Friday, January 23, 2009

It Begins

My call time today isn't until 12:00pm, so I took the extra time to sit down and start planning the layout for the Tweed Champ. There are still quite a few things I'm not sure about. The biggest question floating around is how to ground the whole thing.

Here is a picture of this morning's work.



With a few exceptions everything laid out fairly nicely. The orange drop caps' leads come out at strange angles (i.e. not from the edges), so they sit up off the board a little more than the other components.

The circled components are the ones with more major problems. Starting from the right, the bias resistor for the 12AX7 tube has leads that are too short to reach the eyelets on the fiberboard. This is a carbon comp resistors so I can't just head over to Radio Shack to get another one. I'm trying to decide if I will make a solder bridge to the leads or solder in a bit of wire to bridge the gap. I'm leaning towards a solder bridge.

The 470 1W resistor circled in the middle of the board (which serves as a bias for 6V6GT tube) also has leads which are slightly too short. It does reach the eyelets but just barely.

The 10K 2W resistor in the bottom left is the only metal film resistor in the circuit making it the only non-carbon comp resistor. I'm not 100% sure of the significance of this type of resistor in this position. I'll look into it. The problem with this resistor is that the component is actually longer than the distance between the eyelets laid out for it. The leads are bent in under the component.

Here is a photo of the Chassis:



The circled bit on the Chassis is a rubber gromit which protects the OT (output transformer) wires from the sharp metal edge of the cut hole. There was only one grommet included in the kit. I guess that means I need to track down another one. Hopefully Home Depot can help in this department.

That's all the time I have this morning. This weekend I'm going to see Rascal Flatts with the TV show I work on. My slit wrists might make it more difficult to work in the future, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

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