gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi Everyone, Just the rant of a klutz. I am in the process of designing and actually perfecting now a new amplifier (happens all the time around here). I had the chassis and build nearly done and discovered I needed a hole in the top rear of the chassis. Just a small hole 1/4 inch in diameter. It was in a bit of an awkward location so the drill press could not be used. Out comes the heavy duty 18 volt Dewalt drill. Now the drill bits I have are ones that will really cut into metal. Often they will grab the project and try to augur through it. So guess what one did.... It did grab and did augur and went right in to the windings of one of the output transformers. %$$#@!& also several bad words that can not be printed here. A 1/4 inch hole in the windings does not improve electron flow in any way useful to audio. Trash bin part. Fortunately I had a spare. One of the nice things about having your own electronics company (lots of parts to work with). BTW the amp works great and I will eventually do a project write up on it. It uses 4 6GV8/ECL85/6F5P tubes much like in the larger oddwatt amps. Sounds quite nice and should be pretty cheap to build.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18783 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Oh, man, I hate it when stuff like that happens!
But the more you do, the more likely it is that kind of thing will happen from time to time. So I guess the mark of a man's industrious-ness is the number of drilled-through parts he has!
gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
At least the amplifier works. Now to see if we (Oddwatt) can make it into a kit. 3 watts per channel, the first two really clean at under 1.6% distortion and response of 20-20K +0/-0.8 dbv (the -0.8 is at 20HZ everything else out to 30K is under 0.4)
My partner and I think it might end up as a chassis top plate with a PCB under it. Kind of reminds me of another amplifier I have lying around in the shed that uses similar tubes and really doesn't sound all that great. That one was not too bad to get a taste of tubes, but I prefer a more gourmet fare.