I have a 4" speaker I would like to make a nice little TUBE amp out of. But...It's my first amp build. I don't know if tubes will be more difficult than solid state. I'm looking for volume and overdrive as the controls, but tone and reverb would be nice too (I think that'd be too hard though). Anyone got any circuits? and a place to buy tubes?
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i heard the webcast thing they did was a trainwreck .
oh well , i have actually spent enough $$ there , been hassled enough to feel like its fair game to voice my opinion on that place . it is nice if they have what i need though . i am predicting the days of being able to get parts there is very numbered . that will suck , fry's can be a litttle more $$$ .
Nothing personal toward anyone who reads this and might work at Shack of Rats, but the commercial that says something like (paraphrased) "You got questions? We got a@%&#@*!" is ironic.
Unless the economy forces a knowledgeable person to work there (give them credit for obtaining employment instead of the alternative), on average I've found that on the occasions I was forced to go there out of necessity, I had to research their website beforehand. I had to determine the part number and package color of what I needed prior to going there...so that when I was told they "didn't carry anything like that", I'd ask where the (blue, for example) items were hung, and go find it myself. With occasional exception, I'd say if they knew anything technical, they'd be working in another industry.
Then I'd go to the sales counter to check out (if I actual found what I needed, or could get by with) and be subjected to 'whatcha building?', which, to be fair, was probably just a friendly expression of interest (and maybe trying to learn something?). Nonetheless, it's kind of an ordeal, and nobody thinks it's funny in the last several years if you shout "I'm building a bo_ _, OK?!? That just gets you on the wrong kind of watch list.
So don't take it personally...imagine being in their shoes! Better than the fast food restaurant on The Simpsons where they have to wear a horrible costume and defend themselves from customers with a plastic 'spork'.
just make sure you are not using or buying a simple trs jack , or stereo jack , you need one that has "insert switch" , closed circuit . i took a look at the radio shack site and it was not really clear , but you can look at em and see the switching part . my last build i didnt have aan 1/8th inch headphone jack with the switching part so i just cut in a lil speaker kill switch .
my way of doing this stuff leans heavily towards recycling , the 10.99 plus 3 bucks i paid for a de-soldering tool and de solder tape was the best investment i ever made but way too late . i hate having to go to rat shack / frys and get raped ($$$) / humiliated by the employees . something to think about if you plan on doing this sort of thing on a regular basis .
well for that external speaker output there is a switching 1/4 inch jack that you can get . it has 3 connections , a ground , positive , and an output . so hook up the plus and minus of the amp out to the jack . then run another ground wire to the internal smaller speaker . the third connector on that speaker jack , you run a wwire from that to the positive side of the internal spkr .
when you plug a jack into it , it disconnects that wire going to the internal spkr . if you are confused with the jack pins , what i do is take a male 1/4 inch plug or cut guitar cable , plug it into the jack and do a continuity test from the wires on the plug or cut cable to the pins on the female jack . when you determine the ground and positive , the third one is the internal speaker connector . this can be affirmed by unplugging the plug or cable and cont testing between the third pin and the positive . you should have cont with nothing in the jack , plug something in , you will loose cont between those pins . if you do not have a meter you can make a cont tester with a lamp , buzzer or even the old sparky cont test with a junk adapter .
for the led , i am guessing you would like that to light up when the amp is on ?
how I would do this is cut in an led right after the main power switch , on the hot side (positive) . it is VERY important you include a small resistor , 9 volts will fry an led . something like a 1k , to save a buck , google the color bands , and simply remove a 1k resistor from an old junk circuit . i would recommend this procedure for obtaining the led as well . (gut your brothers xbox 360 for the blue led!)
actually, never mind on the loudness thing because I just thought of a solution: I can build in the option to run it off a 9 volt wall wart so it can then power a larger speaker through an output jack on the amp (but it still has a built in speaker, and a led to let you/me know it's on). anyone got any circuits for that?
I've been doing some researching and listening and I've decided to make a ruby. I think it sounds the best. Like I said though, I have (only?) a 4 inch speaker. how loud do you think the ruby can get?
Many online electronics stores have amp components and DIY amp kits for battery-powered applications. QKits is one I know of...they have a 7 watt mono amplifier kit that works for guitars. One thing to realize is the higher the power & the louder the output, the more juice that gets drained from the battery. One variation to consider and recommended to save battery life when the amp is being used in home...add a wall wart input to the circuit.
If you're not familiar w/ term wall wart...its an ac/dc adapter that changes house outlet power ( 117volts a/c to a lower voltage...maybe from 9-18volts d/c).
The 7 watt amp kit will operate within a range of 9-18volts dc...but don't assume that using wall wart w/ higher dc output is better..in fact, that specific unit sounds better when juiced w/ 12volts dc.
The circuit I build is only 1/2 watt, runs on a single 9 volt battery, uses minimal components, and can fit, as a head, into your pocket. As a "combo" style...with speaker, I use cube shaped cigar boxes that wont make good guitars.
I checked out the matsumin valvecaster and It was a pedal, not an amp. I was thinking I could just hook up a speaker instead of the output since I would like to try it, but I don't think that would work. I also wanted to try the tube cricket but that unfortunately didn't have a schematic. So, which solid state circuits have you guys found to be the loudest that can run on a battery?(assuming you guys have built some of those)
It's nice to see some practical amps that prove armchair advice wrong (often mine!). The cricket was kind of interesting. I had forgotten what to call those 70V line output transformers...I bought a few of those...have them somewhere...from an eBay seller in Pennsylvania, in large part because he had specific details of what tubes he used them with and at what current. I would not have assumed I could run single-ended tubes with such a transformer...but that's another unfinished project...
Replies
i heard the webcast thing they did was a trainwreck .
oh well , i have actually spent enough $$ there , been hassled enough to feel like its fair game to voice my opinion on that place . it is nice if they have what i need though . i am predicting the days of being able to get parts there is very numbered . that will suck , fry's can be a litttle more $$$ .
just make sure you are not using or buying a simple trs jack , or stereo jack , you need one that has "insert switch" , closed circuit . i took a look at the radio shack site and it was not really clear , but you can look at em and see the switching part . my last build i didnt have aan 1/8th inch headphone jack with the switching part so i just cut in a lil speaker kill switch .
my way of doing this stuff leans heavily towards recycling , the 10.99 plus 3 bucks i paid for a de-soldering tool and de solder tape was the best investment i ever made but way too late . i hate having to go to rat shack / frys and get raped ($$$) / humiliated by the employees . something to think about if you plan on doing this sort of thing on a regular basis .
well for that external speaker output there is a switching 1/4 inch jack that you can get . it has 3 connections , a ground , positive , and an output . so hook up the plus and minus of the amp out to the jack . then run another ground wire to the internal smaller speaker . the third connector on that speaker jack , you run a wwire from that to the positive side of the internal spkr .
when you plug a jack into it , it disconnects that wire going to the internal spkr . if you are confused with the jack pins , what i do is take a male 1/4 inch plug or cut guitar cable , plug it into the jack and do a continuity test from the wires on the plug or cut cable to the pins on the female jack . when you determine the ground and positive , the third one is the internal speaker connector . this can be affirmed by unplugging the plug or cable and cont testing between the third pin and the positive . you should have cont with nothing in the jack , plug something in , you will loose cont between those pins . if you do not have a meter you can make a cont tester with a lamp , buzzer or even the old sparky cont test with a junk adapter .
for the led , i am guessing you would like that to light up when the amp is on ?
how I would do this is cut in an led right after the main power switch , on the hot side (positive) . it is VERY important you include a small resistor , 9 volts will fry an led . something like a 1k , to save a buck , google the color bands , and simply remove a 1k resistor from an old junk circuit . i would recommend this procedure for obtaining the led as well . (gut your brothers xbox 360 for the blue led!)
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/led.htm
i googled " 1k resistor color bands " http://www.the12volt.com/resistors/resist.gif
Many online electronics stores have amp components and DIY amp kits for battery-powered applications. QKits is one I know of...they have a 7 watt mono amplifier kit that works for guitars. One thing to realize is the higher the power & the louder the output, the more juice that gets drained from the battery. One variation to consider and recommended to save battery life when the amp is being used in home...add a wall wart input to the circuit.
If you're not familiar w/ term wall wart...its an ac/dc adapter that changes house outlet power ( 117volts a/c to a lower voltage...maybe from 9-18volts d/c).
The 7 watt amp kit will operate within a range of 9-18volts dc...but don't assume that using wall wart w/ higher dc output is better..in fact, that specific unit sounds better when juiced w/ 12volts dc.
The circuit I build is only 1/2 watt, runs on a single 9 volt battery, uses minimal components, and can fit, as a head, into your pocket. As a "combo" style...with speaker, I use cube shaped cigar boxes that wont make good guitars.
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Bob Danielak's tube amp pages...
http://www.reocities.com/bobdanielak/projects.html
It's nice to see some practical amps that prove armchair advice wrong (often mine!). The cricket was kind of interesting. I had forgotten what to call those 70V line output transformers...I bought a few of those...have them somewhere...from an eBay seller in Pennsylvania, in large part because he had specific details of what tubes he used them with and at what current. I would not have assumed I could run single-ended tubes with such a transformer...but that's another unfinished project...
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