The latest from Hammertone Enterprises
26 posts
• Page 2 of 2 • 1, 2
by EWBrown » Mon Jan 03, 2011 8:17 pm
Looks like a great start! Looking forward to seeing the finished unit.
Don't forget to take care of that * Water heater
(yeah, cold showers s*ck......)
/ed B in NC
Don't forget to take care of that * Water heater
(yeah, cold showers s*ck......)
/ed B in NC
Real Radios Glow in the Dark
-
EWBrown - Insulator & Iron Magnate
- Posts: 6389
- Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2003 6:03 am
- Location: Now located in Clay County, NC !
by dhuebert » Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:35 am
The water heater is done, thankfully!
The father of the guy I bought the house from was an inventor and pretty damn good at it too. He thought "why replace the water heater every few years?" So he had copper pressure vessels made up with a bunch of 3/4" NPT fittings and made up a unique heater element arrangement. The whole thing worked really well for 20 years and then I bought the house. Within a couple of years the tank failed 3 times. The first 2 times I repaired it but the third time I decided it was time for it to go. Pressure vessels only last so long before the pressure cycles start to break it apart. This is what was happening to mine; it was developing stress fractures around the welds. I could pull it out and take it to a welding shop but this is a HUGE pain in the ass. So, out it came.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Don
The father of the guy I bought the house from was an inventor and pretty damn good at it too. He thought "why replace the water heater every few years?" So he had copper pressure vessels made up with a bunch of 3/4" NPT fittings and made up a unique heater element arrangement. The whole thing worked really well for 20 years and then I bought the house. Within a couple of years the tank failed 3 times. The first 2 times I repaired it but the third time I decided it was time for it to go. Pressure vessels only last so long before the pressure cycles start to break it apart. This is what was happening to mine; it was developing stress fractures around the welds. I could pull it out and take it to a welding shop but this is a HUGE pain in the ass. So, out it came.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Don
-
dhuebert - KT88
- Posts: 820
- Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 9:26 am
- Location: Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
by dhuebert » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:02 pm
I always start with the power supply. Here I kinda stuffed it into a corner to get it as far as possible from the signal path. I star grounded everything including the little post in the center of the tube socket. All filament wiring is twisted and tucked against the chassis. Next comes the input section. I have some questions about that for your consideration.
Don
Don
-
dhuebert - KT88
- Posts: 820
- Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 9:26 am
- Location: Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
by dhuebert » Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:44 pm
Managed to do some more work on the little beast. I recently ordered a bunch of carbon composition resistors from these guys:
http://www.justradios.com/resistors.html
I'm really liking them, they are nice and large, nostalgic for me and have nice fat leads. The only complaint so far is that the leads could be a little longer. These modern components are designed to go into printed circuit boards, so why waste wire on long leads? I have some old stock resistors and the leads are half again as long as the new stuff. I wouldn't use the old stuff anywhere critical tho... Anyways:
I made a change to the front as I thought a bypass switch was necessary for this type of device. So I changed the arrangement and drilled a couple of new holes and added a jack for a footswitch.
I made up a relay board a while ago for another project that didn't quite work out. It makes 5 volts from the filament circuit and uses it to switch a small relay. Works a treat to quote LT. ( http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=419739 ) I will figure out some way to make it switch the effect in and out.
Don
http://www.justradios.com/resistors.html
I'm really liking them, they are nice and large, nostalgic for me and have nice fat leads. The only complaint so far is that the leads could be a little longer. These modern components are designed to go into printed circuit boards, so why waste wire on long leads? I have some old stock resistors and the leads are half again as long as the new stuff. I wouldn't use the old stuff anywhere critical tho... Anyways:
I made a change to the front as I thought a bypass switch was necessary for this type of device. So I changed the arrangement and drilled a couple of new holes and added a jack for a footswitch.
I made up a relay board a while ago for another project that didn't quite work out. It makes 5 volts from the filament circuit and uses it to switch a small relay. Works a treat to quote LT. ( http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=419739 ) I will figure out some way to make it switch the effect in and out.
Don
Last edited by dhuebert on Fri Jan 28, 2011 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
dhuebert - KT88
- Posts: 820
- Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 9:26 am
- Location: Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
by EWBrown » Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:55 pm
The old stock vintage carbon resistors can become very seriously out of tolerance, especially if they have spent the last 40 to 50 years in some dark and dank cellar, or out in a storage shed or barn, along with the chicken poop, shedded snake skins and mouse pee...
Several years ago I found a large ziplock freezer bag stuffed full of 1/2 W 1W and 2W carbon comp resistors, mostly 10%, some 5%, all looked clean and dry, and they didn't have any suspicious fecal or urinous aromas, and for a whole buck, who could resist (pun intended).
Well, I finally got around to taking them out and checking the values, and they are as much as 50% above or below their indicated values. Even those which measure as being within the 10% tolerance, I don't really trust them to last a long time and stay true.
/ed B
Several years ago I found a large ziplock freezer bag stuffed full of 1/2 W 1W and 2W carbon comp resistors, mostly 10%, some 5%, all looked clean and dry, and they didn't have any suspicious fecal or urinous aromas, and for a whole buck, who could resist (pun intended).
Well, I finally got around to taking them out and checking the values, and they are as much as 50% above or below their indicated values. Even those which measure as being within the 10% tolerance, I don't really trust them to last a long time and stay true.
/ed B
Real Radios Glow in the Dark
-
EWBrown - Insulator & Iron Magnate
- Posts: 6389
- Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2003 6:03 am
- Location: Now located in Clay County, NC !
by dhuebert » Sun Jan 30, 2011 2:25 pm
When it is -34C outdoors, what better time to build electronics in your basement?
I had to make some changes to the output as it was behaving very strangely. The signal would jump around and fade in and out. I guess it was capacitors charging and discharging into DC coupled stages. I separated some things with caps and all the phenomenom went away. It now works as designed. It remains to be seen if it is useful or something a guitar player might like in his arsenal of effects.
With the pan pot set to clean:
With the pan pot in its middle position:
And with the pan pot set to distortion:
I will redraw the schematic to reflect all the changes I have made while building it and if people want I can post it here.
Don
I had to make some changes to the output as it was behaving very strangely. The signal would jump around and fade in and out. I guess it was capacitors charging and discharging into DC coupled stages. I separated some things with caps and all the phenomenom went away. It now works as designed. It remains to be seen if it is useful or something a guitar player might like in his arsenal of effects.
With the pan pot set to clean:
With the pan pot in its middle position:
And with the pan pot set to distortion:
I will redraw the schematic to reflect all the changes I have made while building it and if people want I can post it here.
Don
-
dhuebert - KT88
- Posts: 820
- Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 9:26 am
- Location: Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
26 posts
• Page 2 of 2 • 1, 2
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests