Excellent. looking forward to some more clips.

Thanks

Hywel Harris

Funnily enough I started with the SE5a from Ampmaker aswell. I love it, its got something none of my other amps have, clarity.

Well, my OT kit arrived last week and I've made a start over the weekend. I started with mounting all the faceplate hardware. Be very careful with the mini DPDT switches they are very fragile, I sheared two of them off when tightening them up and I was being careful with the second one that went. You'll need to wire the two input sockets before mounting them as the contacts need to face the corner of the chassis. I then went on to mount all the valve sockets and tag boards then mounted the trannies only to find I should have fixed the board mounting stands first.

I've left the main boards out for now, because they are so high up, getting at the other stuff will be more difficult with them in place. So I'm starting from the FET board, wiring as much as possible without the main boards in place, moving on to the relay boards then the power supply boards. Then I'll do the heater cables before anything else. It certainly pays to have decent prints of the photos on hand when deciding which to fix next.

I've printed a large version of the layout so that I can mark each wire with a highlighter pen when its completed. I would put a fibre washer between the small circuit boards and their backing insulating plate, if you don't and do the screws up tight it bends the boards.

I'm now on to wiring the pots and the busbar above. Thats a fiddly slow job and its best to solder all the connections to this busbar before its put in place. You'll need some heat shrink tubing here and there isn't any in the kit. You'll need 1.5mm, 2.5mm, and possibly 7-10mm for the ends of the coax cable.

Won't be able to get any more work done to it before next weekend now, so if you get ahead of me in the week I'd appreciate your comments.

I must admit I have got my amp tech lined up to check it all over and power it up for me and fully test it before I plug into it. I would be able to bias it but I don't have a scope to be able to set the PI trimmer (and even if I had one I wouldn't know what to do with it!).

Hope thats of some help, I'm keeping notes as I go along with the intention of writing it all up at the end

Cheers

Hywel Harris

I'm new to this amp kit building and have little knowledge of electronics, only having built a 5W single ended amp prior to the OT, so theres a lot I don't know and am learning quite quickly.

Now it occurs to me that there must be others in the same situation who would appreciate some help and guidance and in the abscence of a set of instructions, how would it be if kit builders kept notes of their build and we put it altogether into one document for others to access  to give them confidence to give it a go?

This could be extended to include the various mods that some more experienced builders have carried out, though initially it would be easier to keep it simple and not confuse folks.

Anyone any ideas how this might be accomplished, like a private wiki or similar? PDF to download?

How does Nik feel about this? (are you there Nik?)

Cheers

Hywel Harris

Steven, the Atomic is designed to work with the POD, so the poweramp is pretty neutral and shouldn't colour the tone, it also uses the POD as the pre-amp as far as I am aware, thus allowing for all the POD tones to be reproduced faithfully. I wanted to try one of these when I found my POD less than satisfactory through a valve amp, but no one had one near me. I'm glad you found it sounded good, maybe I should revisit and see if I can try one, but having just started a OT kit build I think I'm going to stick with all valve now!

Now your problem will come when you use the POD in front of the OT. The OT has a character of its own and I doubt whether you will find it satisfactory used in conjuntion with the POD, but you can try it. I doubt you'll find it satisfactory in front of any valve amp, and you'd be better plugging straight into the PA with it. This is my backup plan for if my amp goes down, it does work and a lot better than through an amp IMO.

You can also try it straight into the Poweramp In (FX return) which was how I used the POD with my HotRod. You will always lose something whichever way you do it, thats why I suggested an A/B switch to take the POD completely out of circuit.

Decided to use some George L's .155 that I've already got. Its a bit bulky but I think it'll be OK if I support it with tyraps, or route it under the board.

I thought that would be sensible, but Nick suggested it might not be necessary, to try it and see. Well, I won't want to revisit this after its all housed in a cab so I'm going to go with screened cables to be on the safe side.

Any idea what conductor area I'll need for these? And I'm assuming the lower the capacitance the better?

Any i presume the earth side of the pot won't need a screened cable, but that it must be earthed back at the board and not at the chassis?

Thanks

Hywel Harris

No particular reason other than  over here (UK) Neutrik are easier to get and I've used them before on my pedal board and  my guitar cables and I'm impressed by the build quality.

XLR connectors are much more robust. Search for Neutrik NC5FDL1 and you'll see what I mean. XLR' do come in up to 7 pin configs.

Plan to change the footswitch connector to Neutrik XLR and to move the FET and OD trimmers to the back panel. Thats all for now.

Steve, I've got a POD XT and every amp I tried it through, it seems to mess with the tone. My first valve amp was a Fender Hot Rod and that is a pretty dry characterless amp unles you have it at ear splitting volume levels, but when you put the POD through it it sounds weak, and nasty. I even tried putting it directly into the PowerAmp In and using the pre-amp modeling but that was poor aswell.

If you want to use it as an effects box and no matter where you put it in the signal path I'd seriously consider an A/B routing so you can take it completely out of the line when you want the pure amp tone. I think you'll find you like the amp tone so much that you'll be loathe to adulterate it with the POD.

I'm gradually assembling an array of pedals to do what the POD used to, but I'll still keep it as a light weight emergency backup if my amp fails and for messing about late at night at home.

CHeers

Hywel Harris

I'm intending moving the two trimmers to the rear panel. Do I need to worry what sort  of wire I use? Obviously it needs to be large enough guage, but any special type?

Thanks

Hywel Harris

Currently its a 5 pin DIN connector but I want to change this to XLR so I can use locking connectors, plus be able to easily extend it and eventually make a permanent fix to my pedal board.

Anyone any reasons why I shouldn't do it. I'll have to mod the rear panel for a Neutrik panel mount locking connector, but I'm not wedded to this being a Dumble look-a-like as long as it sounds good.

Thanks in advance

Hywel Harris

Less than 48 hours door to door. Well done DHL.

My order was confirmed on the 27th March and I've just had an email from them and my kit is now at Heathrow UK (lets hope DHL don't use terminal 5!) So 2 weeks from order to delivery. Very good and way better than waiting 8-10 weeks for the built amp.

Better get a new tip for the iron before the weekend!.

I really do hope the duty is different for a kit since thats what I've ordered! However I'm expecting to pay +20%. According to UK customs you have to pay VAT + duty on everything over about $40 worth goods, whether they are new, secondhand, parts or whatever, though sometimes stuff slips though the net.