I love repurposing old test equipment!

[Cliff Schecht]

I'm always keeping an eye out for cool old equipment to turn into amps. While old PA's are the obvious choice, I've been having a lot of fun turning old test equipment into guitar amps. A lot of this stuff is pretty darn easy to repurpose if you are willing to think outside the box a bit.

Both of these amps are Champs, the one on the left is a VibroChamp built from an old Heathkit (note the copper chassis!) and the one on the right is a standard Champ. Both of these amps have a knob that lifts the tonestack out of the circuit and kicks up the gain quite a bit, something that allows quite a bit of crunch and compression to shine through. Great little trick for the BF Champ circuit. I also have a switch to remove the negative feedback and this ups the gain even more, and also adds in some very high-end harmonic content that really makes these amps get out of control! I didn't think tonestacks were so lossy before but they really do sap quite a bit of gain!

I'm selling both of these amps if I can maybe starting on TDPRI to see if I get any bites there for the price I'm asking. I'm thinking $500 for the smaller Champ and $600 for the VibroChamp. Even though I don't have much in parts I have time in these amps and I need to see some return, and besides these are very unique pieces!

As I build more "test equipment amps" I'll update this thread, I have more on the backburner that I'm going to try to tackle next.

[overtone]

I confess to re-purposing old test equipment too. But it makes me sad because I don't think we will never see the build quality of some of this gear ever again, so I concentrate on duds.

I have a few on the back burner, big ugly military things from the cold war days. It is fascinating to get into the innards of those. Usually you see the same level incredibly high level of workmanship, but the Warsaw Pact materials were of lower quality and disintegrate when you touch them.

Below is a poor snapshot of choosing the cathode bias for a Silvertone 1482 circuit stuffed into a defunct oscilloscope retaining the original transformer and EZ80 rectifier.

[Cliff Schecht]

I do wholeheartedly agree about repairing equipment when it is warranted. These two were definitely basket cases that were both operationally useless (a TV horizontal sweep generator and a resistance-capacitance bridge) in in the case of the R-C bridge the innards were wrecked anyways. That would have been a cool repair, it used a magic-eye tube to tell you when you are matched, but it was essentially one massive switch with a bunch of wax caps mounted to it.

I somewhat recently fixed up a cool Heathkit tube amplifier debugging tool. It had a magic-eye tube which could tell you amplitude information, a built in patchable output transformer, an audio probe and a few other nifty features in a really cool little box. Had the same copper chassis as mine and everything. As much as I wanted to turn that into a straight guitar amp, it actually had a use for it's owner who doesn't know how to operate a scope proficiently.

[Cantplay]

This toaster chassis makes a really nice little amp chassis.

Nice deco aluminum chassis, and mark the tone switch 'Light<---->Dark"

Test eguipment? Oh, I thought you wrote toast.

John

[MGW]

I gotta get me one of those!!!

[NickC]

I admire you folks with the talent to morph a 5 hp outboard boat motor from the '40s into a guitar amp.

And I LOVE that toaster amp chassis!

[xtian]

Nice!

My Eico signal generator build came out nicely:

https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=19898

[Blackburn]

Where's a good place to get the ToasterDriveSpecial chassis? I'm digging that mojo already!

[Cantplay]

It was sold under the name "Breakfaster"

I hesitated to tell you all this in fear that you will drive up the prices.

John

[Blackburn]

I plan on buying up all the remaining stock and get them prices soaring astronomically... Then, in 20 years, I'll make millions...

[gktamps]

That one is very cool, but there are lots of interesting vintage toasters on the auction site I shall not name. Very cool idea, thanks!

[Leo_Gnardo]

Yes indeed! In the 70's I did a "toaster" amp (sorry no photo) with another terrific name "Rotobroil 400." Could park my coffee cup on top & keep it warm when in use. Whatever happened to it, I dunno. Got left behind in a move I think.

However, it's hard to beat the art deco "Breakfaster." Good work!

[dorrisant]

This toaster chassis makes a really nice little amp chassis.

Nice deco aluminum chassis, and mark the tone switch 'Light<---->Dark"

Test eguipment? Oh, I thought you wrote toast.

John

Thanks for sharing, John!

I have one of these on the way as I type... Can't wait!

Tony

[LeftyStrat]

This toaster chassis makes a really nice little amp chassis.

Nice deco aluminum chassis, and mark the tone switch 'Light<---->Dark"

Test eguipment? Oh, I thought you wrote toast.

John

Thanks for sharing, John!

I have one of these on the way as I type... Can't wait!

Tony

So you're the one that outbid me.

[Cliff Schecht]

Funny this thread popped up.. I sold the blue Champ last night. Was kinda sad to see it go, maybe I'll build one more before I break my lab down for a few weeks (moving back to Austin finally!).