I just finished building my crack + speedball in its entirety....I'm pretty sure I made every mistake known to man....this was my first solder/wood project, but somehow, it is 100% functional (no floor noise from 0 to 100% volume, balanced L and R volume levels from 0 to 100% volume. Equipment: Schiit Bifrost w/Multibit + HD6xx). Thank you to all who responded to my forum posts!!
Here are some lessons learned for anyone who cares/dares to attempt this. Honestly, a lot of is you just have to be not as dumb as me, which should be pretty easy. However, being as lucky as me...not sure if that's as easy since mine came out flawless somehow.
The wooden frame:
1. Make sure when you go to glue the frame together, the assembly of the crack actually fits (I had an additional 2 hours of heartache getting the wood glue off since one corner was slightly off and my crack wouldn't fit)
2. I love and hate wood work. All you damn youtubers make it look so damn easy. IT'S NOT EASY, DAMNIT. How is it this hard to make a piece of wood gray? We're on the verge of self driving vehicles, but can't find a simple solution to make wood turn gray. Seriously?
The amp:
1. Read and re-read all instructions before doing anything. And then read once more after that. Hell, read it once more just for extra good measure.
2. Buy yourself some 1A fuses in advance for the moments where you don't do #1.
3. Get some desoldering stuff. I didn't have any and omg the heartache I could have been spared from...
4. Don't be proud. Check over all your soldered joints again. It is possible for your crack to work with poor soldering. My crack+speedball worked fairly well, but had some issues so I absolutely refused to believe my issues were due to poor soldering...(and bc soldering was a pain in the ass), but then I started gently tugging at wires and noticed about 5-6 wires were not even soldered. This fixed 50% of my issues (particularly one where I was picking up louddd interference since my PC is next to my router and work laptop). I thought it was inevitable...until I resoldered everything. Then the interference I was having PLUS the noise level of the interference dropped by about 50%. As soon as I tucked it away from the electronics, I had 0 interference.
5. Good luck threading that 6 lug thingy. I have no answers for you, but read you should do half a turn, turn a quarter turn back, half a turn, quarter turn back until you've fully threaded it. Not sure if that advice will work - I cracked my 6 pin thingy before I read that.
6. Read the FAQ and forum posts before posting. I didn't do this (sorry everyone)...but discovered that all the answers to my questions were within the first 4-5 pages of the forums.
7. Screw things in tight (or if they're nuts, twist them tightly). My left channel had a loud hiss come in at about 50% volume but my right channel was dead silent, so I figured it was just because the volume was pretty high. Then I read on the forum I should twist all my screws in tightly and lo and behold, my speedball and bell were incredibly loose. I tightened those screws up and NO HISS/FLOOR NOISE whatsoever on either channel even when at 100% volume!!
I've attached my finished crack. It's a matte "accidental distressed gray". I didn't mean for it to be distressed...it just came out that way because the stain kept coming off when I went to sand between stain coats...and poly coats...but turns out I really like the look (*lies to self bc too lazy to try again). Jk. I really like it.
