Tube Amp Archive

Hey y’all,

This is my first post here on ampgarage, I usually hang out on another forum but very happy to see a lot of useful info and skilled veterans here: I want to get some more information on everyone’s process for designing a good chassis that can be repurposed for a few different amps for example. I’ve seen some really excellently designed chassis’ from Tim Marcus at Milkman for example. It looks like he designed a chassis that can accommodate a range of transformer mounting sizes. Does this work only because he orders custom transformers to fit? I would love to know if anyone has any ideas along this line. Any pragmatic and useful ideas that y’all have had success trying? Would love to see!

I also want to talk about the best process for designing a chassis to be CNC cut. I’m getting better at Inkscape but interested to hear if there’s anything else y’all like. What’s your process from the ground up to get the right measurements and considering chassis dimensions itself. Can anyone share existing chassis plans to work from? It’s becoming more clear that it’s one of the most important components and it’s gets a bit pricey to buy them from others as nice as they are thanks!

I realize maybe I should have posted this in the cabinets forum just let me know if I should move this

Moved.

Sadly I've no skill in chassis design

~Phil

pompeiisneaks wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 5:31 am Moved.

Sadly I've no skill in chassis design

~Phil

Thanks for moving it pompeiisneaks

Sadly neither do I! Lol

While it can be done in Inkscape, you really should look into a full-blown CAD program for chassis design for eventual CNC manufacturing. There are really good free ones out there that run on a variety of platforms... Win/Mac/Linux. They are not really hard to figure out for stuff as simple as accurately placing circles on a few rectangles. i just used it to lay them out and make printable templates that I can tape to a blank chassis and then hand-drill. I can't seem to find the one I was using, but I was very happy with it for chassis design. It must have been on the PC that recently died on me... lol. I think it was QCAD. There is also LibreCAD, freeCAD... lots of them out there.

Autodesk Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists, not-for-profit.

MakerDP wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 5:32 pm While it can be done in Inkscape, you really should look into a full-blown CAD program for chassis design for eventual CNC manufacturing. There are really good free ones out there that run on a variety of platforms... Win/Mac/Linux. They are not really hard to figure out for stuff as simple as accurately placing circles on a few rectangles. i just used it to lay them out and make printable templates that I can tape to a blank chassis and then hand-drill. I can't seem to find the one I was using, but I was very happy with it for chassis design. It must have been on the PC that recently died on me... lol. I think it was QCAD. There is also LibreCAD, freeCAD... lots of them out there.

freeCAD looks really simple! I'm going to watch a few tutorials and give it a try. Idk why chassis design is so daunting to me. Precise measurements and cad design are definitely not my strongest points, and would like to make 0 mistakes before getting something cut that ultimately wont work. I have hand drilled a few chassis, but they're never perfect and it takes me SO much time!! Printing out a template to for an already fabricated blank chassis is a good idea, but I do have some trouble getting the right angles from a bent chassis with my drill press. It seems so much easier and more cost effective to have it cut cut flat on a CNC and then bend it with a press brake

Yeah I was going to go down the road to bending my own chassis but the more I looked into it, the more I decided that for me it would be more efficient/cost-effective to just buy them pre-made and drilling them myself. It is definitely my least-favorite part of a build by a long-shot... lol. Especially the IEC cutout using a nibbler tool... no fun at all.

MakerDP wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 8:50 pm Yeah I was going to go down the road to bending my own chassis but the more I looked into it, the more I decided that for me it would be more efficient/cost-effective to just buy them pre-made and drilling them myself. It is definitely my least-favorite part of a build by a long-shot... lol. Especially the IEC cutout using a nibbler tool... no fun at all.

Yeah agreed! I want to do basically none of it myself, but need to at least be able to draw up a design and figure out what I need out of a chassis and where. I am very jelly of people who can really do it all. I've seen it, but I can't believe it

I wish my memory was better than it is... maybe someone can help out...

There is a chassis builder who does custom sizes and will drill as little or as many holes as you want from your designs for reasonable prices, including the dreaded IEC cutout. Does great work.

Dang it... what's his name???

These are nice chassis too and VERY reasonable at only $50... https://www.tubeface.com/chassis/universal-chassis

They are perfectly layed-out for their Universal PCB but work nicely for point-to-point wiring too. Still have to do some drilling but most all the larger holes you would need to drill have a pilot holes done for you. You need to be patient though... my experiences ordering with him are it takes a while, but they do come.

Geez, I should probably go buy one.

MakerDP wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 2:24 am I wish my memory was better than it is... maybe someone can help out...

There is a chassis builder who does custom sizes and will drill as little or as many holes as you want from your designs for reasonable prices, including the dreaded IEC cutout. Does great work.

Dang it... what's his name???.

Seaside Chassis?

https://reverb.com/shop/synapticamps

https://www.ebay.com/str/ZH-Music-Parts ... 7675.l2563

this is the one I was thinking of...

http://www.juicyamps.com/chassis.html

I bought a chassis from him earlier this year. Very good service and quality, - face- and rear plates included. While I made my own CAD drawings, they needed som correction, - also included.....

I just had Juicyamps build me some chassis too.