Evil Amp Wizard Do's and Don'ts

[LeftyStrat]

As an Evil Amp Wizard, whose designs will be cloned (or bootlegged, if using HAD terms) you should do the following to mess with cloners/bootleggers heads:

- Somewhere in the amp, combine a silver mica and ceramic in parallel.

- Always use one brand of pot in the treble position and another in the bass position.

- If you hear a part is destined for end-of-life, buy all the remaining stock and find a way to use it in every build. Sell the remaining stock at inflated prices on eBay.

- Find a way to use that thousand part inventory of one watt 47k carbon comp resistors you drunkenly bought off eBay in every amp you build.

- Roll up a coil of 13 turns of insulated solid core wire around a number 2 pencil and always use it to connect the same two points in every amp.

- Instead of laying out the rows of preamp tubes in a straight line, use a Golden Ratio curve to plot where they should go.

- Buy a big sheet of copper, leave it outside until it develops a nice patina. Cut it into one inch squares, and superglue a square into an exact location in every amp you build. Claim in a magazine interview that your secret patina technique can't be duplicated.

- In your Fender derived amps, use parts that are predominately blue, yellow for Marshall derived amps.

Have I left anything out?

[Reeltarded]

Make it insane to get the board out.. use all solid core wire... put all the caps on the back side of the board. Use rivets.

Instead of one cap use two and mold them into an epoxy scarab.

An epoxy block that is nothing more than a ground bus with random wires taped back and wrapped.

Anti-hack capacitor (5kV) that only discharges when other caps have drained and a timer counts to 60 if drain is removed.

Leave a note in the amp that you don't wash your hands after you poop and write it in poop.

[xtian]

Anti-hack capacitor (5kV) that only discharges when other caps have drained and a timer counts to 60 if drain is removed.

YES! Mission Impossible amp! Dun dun duh duh, dun dun duh duh…

[Reeltarded]

I like Lefty's unreasoned copper square idea, and the wtf coil. A great way to apply the capacitive deterent system.

[EtherealWidow]

The poop joke...




I like the poop joke

[Firestorm]

Still laughing...

[VacuumVoodoo]

Leave your original, unique part of circuit, that you really want to protect, in plain sight. Puke a mass of epoxy over the rest. Don't worry if it results in 95% of the board getting covered. This will keep them busy removing the epoxy.

[Cantplay]

Add fake wires that are just insulation with only leads stuffed into the end.

Making this connection with real wire will fry PT, OPT, or hopefully both.

John

[martin manning]

If you add any "personal" touches to the amp you probably should put a bio hazard sticker on the back panel. Maybe a radiation sticker would be good too... Don't forget zero ohm resistors, which can be randomly placed in the circuit.

It's unfortunate, but if you are selling something made with off-the-shelf parts any solder monkey can copy it and you really don't have many economical options to prevent that. We've all seen actual examples of this here- silcone potting, shrink-wrapped resistors, components mounted on the underside of circuit boards, markings wiped off components with solvent, factory shrink-sleeves removed from electrolytics... Sometimes it is all about convincing customers that the whole is much more than the sum of it's parts so you can charge accordingly. I don't see anyone getting rich this way though. All of these shenanigans add cost in the worst possible way, make future service difficult, and quite possibly reduce reliability.

[VacuumVoodoo]

You're 100% correct Martin, but the ignorant want to be deceived.

[Structo]

I like the idea of putting a critical resistor on the back side of the board.

Somebody will spend hours tracing the circuit and making a schematic.

Only to find out when they build it, it doesn't work OR sounds like crap....

The idea of using an empty wire insulator with a wire stuffed in the end?

Genius.

[Zippy]

Anti-hack capacitor (5kV) that only discharges when other caps have drained and a timer counts to 60 if drain is removed.

I've done something like that in the past. I had a "supervisor" that couldn't leave things alone when I laid out a vent fog precipitator assembly on the workbench for maintenance. I finally gave up asking him not to move things around and "accidentally" left a 10kV capacitor on the bench in a charged state. Whoops, my bad!

[rdjones]

Add fake wires that are just insulation with only leads stuffed into the end.

Making this connection with real wire will fry PT, OPT, or hopefully both.

John

Yep, that is evil !

rd

[Reeltarded]

I have only been tapped by 98v left over in a recharged cap where the drain came off while I was poking at something else. That was a cheap lesson.

[Teleguy61]

You guys are killing me!
Don't forget to make weird vids and post them all over youtube, with
very intense endorsements from people no one has ever heard of.