New build: 2204 Mojotone kit

[GuitarBilly]

Looking great man!!

[JerEvil]

Fucking hell man! I didn’t understand half of all that but yeah… looks awesome so far!

[greatmutah]

Board looks great man! Like how the ground bus is run. It looks super clean. Caps, wiring and resistors done so far also look super clean. I'm a big fan of the hollow turrets that allow you to hook and insert your contact ends also.

[Tortuga]

Thanks dudes!

Totally agree with the turret construction, Eric. Love this stuff!!!

Heading to the electronics store... hoping and praying they have the octal socket I need

[Tortuga]

Got one!!!!

Actually, got three

Got a couple other things, too

[IAmTheKurgan]

dude, looking very good so far!! I might have to make a trip down to CA just to play this thing once its done lol

[Tortuga]

dude, looking very good so far!! I might have to make a trip down to CA just to play this thing once its done lol

Fuck yeah, man - would love to have you come check out the garage space!

Still gonna work with Jer to see about something in NV

[Tortuga]

Took some time during my lunch to get the board finished up. Still need to test everything, but I'm feeling pretty good about it.









Not looking forward to replacing that tube socket, but it's gotta be done. Hoping to have that sorted out pretty quick.

[GuitarBilly]

Shouldn't the ground bus be long/tall enough to reach the top of the pots?

[Tortuga]

Shouldn't the ground bus be long/tall enough to reach the top of the pots?

I'll be stringing ground connections to the pots as needed. Won't be grounding the backs... Hopefully this isn't where I lose you, but I've done a crap-ton of reading about this, and it sounds like this is a good fix to a potential design flaw that creates plenty of ground loops. The back of the pots don't need to be grounded, as they're not part of the circuits - by physically grounding all of them together, with the chassis also grounded, the ground loop potential is pretty huge. This keeps a lot of that from happening and is electrically sound.

tl;dr version: I'm gonna try this... I think it looks cool , and a lot of builders I've been following say it's the way to go... if it don't work, I can ground the old way without too much rework.

[Tortuga]

All that fear, and it only took like 10 minutes...

Bend the fucking pins BEFORE putting them in the chassis where they woulda fucking broke (Murphy: 3:15)



Mounted



New bias test jumper



Wired



Ta Da



Still waiting for the precision resistors and I gotta bail... to be continued...

And yeah, I don't know why I needed to photo that jumper, but I thought it was cute

[fretless]

Nice work man! Looks like you’ve done this before.

[Tortuga]

Thanks Scott!

[Tortuga]

Welp... was hoping to get a bunch of build time yesterday, but the girlfriend had other plans (she had to move), and here we are

In the meantime, parts have been delivered. Got a glut of shiny new precision 1-ohm bias test resistors ready to install and have a MetroAmp loop and some additional wire coming in that should be here (hopefully) this morning. Gonna do some work on it during my lunchtime and then after work today. Really hoping to fire it up in the next day or two

[Tortuga]

Bias test resistors...



...and, done



Sure hoping the loop comes shortly - really want to get those holes drilled in the back panel before I do too much more, so it's easier to clean up the shavings/mess that drilling makes

[Zozobra]

FourT6and2 (I think that's his username) has some photos of a great way to wire up your bias test ports somewhere on here.

[Tortuga]

FourT6and2 (I think that's his username) has some photos of a great way to wire up your bias test ports somewhere on here.

Love that dude's work... super-fucking-clean

[Tortuga]

FUCK. YES.











































Goin' out drillin!!!!!!!!!!

[Zozobra]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13679&p=282064&hilit=bias#p282064

this is how he does it

[Tortuga]

Yep - big fan of his work... super OCD

I'm finding that planning out wiring like that also has to take into consideration future maintenance/mods, and it really makes it a challenge to get a good balance between that and functionality/performance.

[Tortuga]

Ok... got a lot done tonight. Pretty fuckling happy with how things are going, especially considering this is a first-time build and all...

Metro Loop looks like it's gonna have plenty of real estate



Drilling... I already hate drilling plexi/metal... gonna have to improve this process in the future, 'cause I managed to scuff the plexi pretty good





Grounded the Metro loop



.and it's installed - I'll be hooking up B+ after I get things fired up (and working correctly), and will also be tying in the loop send/return right after the tone stack.

[Tortuga]

So this kinda pissed me off, especially after having Zozobra point out 46&2's incredible work on his bias test points.

In my defense, I thought it'd be good to install the test points right near the tube pins. Unfortnately, I found out that things were pretty congested in the center of the board/power tubes, and it didn't allow for a lot of room for "nice" positioning of components when I tried to install my impedance / voltage selectors...



So, fuck it... I resoldered the bias test resistors down low, and everything seemed to clear fine.

[Tortuga]

Got the selectors installed and wired up, along with fuses, mains power wiing (to be terminated @ switch), and V1-V3 prep





Board check-out



Getting pots wired

[Tortuga]

So, that's it for the night.

Still to-do:
* testing all sub-systems to make sure all the external components are installed/wired correctly
* testing board to make sure all component values and inter-connect wiring has been done correctly
* installing board
* wiring board to pots
* power switch wiring
* Wiring board to tubes
* input jacks
* output jacks
* final check-out
* startup procedure (will probably follow procedure laid out in Metropolous manual

Gonna keep on this. Hoping to start the amp up either tomorrow or Wednesday night, and will be rocking the fuck outta it at this weekend's coming GRIMEFEST

[IndyWS6]

Build threads are fun to follow...