AX84 Hi Octane build part 4: Wiring, testing

So I left off with installing all the parts in the chassis and ruining the finish in the process.  Now it's time to wire everything up.  Following the schematics and wiring diagram is easy enough, just takes a while.  First thing I noticed is that when I drilled the hole for one of the tube sockets, the chassis wasn't clamped well enough and it vibrated around, making the hole a bit too large.  The socket isn't secured and needs to be fixed to the chassis.

A little epoxy should do the trick

Then, on to finish the wiring... through the magic of internet it's all done, yay!

So, working with tubes is dangerous, the voltage rail is around 300 volts, and it can be deadly... so I'll be careful.  I ran through a "first power up" check list that I found online.  You basically take out the tubes, and turn the unit on.  If nothing blows up, you measure voltage rails and make sure they're at appropriate levels.  Everything checked out so I plugged in the the tubes and fired it up.

Plugged in a guitar, and no sound... hmmm.... After some digging around the circuit for a while I found a shielded wire where the conductor had shorted to the ground shield.  I replaced it, and then found another shielded signal wire that I had just forgot to connect... ooops.

With a now complete signal chain, I turned the amp on again, and I finally got actual noise!  Not very much though... I can only heard anything with the gains and volume knob turned all the way up.  Turns out I also forgot to connect a filament wire for one of the tubes.  Grrr...

So, I connected the last filament wire and finally I have sound!  LOUD sound!  It's only 5 watts, but you'd be surprised how loud 5 watts gets.  I messed around with the knobs for about 15 minutes, and discovered that there's some settings that hum a bit too much for comfort.  So I have some work to do fixing the hum, but it already sounds quite nice, especially on the high gain settings... mmmmm... harmonics!  I'll post some audio clips eventually...

Questions?  Comments?   E-mail me or leave a comment.