Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob Lumpkin on November 19, 2011 at 4:43am

Good little amp. No tone control, no LED (I rigged one without much trouble) Two internal gain settings (jumper), I used high & a 4" Realistic speaker, old ('91) faded & crappy looking but not torn or busted and got a cool very overdriven tube amp sound out of it (almost fuzz, but not quite). Decent volume for a Cigar Box amp. I paid $8.40 for mine. You can get it in a kit for around $5 or $6 from qkits.com in Canada. They have all kinds of neat stuff. Check them out, I just ordered a bunch of kits from them.

ps: They have most kits assembled for a couple of bucks more. Also, their prices are in US dollars & shipping is resonable.

Permalink Reply by Hobo 63 on November 19, 2011 at 6:51am

Shipping from States/Canada to Finland is now quite expensive...From China its free. If I send amp like that to China shipping is about 15-20 usd so China products are to us like free :)

Permalink Reply by Scott aka Farmer Ted on November 19, 2011 at 7:28am

I've made a few LM386 amps from scratch...hand soldered components...and they are great. Two items of importance: First, when choosing a box to house the amp and speaker, being able to easily open/close lid makes for an added effect (open=clean sound...closed=overdrive or fuzzy sound...Second, the LM386 circuit is best suited for an 8ohm speaker with a small magnet...larger magnets will drain the 9 volt battery in a flash. Of course you can set it up with an ac/dc adapter (wallwart), but even though the LM386 circuit works on 4-12volts, it sounds best in the 9v range.

 

In either case, their lots of fun, portable, and go great with cbg's.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on November 19, 2011 at 8:07am

I've been recasing these lately, using an upgraded speaker and adapting it to run on either a 9V or wall wart:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270809650314?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_...

4 watts of power, comes with a 6' cord.  I find the gain to be unusable but am reseaching how I might modify it to get cleaner sound.  The seller will bundle shipping also.  I bought 4 and the shipping was only about $13 and change, so my total cost was @11 each.

Permalink Reply by Bob Lumpkin on November 19, 2011 at 10:03am

Didn't know you were a Finlander. Keep looking you can fing them on E-Bay for $8.40 (free shipping). Good luck.

Janne 63 said:

Shipping from States/Canada to Finland is now quite expensive...From China its free. If I send amp like that to China shipping is about 15-20 usd so China products are to us like free :)

Permalink Reply by Bob Lumpkin on November 19, 2011 at 10:07am

Hey Hal, looks like a First Act amp that takes 2 9v batteries. Trying to figure out what do with the one I have. Where did you get that cool looking grill thing. Very nice decals, I finally got mine to print.
Hal "PairsNPaint" Spalter said:

I've been recasing these lately, using an upgraded speaker and adapting it to run on either a 9V or wall wart:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270809650314?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_...

4 watts of power, comes with a 6' cord.  I find the gain to be unusable but am reseaching how I might modify it to get cleaner sound.  The seller will bundle shipping also.  I bought 4 and the shipping was only about $13 and change, so my total cost was @11 each.

Permalink Reply by Bob Lumpkin on November 19, 2011 at 10:21am

Acid cigar boxes work great for amps.You can use the hinged cover as tilt back legs.

Scott aka Farmer Ted said:

I've made a few LM386 amps from scratch...hand soldered components...and they are great. Two items of importance: First, when choosing a box to house the amp and speaker, being able to easily open/close lid makes for an added effect (open=clean sound...closed=overdrive or fuzzy sound...Second, the LM386 circuit is best suited for an 8ohm speaker with a small magnet...larger magnets will drain the 9 volt battery in a flash. Of course you can set it up with an ac/dc adapter (wallwart), but even though the LM386 circuit works on 4-12volts, it sounds best in the 9v range.

 

In either case, their lots of fun, portable, and go great with cbg's.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on November 19, 2011 at 2:52pm

Bob Lumpkin said:

Hey Hal, looks like a First Act amp that takes 2 9v batteries. Trying to figure out what do with the one I have. Where did you get that cool looking grill thing. Very nice decals, I finally got mine to print.

 

 

Hey Bob -

The First Act amp gets along great with just a single 9V.  The grill is a piece of perforated aluminum you can get at Home Depot @ ~ $20 for a 12" x 24" sheet.  Thanks re the decals. I've been having mixed success with them.

Permalink Reply by Oane on November 19, 2011 at 11:22pm

I ordered e few of those modules and made a little (11x11x13 cm) amp with one, it works like a charm. I also bought an amp from the bay with dual input that uses two of these modules, the modules are looped and connected to one 8 ohm 5 watt speaker. even though I can eke em cheaper myself the one I bought looks great and i love it. it is a definite plus that the modules are dirt cheap, and shipping took about one and a half week from china to the Netherlands.

 

Edit:

 

I almost forgot, I also bought this kit to test.

Ebay TDA2003 /TDA2002 kit

 

Haven't asambled it yet but will put some results here when I have.

Permalink Reply by petey twofinger on December 4, 2011 at 9:34pm

the kiddie guitars you see at goodwill / salvation army usually have a 386 amp on a seperate board . i got 2 of these this week , a dollar each . the barbie one had an echo circuit , a pt2399 chip , and an lm386 . i cut the timing and feedback resistors out , spliced in pots , housed it in a mini cigar box with in / out / power jack . right now its on my bench runnin along with my mp3's other speakers . i got some boston acoustics for 50 cents toady so those are running thru a kenwood delay / surround processor . i got an altec lansing sub for 3 bucks last week , so my bench has "5.1" sound system now !!!

 

you have to tweak the delay for each song , some tunes like real short ambient reverb , but for pink floyd the long echos work very well ... 

 

the second guitar had an lm386 amp on a tiny board , i rehoused it in this little tin with 1/4 inch and rca jacks . i figure i will use it on my bench , instead of grabbing something large / important . you never know when mr reverse polarity will show up ... 

Permalink Reply by Michael Cuell on January 10, 2012 at 7:16am

Just got my example in the mail yesterday. Hooked it up no problem. It sounds good when I use my regular guitar, but when I use either of my piezo equipped CBG I get a rapid succession of clicks. I've tried reversing the connections from the input jack to no avail. Any ideas?

Permalink Reply by Bob Lumpkin on January 10, 2012 at 7:48am

The first batch of these I bought worked fine. I bought three more a couple of weeks ago & every one had problems. Two had stiff, very scratchy pots & the other didn't work at all. Cleaning the pots didn't help so I'll stick with the kits I've been getting from Q-Kits, a little more work but better & cheaper.

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