Bottlehead Forum
Bottlehead Kits => Legacy Kit Products => Tode => Topic started by: DoS on March 19, 2013, 10:02:22 AM
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I got my kit today, excited...
But I already fucked the sticker. So many little bubbles in it. I'm not sure how you guys get them not to look like a handicapped monkey did it.
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When working for the phone company, ALL circuits had to be labeled, no matter how small. It becomes an art of sorts. In this case, I even use a square to be sure, and have the box on end, staring right at me. Good lighting is essential, with no glare. Doesn't work every time, so your not alone there.
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We use whatever sort of plastic spatula shaped device is handy. Work the sticker with spatula from the center out, which should squeeze the air bubbles to the outside edges as you go. It's also a sum of the parts kind of thing. Once you get knobs on, a finish on the cabinet, etc, the sticker doesn't stand out as much.
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On the last Tode sticker I put on, I used a plastic box for staples as my spatula, though there is just a tiny bit of debris under the sticker, but no bubbles.
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Try to wet the glue side of the sticker with soapy water, then position it on the also slightly wetted surface. Take a small plastic triangle ruler covered with kitchen tissue paper and carefullly squegee the fluid from under the sticker, slowly work from the middle out. Once all the fluid is carefully squegeed out, there will be no bubble visible. You can also reposition the sticker when needed while working the fluid out. You can also use glass cleaning fluid for this. Once done, give at least 24 hours to let the fluid to dry completely out.
This is a trick used when we have to put stickers on the model airplanes, on either painted or plastic filmed surfaces.
Hope this helps.
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Try to wet the glue side of the sticker with soapy water, then position it on the also slightly wetted surface. Take a small plastic triangle ruler covered with kitchen tissue paper and carefullly squegee the fluid from under the sticker, slowly work from the middle out. Once all the fluid is carefully squegeed out, there will be no bubble visible. You can also reposition the sticker when needed while working the fluid out. You can also use glass cleaning fluid for this. Once done, give at least 24 hours to let the fluid to dry completely out.
This is a trick used when we have to put stickers on the model airplanes, on either painted or plastic filmed surfaces.
Hope this helps.
Too late but thanks!
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I know, but you can still buy a replacement sticker, can't you?
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I totally slammed mine on freehand. Worked like a charm. Just sayin'. :) Well, I've stuck thousands of things like this on sails and banners at work over the years. So I guess that makes me a ringer?
My usual tactic is to put a sticker face down, peel back a corner and make a hard crease. This lets you carefully position the sticker on your item while holding up the exposed corner off its surface with the side of your hand. Then ease that corner down, and very slowly peel away the backer underneath. It you peel quickly or pull hard on the sticker it will distort and probably never again assume a totally flat shape.
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That stupid resistor cooked a wire. I couldn't see but my twisted wire pushed the cap against it, and onto the wire... Fuck me, it's going to take a a few to dig that thing out.
I didn't have any sound though. I prefer when things work out right for me. Its been a long day, could use the reward. No glow on the little tube...
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It's all gonna be okay. Everything in a bottlehead piece of equipment can be replaced. Like a phoenix from the ashes! Or a zombie from the... uh never mind.
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Oh I got it covered. Still no sound... EF86 isn't lighting up for some reason.
That resistor of course smells like insulation now... That thing gets massively hot. In fact I feel this is one part of the design I don't like. It's vastly to easy to mistakenly push the wires the wrong way when you close it up.
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I'm turning the 220uf 250v sideways, away from the resistors. It's tight near the cable tie, but who cares, it won't cause a fire!
I had the capacitor that goes outside the transformer backwards but that didn't fix no sound yet. The B + and B- capacitors. Could that being switched blow out a tube?
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All my voltages are good...
Not sure whats up. Bad tube?
Is it possible that no ground on the socket I was using could be why?
I've looked over the schematic and build guide a dozen times... not sure. I'll try localized ground points too, around the tube socket instead of using the semi-start grounds.
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You'd have to have amazing vision to see the EF86 glow, how are the voltages?
Which resistor is cooking wires adjacent to it? If it's the 10 watt power supply resistor, a backwards power cap can place a dead short on one side of that resistor, potentially drawing all the current the power transformer has to offer through that resistor, making it get many times hotter than it would during normal operation.
Do post voltages if you're having issues, that can point us in specific directions.
Does the LED light?
-PB
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The EF86 doesn't light up. There is zero noise. But the speaker appears to be hooked up right; my analog meter makes it move when touching any correct points on the 1/4 sockets or break, and the break does work.
All the voltages where in the normal range, at all tap points given. But I'm thinking there is a disconnect between one of them and the EF86. It literally seems like it isn't getting power. Its possible I suppose that it is just one wire somewhere isn't hooked up well or something, right at the EF86 socket. At least it appears that way since all the voltage taps are correct.
I had that one capacitor backwards, but fixed it. But regardless I pushed the one out of the way that could press on the 10w resistor.
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If all of the voltages are reading correctly the tubes are functioning as they should. This means that the fault is in the signal path rather than the power circuit, for some reason the signal is not getting through the amp to the speaker. Sounds like the output stage and speaker are fine. So the connections at the input jack and tone switch might be the next thing to investigate. The shielded coax in that part of the circuit is vital to keeping noise pickup minimal, and it's also a little tricky to work with because the insulation melts pretty easily. Might check to see if the center conductor of the coax has shorted to its shield braid.
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I get 150 ohm from U15 to B9.
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Try taking a resistance reading from the tip to the sleeve of the input phone jack. It should read open.
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DoS,
Is it possible you switched two resistors. The measurement you made (U15 to B9) should read 10Meg and not 150 ohms. There is a 150 ohm resistor on the cathode (B3) and ground. If you switched the resistors, your input will be grounded and your bias current on the EF86 will be very low.
Randy
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That sounds like the problem.
I hate really hard to see resistors, but as far as I could see these were pretty clear.
My 6.8kohm was somewhere around a 10kohm resistor in the kit, also.
Input tip to B9 is open.
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You can also measure B8 to U15. If it reads 10Meg, you have switched the resistors. If it reads 150 ohms, you probably have a short between B9 and B8.
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My old analog meter gives me these
B8 to U15 12 x 10,000 (120k)
B9 to B2 1.5 x 100 (150)
24L to U14 180-200 x 10,000 (1.8M)
B9 to B7 11 x 10,000 (110k)
A center to A2 8 x 10,000 (80k)
Not sure whats going on. My meter may not be that accurate....
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Either way Randy, I think you guessed my mistake. Theres only three resistors that look anything like the ones used in these cases. I guess I'll have to get new ones (jesus christ, it takes forever when you can't buy anything local). Do the swap on the B sockets. Rather perform surgery.
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DoS,
When is the last time you changed the battery/batteries in your meter?
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You can send an email to [email protected] listing the resistors you need along with your name and shipping address and Eileen will get them out in the mail tomorrow.
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DoS,
When is the last time you changed the battery/batteries in your meter?
I just extended the one resistor with a solid piece of wire. It isn't the cleanist look but I guess only my pride is at stake here. The amp works now!
The amount of RF my cable is picking up sucks though. This town has too many damn radio stations. I can always hear them in anything including bathroom fans, the one I sleep with, etc.
Thanks guys.
In the future I suggest labeling resistors that look super similar, some way. This isn't the first amplifier project I've had trouble with this. The last time the codes where identical if you just turned the resistor around, but because of the tiny, tiny, holes in the PCB I blew $80. Sure I should have a better multimeter, but the only thing I really need one for 99% of the time is AC mains.
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Many of us, especially in my age bracket, measure first. My eyes are going.
When I built my Eros a little over a year ago I had given up reading the colors or numbers off of the resistors. Very few were more than 0.5-1% off of face value.
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Using decent quality tools often makes life much more enjoyable. Using a $10 or $15 digital multimeter to check the resistors before installing could have saved some grief in both projects. RE: the noise, is the pickup cavity shielded on your guitar? Are the strings grounded? And is your power outlet properly grounded? All of those things can make a big difference in terms of noise pickup. One can also shield single coil pickups by wrapping copper tape almost (you must leave a gap in the foil or it will interfere with the inductance of the coil) all the way around the coil and grounding it.
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I don't have a proper ground on my AC in my old building. One wall has a ground, but it isn't proper.
The noise is RF, I mean you'd think the Tode was a pocket radio when a cable is plugged in, but open at one end!
The guitar itself when plugged in makes very little noise. Touching the volume knob or tone knob (metal) makes a little noise, touching the strings (which are grounded) eliminates most noise, and touching the case of the Tode amp eliminates all noise. I think it is lack of earth ground, and just this town over burden with radio stations. Seriously, you can hear it in EVERYTHING. I'm not joking that my old bathroom fan use to play rock'n'roll.
The only thing I wonder about now is EM and EF are quieter than flat, but that must be normal.
Can I increase the rate at which the feedback happens by lowering my 6.8k (my kit came with a 10k) to lower, like 3k? I ask because the Tode is pleasantly responding to one of my power conditioner I made, so well some extra crunch wouldn't hurt.
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Yup, the bad grounding in the AC mains will make things really noisy. My 70 year old house is like that and I get a lot of buzz from guitars that are dead quiet at the office, where our wiring is up to date. You can maybe go a little lower on the feedback resistor but that won't get you more crunch, that will reduce the crunch. More feedback means more clean, less feedback gets you more crunchy distortion. So you might want to increase that 6.8k resistor to get more distortion.
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I think this may be related, so, here goes. I bought an 80 year old home 5 years ago. Lets just say everything was suspect from plumbing to electrical. In sight of that, I replaced everything. In the electrical, I knew that a good ground was an essential start. Fortunately, the water well housing went 25 ft. down, and was a very heavy duty type pipe. What could be better than that? In addition to this, I followed procedure, at least in part, to how we used to ground the radio sites for the phone company. I even added ferrite sleeves every 10 ft. to the dedicated AC line feeding my stereo. In todays enviroment, nothing is overkill.
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Can I increase the rate at which the feedback happens by lowering my 6.8k (my kit came with a 10k) to lower, like 3k? I ask because the Tode is pleasantly responding to one of my power conditioner I made, so well some extra crunch wouldn't hurt.
We do not stock a 10K resistor, do the color codes match up to what the manual specifies?
You could install a 50K pot in place of the 6.8K feedback resistor, then experiment with different values in that position until you get the range that you like with the control on the front panel.
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Can I increase the rate at which the feedback happens by lowering my 6.8k (my kit came with a 10k) to lower, like 3k? I ask because the Tode is pleasantly responding to one of my power conditioner I made, so well some extra crunch wouldn't hurt.
We do not stock a 10K resistor, do the color codes match up to what the manual specifies?
You could install a 50K pot in place of the 6.8K feedback resistor, then experiment with different values in that position until you get the range that you like with the control on the front panel.
Maybe it is the 6.8k resistor. It looks exactly like it, but the color codes I could read said 10k. Its the only one in the package that looks like the one in the pictures, too.
Nice idea with an attenuator in there. I need to get someone to jam on my amplifier now anyway, given that I can't really play a song :o