slipped while cutting/stripping wire....

[madbrayniak]

hey guys, i slipped when i got going on the wiring on the quickie here this morning and cut the wire to short.  I tried using a spare piece to lengthen it but the wire inside just crumbled when I went to twist them together....so i was wondering if I should just buy new wire and run the whole length of where I screwed up with it....it would atleast give it a cleaner look in the end...

[Grainger49]

All the kits I have built have had extra wire in them.  You can cut a new piece and use the short one later if you get the chance to substitute it. 

[madbrayniak]

yea there is extra but it seems to be a different kind of wire as the ones connected to the batteries are small wires inside and the spare is one thick piece of wire....wasnt sure if I should even use it for that....

I feel so stupid for making such a dumb mistake

[Grainger49]

The wire supplied with the kit is solid core.  Wires that are attached to battery holders are stranded, more flexible.

But using the solid core wire to extend the stranded won't hurt the functioning of the Quickie.

[2wo]

Use whatever extra wire you have to get it going. We can circle back and change wire if needed. No big deal...John

[madbrayniak]

ok, thanks guys, I got everything hooked up and havent really been able to do a voltage check as the one i have isnt accurate at all.  I think I am going to run to homedepot and get a cheap $20 multimeter.

I did try and test it already with an ipod but I got no music coming through.  amp is on and when i switched preamp on/off i would get a light thump so I am not sure what is really going on.  Any suggestions?

[madbrayniak]

hey, trying to troubleshoot what is wrong with the quickie i noticed something.

When I built it I put the PJCCS in and I notices that if the resistor was to go in without the pjccs that it is connected to two pins on the tube socket.  the installation of the PJCCS says nothing about the other socket but it looks to me like it should be connected in the same manner.  Is this correct?  that may be my problem....

[madbrayniak]

add a piece of wire from tube socket a6-a4 and b6-b4 as I zoomed in on the pdf and saw that there is the connection there.  However, still no audio, I have gone back through the entire manual of both the PJCCS and Quickie and checked all my solderings and I still have no sound.

I would normally say that it was cause i rushed through it but I really took my time with this.  Still havent had a change to buy a multimeter so I will try to go get one tomorrrow.

[madbrayniak]

one more thing, the filaments in the tubes are lighting up when turned on....i didnt notice before as its by a window.  However, as it is past 1am there is no sun right now so i turned off the lights to see and I do see a small amount of light in each tube.

Edit: I am also running this through my father-in-laws old Adcom GFA 6000 for the time being.

[corndog71]

Double check your cables.

Are your batteries new?

Double check speaker wires.

Make sure the volume on your iPod is turned up to around 90%

[Grainger49]

The multimeter is a must for kit building.  Without it you can not take the measurements at the end of construction to verify that you don't have a problem.

A cheap meter will cost under $10 and will make measurements.  They may not be as accurate as a better meter but still will tell you a lot.  The best part of any meter is checking for continuity.  That tells you that a solder joint is good.  You can take resistance measurements across many of your resistors to see if it is the right value and is soldered in well.

[madbrayniak]

ok, got a multimeter and terminals 6-10 all measure right, however, terminals 1-5 don't.

I am guessing that it may be because there is not a good connection of wires in the wire nuts that I have where I slipped up and gut the wires too short....should I solder these together and just wrap it in electrical tape instead of using the wire nuts?

[Grainger49]

If done properly wire nuts will make a good connection.  That said I would solder them so they never let go and slip some shrink tube over them.  I think you can get it at Radio Shack.  But get small heat shrink tubing.  It only shrinks to 1/2 its normal size.

[madbrayniak]

ok, did some testing now that i got those wire nuts out of there and terminal 2 and 4 are not reading anywhere near what they should be....I have .23 on t2 and .24 on t4.  and they should both be 2.5-3

some tube sockets arent reading right either but I wanted to try and take it one step at a time....

[corndog71]

Maybe you need a refresher on how to solder.