trinityamps.com

Some final pics.

Here is the finished chassis.


Chassis sits in it's office.


The plan comes to fruition.




Anyway, I hope this thread is some use to someone, I'll be back after Tuesday with a full sound report from band rehearsal.

Snowy

I just received my head cab two days ago. Work has been kicking my time to the curb... I had decided to hold off my build until i had the cab, and was sure of the mounting set up... And wasn't working 8 days a week. Thank you for the pictorial walk through. Between this thread, and the wonderful manual/documentation this should go smoothly(hopefully).
thanks,

Don

All the best for your upcoming Head build Don, I'm sure you'll love it, I haven't had a lot of play time on mine but I'm super happy with the Tramp so far.

Snowy

More proof that if you do a tidy wiring job in the first place, the chances of the amp working first time are far higher. Everyone take note!

Well done on a nice build, and congratulations!

Are you in the UK then?

_________________
Great tones come in small glass jars!

Thanks mate.

I'm an Aussie.


Snowy

Congratulations. And thank you for the pictures.

My first (and only) build was a Tramp combo and it worked well right from the start.

Looking forward to hear what you think about the way your amp sounds in a gig situation.

One last thing. Do you think the different (higher) voltage on the australian grid has any effect on the tone or power output of the amp? Just wondering...

Hey, nobody's perfect I had been under the impression that the voltage in Aus is 230V. Clearly I was wrong.

_________________
Great tones come in small glass jars!

My ancestors were British/Scottish though, probably sent over here in the 1800's as convicts for stealing a loaf of bread or something!!

Back then they sent prisoners here, now they pay to come here on holidays, get a tan and lay around on the beaches.

Cheers,

Snowy

Well, I've had some more time to play the Tramp and what an impressive little amp it is. I know a lot of people like the 'tude mode but I love the "Tweed" mode the most and really enjoy the amp with both 6V6 and 6L6 tube types and plugging straight in.

But I made an interesting discovery while playing around, I was using my Fulltone Fatboost pedal and I found this amp can take a LOT of front end clean-boost and yet still remain clean, just louder, MUCH, MUCH louder! It loves the Fatboost.

While experimenting with the Fatboost, I set the amp loud and clean in Tweed mode with the VRM at "10" and Master at full (11), and Volume at "5", a nice clean tone with my Strat, then I started bringing up the level on the Fatboost until there was just a hint of breakup in the tone, then backed it of a little so the tone was clean again, so I had basically optimised the input signal to it's max clean headroom. What struck me was how loud and fat the amp was when setup like this and yet still clean (seemed like at LEAST twice as loud!), a great base for other pedals! This setup worked great for me and the amp was SUPER touch sensitive and responsive like this, not to mention this was through an efficient 12" Texas Heat speaker so it definitely delivered some serious volume At about "7" on the Volume knob there was some beautiful slight breakup tone and seriously loud and Fat, all from 2 tubes in this little Head cab.

Awesome.


Snowy

Nice thread & follow-up Snowy. We tried a bucket load of pedlas when designing this and it took them all so not surprised to hear it handled it well. But the Fatboost impressed me that it could go "twice" as loud and still be clean. Now we gotta try that recipe. Loud and clean is good

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Hi Stephen, yes I was very impressed at how much clean volume was coming out of the amp, when I say it sounded easily twice as loud, I really mean that.

On their website Fulltone claim the Fatboost delivers up to 35db undistorted clean boost so that is some serious extra grunt into the amp's front end.
Here's a link:
http://www.fulltone.com/products/fat-boost-fb-3

I think any good quality "Clean Boost" would work well, like an MXR "Micro Amp" for instance. The thing I found was the Tramp just kept taking it and wanting more, I got to about 2 o'clock on the pedal's Volume level knob before I encountered slight breakup on a strummed chord then I just backed it off a hair to keep it clean, leave the boost on and set for this loud and clean sound and any other pedals can then be set up at unity gain in front of it.

Worth noting though, with the speaker I'm using (Texas Heat), there's no speaker breakup at all, it just serves up what the amp pushes out no matter how loud, if the signal from the amp is clean it stays clean.

Here's my board, it's pretty simple and the Tramp loves it, the Fatboost is set up as detailed above and always on, the Wah is modded for True Bypass, the Creamtone is set up for Unity level and low drive.


Snowy

For other builders reference here's some voltages I measured today with a JJ 6L6GC tube fitted.
I also did the calculations to check the dissipation, which turned out to be perfect.

B+ at C12 (VRM set at Max) = 400 Volts

Measured resistance of Cathode resistors (switch in 6L6 position) = 321 Ohms
6L6 pin voltages:
Pin 3 = 393 VDC
Pin 4 = 390 VDC
Pin 8 = 27 VDC

Voltage across 1k screen resistor = 3.48 Volts
Measured resistance of screen resistor = 987 Ohms

I obtained the following values:
Voltage across Cathode resistors (27 volts) / Measured resistance (321 Ohms) = 0.084 Amps (Cathode Current)
Voltage across screen resistor (3.48 volts) / Measured resistance (987 Ohms) = .0035 Amps (Screen Current)
Subtract .0035 (Screen Current) from 0.084 (Cathode Current) = .0805 Amps (Plate Currrent)
Pin 3 to Pin 8 voltage = 365 volts

Calclating the dissipation:
Pin 3 to Pin 8 voltage (365 volts) X Plate Current (.0805 Amps) = 29.4 watts dissipation


For a Cathode Biased amp this puts me right where I need to be for the JJ 6L6GC tube's published 100% dissipation of 30 Watts

Hopefully those numbers will provide some ballpark reference to other builders when using a 6L6GC

Snowy

It doesnt get much better than this! Thanks for the report & your build.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Thanks for posting this! It's bound to come in handy for me as I'm starting a head kit build today.

Just wanted to add this pic of the finished article to my build thread, for the sake of completeness.



Snowy

This was a really beautiful build. Just finished mine (combo chassis). Seeing yours, I wish I got the head chassis instead So much easier to work on amps that have the tubes on the same plane as the eyelet board.

Interestingly, my VRM didn't span quite the same range as yours. The high end is the same, but the idle voltage was more like 70-80 VDC. Not particularly important since I'll never operate at that end of the range. Maybe the MOSFET characteristics are different?

Wow, thanks for the compliment, I'll take 'em when I can get 'em! I think the voltage difference you are seeing when the VRM is set to Idle might be a result of the VRM resistor (R22) being revised on the schematic/amp design at some point after my amp build in 2012. At the time of my build, R22 was spec'd at 100K and I believe that was later revised to 220K. As far as I know, this change was to allow for a more useful adjustment sweep of the VRM. You'll notice on my voltage readings that the VRM voltages start to get really bunched up at the higher end making fine adjustments there difficult and at the lower end not much effect. I'm guessing here but I think that R22 change may be some of the difference you are seeing. Maybe Stephen can offer further clarity if he spots this thread. Thanks again for checking out my build posts, I'm glad it's still being useful.

Cheers

Snowy