I have a small older tv from 1989 and I was wondering if I could make a decent amp from it. I am really low on money and want to make an amp. I have searched around and found a few people saying you could do it, but nothing that says how.
I think the last tube based GE Porta-Color rolled off the assembly line in 1978 or 1979 although you could still find them in stores into the early 80's. The Porta-Color II was solid state and didn't work as good as the tube version. There were Japanese and Korean clones with tubes made into the early 80's, before being replaced with SS versions.
These late vintage tube TV sets were ALL hot chassis designs without power transformers and thus not really suited for making anything that you would plug a guitar into.
I learned how to make guitar amps out of discarded electronics at a young age, but this was in the 60's when almost all electronics ran on tubes and most everything except cheap radios had power transformers.
Attempting to modify any old electronics for guitar amp duty requires an understanding of how a transformer isolates the user from the power line voltage since much of the circuitry inside some tube type consumer electronics in plugged directly into the wall outlet. Connecting a guitar into it is effectively the same as plugging your guitar cord into the wall outlet.
You can make an amp from tubes typically used in old TVs, and George has probably done plenty! Compactrons, common tv tube which can house 2 triodes and a pentode..can make a low wattage 1 tube amplifier. If you are low on money this is about the simplest and cheapest way to go. Maybe you get a watt or so of power, but that is good for a small practice amp. Google search the Percolator guiitar amp, or screaming monkey. Tubelab probably has some schems (maybe a kit?) What you want to spend some money on is decent multimeter and read up on safety with these types of circuit. If you are brand new to electronics, go with low voltage solid state amps first. Cheers and have fun
Correction: Squirrel Monkey amp. (I like Screamin Monkey better though, so I hereby claim it as my own!!)
W. Fillies, a fellow Tech in Rio de Janeiro , makes tasty amps using *only* TV tubes, which to boot are always NOS, very good, in abbundant supply and inexpensive.
You just have to grab the datasheets and do actual design, can't copy Leo or Jim, change a cap value here, a resistor there and call it your own 😉 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXSzlLYQY_M
This one made out of:
You just have to grab the datasheets and do actual design, can't copy Leo or Jim, change a cap value here, a resistor there and call it your own 😉 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXSzlLYQY_M
This one made out of:
😉
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