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Permalink Reply by Jerry Jordan on March 21, 2019 at 7:05am

There are tons of LM386 PCB's available from China. The ones on AliExpress are available all over the net as well., I bought 10 each from EBay for about $2 each.,then I bought 10 JRC LM386 chips from Mouser to make the .3 watt amp into a 1 watt amp.  As far as quality goes, all 10 amps worked with the chips that came in them.,.,I powered with cast off wall warts from work., the same place i got my speakers.,.,( we huck it all in the trash at work anyway).,.,.,great for a small amp, CBG amp, pre-amp, or as a overdrive/ distortion pedal.,.The big plus is there are plenty of free schematics online, and the PCB's are easy to mod.,.,.so now you have all my secrets.,.,.,

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Allison on March 21, 2019 at 11:41am

Your secrets are safe with me. Interesting info, thank you. I was having a tough time finding sellers for runoffgroove schematic kits. I guess I see why now, with Chinese sellers offering them for next to nothing.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 24, 2019 at 5:50am

This is true about the market selling ready-made units so cheap, but not all of the particular effects are made.

I like building my own too. You can easily tweak your own build on a build board or breadboad more so than a ready-made unit because the PCB is made just for that particular version.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on March 22, 2019 at 11:49am

The last time I got individual 386 chips of the N1 type they didn't last long and I had to replace mine with the more durable N3 type.

The N1 - N2 - N3 chips are made to handle 9volts to 12 volts DC, but the N4 type is made for higher voltage 12 volt to 18 volt DC.

I also get mine from Mouser or Small Bear when they have them.

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on March 22, 2019 at 2:59pm

Best chips are the Texas Instrument in my mind. But JR (JapanRadio) I think are the designers. If you not gonna buy a Gitty amp Look for one of these. they$ 10 on ebay you can find them $4.

 

Simple

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Permalink Reply by Kigar on March 31, 2019 at 3:38pm

You can find the kits for a little over a dollar, they work ok considering they are a 1/4 watt, but the mods are easy to add as you can swap out the components before soldering.  A good and cheap way to develop some soldering skills too.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 1, 2019 at 10:25am

Internet data on these 9volt amps have been all over the place on output wattage. Some say 1/4watt, some 1/2 watt and some 1watt. I know that the voltage used can play a part in that, these little amps say to use 9volts and up to 12volts.

My home build Ruby is supposed to be 1/2watt at 9volts and 1watt at 12volts. Hard to tell without the right equipment to check though. I can say that my Ruby amp with it's 6" speaker is loud enough to be heard throughout the house. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Kigar on April 1, 2019 at 11:18am

All three are right.  I think it is dash 1, 2, and 3 to designate the wattage.  All the really cheap ones I have seen are the lowest output.  Someday I will make a full watt screamer!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 1, 2019 at 11:32am

If you do make one, use the 386 N3 chip, it's a heavy duty chip. The N1's seem to be too cheap.

The Ruby amp is like the Smokey or Lil'Gem amps, but uses a nice Jfet filter circuit in front of the chip and sounds a lot like a Fender Champ. I added a 2-way switch for the caps to have the regular .047 cap on one side and a .1 cap on the other for Fender Bassman type tones. It doesn't really get Bassman tones, but it is darker.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Jordan on April 1, 2019 at 12:57pm

I found the low watt chips at 9 vdc have the best distortion tones. The one watt chip running at 12 vdc has more clean headroom.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 2, 2019 at 8:02am

That has been the same outcome for me too.

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