New Crack + Speedball build issues

[tiller]

Hi folks,

First of all, let me say how much I love the Bottlehead kits. I built a Seduction + C4S last year and have been loving it! I've built numerous electronics projects over the past couple of years, so I'm not a complete newbie when it comes to this sort of stuff. I guess I've been getting cocky and made a few mistakes with my current Crack build. Let me try and break it down for you:

1. The first issue I had, and I think I've fixed, is that one of my 2.49k resistors on the headphone out burned out. Based on other forum posts, I traced the path back to the output coupling caps and I had put one in backwards. They are toast now and have replacements on the way.

I replaced the 2.49k resistors with 1/4W 3.0k resistors. Is that okay?

2. I am not sure if this is a problem or not, but I was getting a couple funky voltage readings during testing. I was testing a few things for continuity (using my DMMs continuity tester) to try and find the problem, and noticed that lug 5 on the input transformer seems to also go to ground. I took off the wire runs to the tube sockets (from lugs 4 and 5 -- twisted pair) and lug 5 still goes to ground. Is this okay? I was thinking that maybe it's not exactly continuous to ground, but there's just a really low resistance between the 6V winding (lug 5) and ground.

All LEDs light up, although the LEDs on the Speedball boards seem significantly dimmer than the LEDs on the 9-pin tube socket. I will check this again once I have the new caps in there.

I should also mention that during initial testing something shorted and made a huge bang, spark, etc... I was thinking that I accidentally shorted something on the PSU with my meter probe, but perhaps not. Could this be a symptom of a greater problem?

Thanks for the help!

Adam

[tiller]

New caps reinstalled...

Going through the resistance check: Terminals 7, 9, B3, and B6, which should be reading 2.9K, are not giving any reading at all -- as in infinite resistance.



Adam

P.S. I should mention that this is with the Speedball upgrade wired in.

[tiller]

Okay!

So I decided to assume the Speedball was playing some part in the weird resistance figures, so I went ahead with the voltage checks.

All my values are a little hot, but everything is within ballpark this time around. The voltage at the headphone out on power up goes up to about 20V, which is higher than expected, but I figure this has to do with my replacement of the 2.49k resistors from T->E and R->E with 3.1k. Yes? Also, it would be in line with my hotter voltage numbers all around.

I will just make sure the to not have my cans plugged in for start up. Otherwise, on to listening tests!

Cheers,
Adam

UPDATE: Fired 'er up and took a listen and all seems well! Burning it in now! Hopefully this thread might help someone in the future. Thanks again for the great product!

[Levent]

My headphone out goes up to 27 V at startup after the speedball upgrade but settles back to zero quickly (they were less than 9V before the speedball).  I will check again after 40-50 hrs of usage to see if they change. 

Levent