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Hi, Perhaps you may like to follow along with this high dollar ($10.00) transistor amp build...lol I was going to do a video but decided not to. To lazy to dress up and shave...lol Here is the start of this mess.  I have never built a transistor amp and I am finding everything way to small and fidgety!! Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/25/21 05:56 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Hi, Perhaps you may like to follow along with this high dollar ($10.00) transistor amp build...lol I was going to do a video but decided not to. To lazy to dress up and shave...lol Here is the start of this mess. I have never built a transistor amp and I am finding everything way to small and fidgety!! Billy Following. I've also built myself a 10-buck amp, though it was slightly over 10 bucks since I put it into a 1590A enclosure that was 8 bucks on it's own. Of course, I'm talking Canuck bucks, so ymmv.
I work here
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Hey Simon...I tried to build this on some eyelet board. The type you would find in 1950's Fender amps. It is too thick to get the pins on the op-amp socket through. I could point to point wire this but that looks like crap.
I ordered this, have no real idea if it is the right type board material or not. Solid state is a new world for me.
PCB Board: 30 pieces double sided PCB prototype boards in 4 sizes, Double sided board with plated-thru holes allows components to be easily soldered to either side of the board
3 Types of Header Connector: 10 pieces 40 pin male header, 10 pieces 40 pin pitch right angle male headers, 10 pieces 40 pin female header; pitch: 0.1'/2.54mm, single row and straight connector
2 Types of Terminal Blocks: 5 pieces 2.54-308-2P and 5 pieces 2.54-308-3P; Pitch: 0.1'/2.54mm
Jumper caps: 30 pieces standard 2.54mm pin spacing circuit board jumper cap
100 % SATISFACTION GUARANTED: General purpose prototyping circuit board for analog and digital use; With pre-tinned plated holes; Extra accessories to make life easy for you (Screw Terminal Block and Headers)
It only cost a few dollars and I hope it works because I want to build some other Transistor/IC device for a CNC machine I am building.
Amazon would save money if they just parked a truck at my house...lol
Billy
EDIT: We are actually going to play live tomorrow after noon at a small private party. Everyone has had their rabies shots...lol
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/23/21 03:53 PM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Messing around with a eyelet board. Amazon will deliver the prototyping boards tomorrow. Not likely to burn out the 650 volt cap...lol Trying to build this sort of stuff on a eyelet board and soldering the wire to the socket for the OP-Amp is not very easy to do. Stuff like this needs to be built on a PCB. It would be OK on a turret board if I had small enough parts to set the socket in. Onward through the frog...lol Billy 
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/24/21 08:40 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Still messing with eyelet board. Hope new prototyping material gets here today. Eyelet board is not a good solution for such small components. Perhaps there exist smaller eyelets??  Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/25/21 06:01 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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The prototyping material arrived and looks like it has some advantages. For the moment I am at this stage with the eyelet board.  Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Well, have you cranked it up? I feel slightly responsible to make sure you get this going 
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Well, have you cranked it up? I feel slightly responsible to make sure you get this going Thanks, be advised I will be bugging you if I can not figure it out!!...lol I have been slightly distracted by a live gig. Happy stuff!! Also studying Spanish. New pretty spanish girl moved in next door. Wife will kill me but I can't say exactly when....lol I have not done any electronics for quite some time so I am really slow. Can not remember the resistor codes, cap codes, is the long leg positive?? So many questions, so little time...lol Perhaps today or tomorrow we will check for smoke! Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Well, close but no cigar. I put a small signal from a battery CD player into the input and ran the output into a large speaker system. Pilot light works, the signal gets amplified but nothing but popping noise from the speaker which gets louder with increased gain.
The boss is demanding I return to my fulltime job on the honey do list. So, trouble shooting will have to be delayed till later today when she takes a nap...lol Only good news is no smoke!
Off the air for a bit.
Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/26/21 04:52 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Billy and all.
a question for the guitar amp gurus.
one of my favorite all time rock songs is hold on loosely by 38 special.
WHAT GUITARS AND AMPS DID THEY USE ON THIS GREAT SONG ?
some say peavey amps ? i just got this odd feeling hi watt perhaps ?
but maybe thats a daft idea.
i'd like a buck for every time ive jammed along with it.
always love the way the F#minor was used etc etc.
the lead guitarist, totally brilliant talent imho. wonderfull licks etc.
i always think i'm not worthy playing along lol.
well i'm no great guitarist anyways imho.
just can play along rhythm/do some of the lead licks.
anyone know where it was recorded ?
by comparison the stuff today on the song charts just dont crank me up like loosely.
btw billy/all. you seen the new tiny fender amp mustang you plug into the guitar jack ?
best
1-love-to-rock-out-old-muso
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 04/26/21 10:24 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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eddie1261
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I saw them live a few times and recall one played what looked like a Les Paul Junior. That was the singer who also played some guitar. One of the lead guys played an Explorer. And the other lead players played like an old Melody Maker looking guitar. I was never close enough to see nuances but those were the body shapes. If I recall the lead guitar guys were named DOn Barnes and Jeff Carlisi with Donny Van Zandt being the lead vocalist who added rhythm guitar when there were dual leads.
They were a "funny" band in that they made the rep as a southern rock band but "Hold On Loosely" wasn't all that southern rock in the vein of what the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker brought to mind. And to a lesser degree Wet Willie. Wet Willie lost me when they started fighting about the name when the Hall family split in half. I preferred the half that Donna went with because she was hot...
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Eddie. re loosely. thanks for the info. any idea of the amps they used ? fyi. a band that surprised me live. and my vote for #1 live band i ever saw was Steppenwolf. ive seen lots of top bands over the years live. and had various disappointments includeing screwed up (oh lets just get through this) lead breaks. BUT NOT THEM. every song was on the money. what impressed me was even though they had played the songs obviously many times before; they were really enjoying themselves with gusto, and enjoying the audience feedback, which was huge. in summary i was totally impressed by their attitude. fantastic sound also. when i saw them last they had this very talented young lead guitarist. useing marshalls if i remember. wow did he get a great guitar sound. cheap trick also really impressed me live. look at the song inventiveness of CT with b carlos on drums. i just dont hear these type of great songs today and riffs. or maybe i'm getting old. lol. best oldmuso ps with my new audient evo interface is a free download of a guitar plug in from 2 notes engineering. gonna try it soon. https://audient.com/arc/two-notes/
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 04/26/21 01:31 PM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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Billy, you learned how to type on one of these, right? 
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thanks for the info. any idea of the amps they used ?
I was never close enough to tell. I remember asking one of our guitar players why he continued to slow down our show by changing guitar EVERY song, and of course then also having to tune it. That broke the flow of the set. He gave me the standard answer of every guitar pla7er who wants to show off how much money he has, which is always "Different songs call for different sounds." At that point I looked at the 127 pedals he was running through and said "You plug in there. The sound comes out WAY over here. By the time it reaches the amplifier it all sounds exactly the same no matter what guitar you are using. 7 distortions, 3 phase shifters, 5 flangers... can you just once sound like a GUITAR??" He didn't talk to me much after that. AND, one of them was a Variax. Why have a modeling guitar if you are not going to "model" with it?
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Actually Eddie I only had a goose feather quill to write with...lol
ON a more serious note.
First transistor amp build try not working. How the Ruby Works ( schematic at Rob Robinette.com)
I know next to nothing about solid state. Trying to trouble shoot.
I injected a 1000Hz signal at 250mv. Have correct wave form at gate. Have 9 volts at drain. No signal at source of of j201 JFET. 4K resister to ground from source verified. Schematic calls for 3.9K but I did not have one. I assume 4K will work. There may be other issues but I assume I have to solve the JFET buffer issue first.
The amp produces noise and popping/motor boating and noise is increased with increase of gain and volume control so I assume the LM386 is at least producing some amplification.
I ASSUME JFET is bad. Am I correct n this assumption?
Thanks,
Billy
Sorry to have to ask such basic questions...this solid state is a new world for me.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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You should have the same waveform as your input at the Source on the JFET. The device is only acting as a buffer.
The JFET might be in backwards?
Try taking the JFET completely out of the circuit and connecting your signal generator to the 47nF coupling capacitor (the original Source terminal) That will prove if the JFET is faulty (or in backwards).
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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There's a data sheet for the FET at this site: N-CHANNEL JFET. J201 Datasheet
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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The JFET issue has become a PITB! I decided to build another amp on a push pin board so I can test things and pull them apart. I have a transistor tester but but it is not designed for JFETs. I ordered a new more modern tester that can read a JFET. Some stuff from Amazon and ebay is hard to deal with...no data sheet. I have Fairchild JFETs coming in a day or two. Meanwhile trying to figure out the pinout on the JFETs from Amazon. Learning many new things about solid state. Video Track has helped me a lot Thanks man!  Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 04/27/21 07:25 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Wow, that brings up my memories of electronics school in the 80s. I went to DeVry.
 Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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I am trying to envision what it would be like to have a bunch of firemen as friends, because if I ever tried to build something like this, they'd be at my house a LOT!
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