A little progress report

[gnugear]

I finally got around to drilling, staking, and populating my boards. As usual, I'm missing a few components, so I have to place another order before I can progress further. I'm still a bit undecided on resistors so I'm using a combination of carbon film and vishay metal film ... basically whatever I had laying around. For caps I've decided to ditch the Orange Drop plan and have opted for Solen Fast Caps because I like the way they sound in my Marshall experiments.

[Elcabong]

Nice work so far, gnugear! What version are you building?

[gnugear]

Thanks, it's the A1 version.

[LeftyStrat]

Looks good. You're ahead of me. I have the main board done, and the chassis punched, but I haven't done the PS board yet. I wanted to follow the Kelley schematic, but I also have the parts to do the ps from the other schems (160uf series vs 40uf parallel). Not sure it would make much difference.

[gnugear]

How did you punch the holes for the power tubes? I totally trashed my chassis and have since purchased a step bit for the preamp sockets and other holes. HomeDepot has a circular metal saw bit that I was going to pick up for $10 but I wasn't sure if it will do a decent job.

[LeftyStrat]

I've been snagging various sized Greenlee chassis punches off of eBay. Once you use one of those you'll never want to do it any other way.

I still use the stepped bit for hole sizes that I don't have a punch for, but I plan on continuing adding to my punch collection, they're so much easier to use and leave nothing to deburr.

There is one "Holy Grail" chassis punch that is rectangular. Last one on eBay was bid up past $100. I didn't understand the appeal until I realized it was the exact size needed for an IEC power connector.

I'll try to post some board and chassis shots this evening.

[gnugear]

Sweet, I'd love to see them.

[HiGain]

Looks clean!

What kind of rectifier diodes are those?

Thanks,
Jake

[Omar]

Nice work, gnugear. You've inspired me to get working on my Express. Keep the pics coming!

Omar

[gnugear]

Looks clean!

What kind of rectifier diodes are those?

Thanks,
Jake

I'm not sure ... I ordered them from Metroamp and I think they're just a larger over spec'd version of the typical diode. I'm kind of curious how a FRED would sound.

[Funkalicousgroove]

they look like 1N5408, which is a 1000v 3A rating -just my $.02

[gnugear]

I got the chassis all drilled and the transformers mounted. I really scratched the heck out of the top of the chassis, so I shot it with hammertone paint and it turned out really cool! I'll post a pic tonight.