OK, I can't stand it any longer! I've gotta have a Trainwreck-style amp!!
So, I built up the board today while my 5 year old daughter was napping under the influence of codiene--she got shoved off the monkey bars yesterday and has a wee fracture in the elbow.
I've added the pic of the board, based on the Ceriatone layout. I've used MPP caps, thanks to the comments by other board members.
I've also added a coupla pics of the amp that will donate its iron to the project. I'll also add a Heyboer choke to the mix, and run cathode-biased big bottles on the output. For the board I scrounged some place-holders our IT guys were trashing and cut it to size. Free fiberglass and a few eyelets make for a nice board.
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It's done and working. Fired up wonderfully first try, no issues. OK, before you read on, I'll stipulate to two things:
1. This is a Trainwreck-inspired amp, not a clone, so I confess to being a heretic.
2. As a living poster-child for adult ADD, I have a LONG way to go before my amp guts are as awesomely neat as most of the ones I see here. But, I am getting better, little by little.
I put the cross-line MV in there cuz everybody talks about how loud these things are. Boy, I was NOT prepared for how truly loud this thing is! Barely touch the Master and the thing is jammin'!! But what a truly fat, snarling overdrive--I've got EL34s in it for the time being. She Who Must Be Obeyed sez I can't order any amp stuff until next month. Hmmm, might have to eat velveeta and pbj next week in Vegas and spend my per diem on tubes....I've got dual 300 Ohm cathode resistors for a pair of KT66s, but the EL34s are coping.
The sticker labels are temporary, as I'll have a nice faceplate made for it. I'm planning to combo-cab it with red tolex, black hardware, etc. The thing sounds so rich, it's amazing. If I can get my band's recorder over to my house in the next few weeks I'll record some clips. The riff from "Working Man" by Rush is soooo huge thru this thing. Wow. I am amazed at the sound. Dead quiet, except for tube hiss when really cranked. Really responds nicely to touch and volume knob.
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Looks good and as long as it captures the TW sound then that's all that counts. I recently used a couple of Multi section cap cans on a "Inspired" build and they worked out great and freed up a bunch of room in the chassis. I also built my first wreck (The junkyard ) with all used parts pulled from other donor amps and this thing sounded great also. They were the correct values but different manufacturers on the caps. Matter of fact I think just about every cap manufacturer is represented.
rfgordon wrote:I've got dual 300 Ohm cathode resistors for a pair of KT66s, but the EL34s are coping.
The sticker labels are temporary, as I'll have a nice faceplate made for it. I'm planning to combo-cab it ...
Very cool. I'm interested to hear a cathode-biased combo. I've seen a lot of traffic about how these heads need to sit on the floor - not even on top of a cabinet - and have wondered whether they need to be de-tuned a bit for cabinet use.
Zippy wrote:
Very cool. I'm interested to hear a cathode-biased combo. I've seen a lot of traffic about how these heads need to sit on the floor - not even on top of a cabinet - and have wondered whether they need to be de-tuned a bit for cabinet use.
G'luck!
George
We had one out on tour with a rock band all summer long (probably 25 shows) and the head was on top of a 4 x 12 cab running at high volumes and never had any problems. The amp was anything but de-tuned. It will be interesting to see how Rich's works out in a combo cab.
Yeah, I agree that putting this beast in a combo might be a bit risky, so I plan to allow a bit more vertical space between the speaker and the chassis. I've also thought about adding a horizontal panel to the top edge of the speaker baffle that would extend backwards--essentially a shelf-like piece to prevent the speaker sound waves from directly impinging on the bottom of the chassis and the tubes. This would also keep the cooling fan out of the speaker area. We shall see what happens...
UR12 wrote:We had one out on tour with a rock band all summer long (probably 25 shows) and the head was on top of a 4 x 12 cab running at high volumes and never had any problems. The amp was anything but de-tuned. It will be interesting to see how Rich's works out in a combo cab.
Thanks, Dana. I've a donor combo (Randall AC-30 wannabe aka RT-30) that may become a Rocket. You've just moved it up on the list of things to do.
There's a guy in a hot local band who wants to hear a couple of my amps, but there's no way (since I'll be in sin City all next week) that I can get a nice cab built for this thing in two weeks. So I'm gonna aggie-engineer it into the combo cab I made for my Mark IV. That should give at least some indication as to how the thing interacts with a speaker that close.
I have noticed that if I dime both the gain and the treble control that mosqitoes fly in. Perhaps I need to lose a coupla inches of grid wire...
Still blown away by the sound of this beast. It sounds great thru either the Tone Tubby or the Celestion V30. An attenuator (Weber Mass) reigns it in a bit.
