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Just began the heater wiring and the boss shows up for an inspection!



Heater inspiration photo in the background credit to cigarman.

Nice. Great view you have there too!!

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

To back up a bit - super exciting project for me; first amp build! First Trinity in Alaska?

The box! Much smaller than I expected.


How it's all packed - very impressive.


It's all beautifully bagged and organized.


Bill of Materials checked out perfectly, down to the washer.

The next box will be bigger!

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

Great looking workshop

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http://pdfelectronics.com

Well, I wish I could keep a neater workspace...
Also, kurtlives, your custom build detailed in these pages is a big inspiration for me to reach toward.
This is my first amp build; I've done a lot of work on my old Fender, Valco and Magnatone amps, and built a lot of pedals kit and scratch, but this is a much bigger scale.

As a hobbyist I don't have a dedicated space to store or work on this stuff, so I have to pull it all out and throw it together when a project arrives. Got in the habit of taping off this Styrofoam tray and writing all the resistor values with a sharpie and then stick the right resistors in the right place. Handles BOM inventory and then easier to grab the right ones when I need 'em. Obviously not a production shop solution but great for the weekend warrior with limited space.


Styro works for me because even in the little bins you can stick the leads in the walls to keep them sorted.


Got all the hardware on and checked out.


Years ago I was lusting after a real amp chassis cradle, but too cheap, etc. so I whipped up these simple "T" dealies out of 5/8" MDF. Rubber feet top and bottom so everything stays in place. They're actually pretty handy as they are so 'adjustable' and can be placed any way needed. Probably nowhere as handy without the angle feature of a real chassis cradle but better than putting the chassis on my lap like I used to!

Looking very organized. That's good!

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

Speaking of heater wiring - got that knocked out last night. Way trickier than I thought, but eventually got in the groove.


Off to a reasonably good start but as I got warmed up and back in the groove I realized I had to re-do V6, as I wasn't watching my dwell and melted the insulation. Necessitated a removal, trim-back ad had to add some heat-shrink to the black to square it away. Much better.


All in all I'm pretty pleased so far.


And now with the heater wiring done, on to installing the transformers. It's starting to look (and feel) like an amp! Sorry about the mess...


Next up: learning to braid 4-strands. BTW, any and all comments, constructive criticism, advice is greatly appreciated, as this is my first build and I'm doing my best to follow the directions and mimic the fine build threads on the forum here - but have no real idea if I am meeting with success (yet). Thanks in advance!

If you are referring to the OT braiding most people braid the 4/8/16 and leave the 0 (common). The 0 goes a different place than the other wires anyways so it doesn't make much sense to braid it.

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http://pdfelectronics.com

Looking good!

Palmer, AK.... I love Alaska. One of my favorite places on the planet. Been there five times now. Want to go back!

Oops - guess I should have read ahead more closely, as this is how I spent a BUNCH of time yesterday.... oh, well! Learned a new skill.

Great looking build so far. You can't be too neat when it comes to wiring and keeping the insulation good as close to the joint as possible. It can be tricky some times to do that without melting the insulation.

Good organization, too. I never thought of using styrofoam and masking tape to keep the resistors sorted and handy during a build. You learn something new every day!

Nice wire braiding. I have never tried doing that. I usually use cable lacing to keep transformer and ac wires under control. Something like this:



It's not my TC-15, it's an amp I built later but it shows the technique. You can also use nylon cable ties and that's what I did on my TC-15.

Nice moose, too. It looks pretty cold there in Alaska. I lived in the Yukon for a couple of years so I'm well acquainted with cold winter weather and the beauty of the North. I have visited Alaska and I would love to go back some time.

I got the braiding from cigarman's TC15 build. I REALLY like the tight zip tie approach. Really nice and neat.

All looking good. I likre to braid as there is more noise cancellation.

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

Just about finished the power supply last night. Progress pics:



Don't think I ever would have figured out the blue/white twist without cigarman's detailed photos.



Getting close here:



Bit of a discrepancy in the directions on the rectifier wiring. The manual says to hook the white and the yellow 6.3 VAC to pins 8 and 2 on the rectifier, and to connect the unused yellow 6.3 VAC to the terminal strip. However, the unused wire is white, and two heater wires are yellow and yellow/white, according to the layout drawing and other threads I see here. So, hopefully I've done this right, even though it isn't what the direction say.



Sculpting these wires is a blast - just wish I could get them to behave and sit perfectly square and flush!



Hoping to finish the power supply tonight so I can get after some voltage testing - big milestone!!

Remember when you tirn it on with no load, the voltage levels will be much higher.

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

Stephen - the rectifier wiring is OK?
Also - why is it safe to plug it in with no speaker load at this point?

You haven't hooked up the OT.

even if you did there is no signal going into it.

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http://pdfelectronics.com

Makes sense. And I am moments away from OT hookup!

Your rectifier wiring is fine. Actually it looks really good! Not easy to keep all those flexible wires looking as neat as you got them. The solid wires connecting the tubes, pots and switches will be a lot easier to manage.

You can test the AC and the rectifier now but you will only get pulsating DC out of the rectifier until the main filter capacitor is connected. You can check the high voltage AC going to the rectifier but any DC voltage readings on the rectifier output will be irrelevant at this stage.