Another Problem - Kit not working after Speedball upgrade [resolved]

[ashura]

I had finally got my kit up an running and it sounded amazing for the couple of days I was listening to it. I then decided to go for the speedball upgrade to see how much improvement I could get in sound quality. Well now after installing the speedball upgrade I'm having issues again. The LEDs on the small board close to the potentiometer do not light up. Also I have channel imbalance and volume issues. re-soldered a bunch of stuff. I did a voltage check and found some inconsistencies.

1- 76.9
2- 173.4
3- 0
4- 173.1
5- 170.7 (should be 75 to 90)
6- 0
7- 113.1 (should be 100)
8- 0
9- 168 (should be 100)
10- 0
11- 0
12- 0
13- 174.4
14- 0
15- 188.4
20- 0
21- 204.6

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Hi! I got my kit to turn on and make music without smoking or blowing things up! So that's a plus. But now I can here a loud hum even with no source. When I play music I can here it out of the right channel even at 0 volume. As I turn up the volume the left channel will get as loud as I want it to but the right channel volume stays the same without going up. And there is still hum even with music playing. I was worried that my big tube "6080" might be broken because straight out of the box I could here a rattle and then when I looked inside I can see little pieces of what looks like broken glass. I did a search and read through some old posts and I guess this is not not an uncommon thing and a lot of the time the tube is still good. Maybe it is a a bad tube? I went through the entire manual and retraced all of my connections and I can't find any issues.


(Original Post Below)

Hi! New bottle head here! Really have enjoyed the process of building my crack.  I have a problem and I have searched far and wide on the forum and on the net and can not come up with a clear answer.  I received my kit a few days ago. I just finished it last night. But I made a mistake and wired one leg of a 270 ohm resistor to the wrong spot and ended up frying them both. I went to my local frys electronics and found some 220 ohm 5w resistors and am wondering if it would be okay to use these either permanently or temporarily until I can get the correct ones. I also found some 47 ohm 5w resistors and I was wondering if they could be used in series with the 220 ohm ones to get me to 267 ohms 5 w. I'll post some pictures of the completed kit once I get it up and running.

[Nathan]

Why not call Bottlehead HQ and order a couple resistors? You'll have then in a few days.

Wiring resistors in series will work too and I can't imagine any issue of 267 ohm vs 270 ohm

[ashura]

I plan on it. I was just super excited to try out my new amp. If I do go with the ones I picked up locally I will still replace them with the proper ones when I can get my hands on them. Thank you for the quick response.

[Paul Joppa]

The difference in volume behavior means it is NOT the tube. 9 times out of 10 (or maybe 99 out of 100) it's a bad solder joint.

Were the resistances correct? How about the voltages? Those are the things that enable others to guess what the problem is.

I suspect that once the volume problem is fixed, the hum problem will disappear.

[ashura]

I got the standard kit to run but started having issues after the speedball upgrade. I modified the top post with more details and voltage test results.

[ashura]

I mixed up those tiny little blue resistors. After putting them in the proper spots my voltage readings are now correct and I'm up and running again.

[Doc B.]

Good job of sorting it out.