a guitar body or two or three. We had Sherris nice car, or I would have tossed a few boards into the back of the Element.

Wont get back out there this trip, have to head back to Florida tomorrow.
 
We drove out into rural West Virginia to look at a piece of property that may go on the auction block. It includes an old barn that is at least 100 years old. There was enough scraps of wood laying around to make a guitar body or two or three. We had Sherris nice car, or I would have tossed a few boards into the back of the Element.

Wont get back out there this trip, have to head back to Florida tomorrow.


Wow that will be some kinda culture shock south Fla. to the hills of wet virgina(hehehe couldnt resist.) Seriously. I may have some sasafras planks 30 plus years since we cut down and had it at the saw mill.that are maybe 30 inch wide about 4" thick by eight to ten foot long. If i still have it in the barn out to my mammaw's old place. I will look when we go out this weekend to place flowers on the dear departed's graves. Its very hard wood don't know much about what makes a guitar sustain or sound the way people want it to. But if hard woods are the choice they don,t come much harder. I.E. best have sharp tools to work with it. But i belive if doable we can come to a fair trade. Money just muddies things up. Will let ya know.

P.S. love your tag line.
 
Time for another schematic. Someone was asking for a Fender Harvard kit, another poster suggested a 5E3 kit and use the extra volume control as a master and plug the other input, the Harvard has three and the 5E3 Deluxe has four. I did my take on it if I was modifying a 5E3 kit.

I sort of winged the fixed bias supply so that might need some looking at, but the actual point is the Blackface tone control option. Using a three pole two way toggle switch, or a for pole if you use the alternative second stage cathode, you can have a standard Harvard Tweed sound with the regular Tween tone control, or in the BF position you would have Volume, Treble, and Bass, oh yeah, the treble pot is a dual 1M. I adjusted the capacitor value for the change in the treble control value in the tone stack. Skipping the fixed bias the regular 270 ohm and 22uF cathode bias circuit would work also, have it in my amp that I lent out but it is slow in coming back. Think I might do the cathode bias output version for my nephew.

HarvardwithBFtone.jpg
 
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Well the above Harvard takeoff got me thinking since I used a couple of dual pots to get the BF treble and bass controls on the Tween tone control. Long story short, I went to dual pots on all the controls and with a four pole and a three pole toggle switch I think you can have a 5E3 Deluxe, a 5F10 Harvard, and a sort of Blackface amp that is either milder with the Harvard power amp (fixed bias output with negative feedback and no cathode bypass in the voltage gain stage) or a little wilder with the Deluxe power amp (cathode biased output, no NFB, voltage gain stage cathode bypassed).

Will it be practical? Only time will tell I guess. I worked out the tone controls for the pot values, bias may need a little work.


5E3 with Harvard and BF options

5E3-Harvard-BFSchematic.jpg