trinityamps.com

Hi all, my Tramp Head kit turned up during the week and I decided to document the build for posterity and future reference. I started off sorting through the inventory and checking off all the parts, measured and labelled all the Resistors and Capacitors. Then spent some time working through the manual which is nice and comprehensive.

Here's the Chassis mounted in the Head, Trinity did a beautiful job on this, Stephen kindly supplied Cream knobs to suit and I can see it's going to be an eye-catching little amp when finished.


Checking out the parts list, all quality parts and there's an amp in there somewhere.


Installed the terminal strips and tube sockets.


Nice beefy transformers too.


Next up is the Heater Wires.

Snowy

Managed to get the heater wires and the power indicator LED done today.








Snowy

Finished the wiring for 240 Volt Mains.








Snowy

I am going to enjoy wathching this. Very nice work so far snowy. I dont think we have a head build detailed like this.

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

Thanks Stephen.

Not much to update today, here's the Impedance selector switch wired and also the output jacks.


Snowy

Got some more done today, installed the resistors on the power tube tag strip, and the grid resistor.


Also wired the jumpers on the back of the board. Had to improvise a little when I found the eyelet for the preamp ground connections was missing, the hole was there, just no eyelet. You can see it's a little different to the others (Bottom Left of pic) but it'll do the job once it's all filled with solder.


Next the top of the board gets loaded up.
Really enjoying this build so far.

Snowy

I have a question regarding the wire I ran to the tag strip and pin 4 of the output tube, I used an offcut from the Output Transformer and I just noticed it is 22 gauge wire, will that be OK in this position or do I need to step it up to 20 gauge? It's the Orange wire in my last post.

Snowy

Here's the board loaded with components and leads added to one side, still a bit to go.


Snowy

Don't sweat over wire guages for the short lengths found inside this amp.

_________________
Great tones come in small glass jars!

Looking good! Very neat.

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http://pdfelectronics.com

Very / extremely neat build. Install the board on 2 spacers per corner for clearance over octal socket.

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

Great photos. This will be a good reference for those building a Tramp in the future, assuming you build it correctly!

Yep, how does it go again?....."All care taken but no responsibility accepted"

Snowy

Here's the MOSFET wiring, the wires are extended for the Head version of the Tramp and will loop up over the board into their respective eyelets once the board is installed, this is due to the board sitting higher on the standoffs.


Power tube wiring completed.


Preamp tube wiring, almost complete, two more connections to go, one from pin8 back to the board and a shielded cable from pin 7 across the 330K resistor back to pin 2 of the Volume Pot (VR1). You can see these two point haven't been soldered yet.



Snowy

Here's the board in it's final resting place in the chassis, time to start connecting wires.


A better shot clearly showing the purpose of extending the MOSFET leads.


Snowy

Awesome build pictorial so far. Need more pics!

_________________
Go Buckeyes!

Haha..here you go then.

Controls wiring.


VRM Wiring.



Snowy

Almost done, just two shielded wires to add around the input jack area and that's it, then on to final check.

Here's some detail shots from various angles.

Detail around controls and negative feedback wire.


More VRM area detail


A couple of pics of the overall chassis detail




Last couple of wires and testing coming up today.

Hmm, I just realised, I'll try to track down a 500ma Slow Blow fuse as the 1 Amp supplied is really for an amp running off 120V mains.



Snowy

Woohoo, fired her up, ran some tests, plugged in and she sounds great, not a single problem, no puffs of smoke, sparks or strange noises.

I managed to pick up a 500ma fuse, they only had fast Blo and it's been fine so far, I will get a Slow Blo to install during next week.

I used a "Dim-Bulb" tester I made to fire her up, swapping in 15W, 25W, 40W, 60W and 100W bulbs in order and then straight to the wall, everything was fine.

Some of the start-up steps are a little confusing for a novice, that is if I read them correctly. It says "Apply power. Leave VRM at idle and measure the DC Voltage on the "first" 50uf filter capacitor. It should be over 400volts DC." The thing that initially confused me was I assumed the "first" filter cap was the one closest to the MOSFET end of the board and with the VRM at idle I wasn't getting much voltage at all, until I turned the VRM to near MAX and there was my 400+ Volts. It had me for a minute or two, I thought I might have wired the VRM backwards or something, I went back to the schematic, then I realised the "first" cap is actually the second cap in from the end of the board (C13) which is connected directly to rectifier diodes, hence "first". Now the readings made sense.

That was the only 'hiccup" though.

The amp is dead quite and sounds fantastic, I've been playing it through the Texas Heat in my Tweed Deluxe cab, nice warm and fat sound, fantastic clarity. I'll be back with some final assembly pics and the chassis installed in the Head tomorrow but right now it's time to play a bit.

Then I'll swap in a 6L6 and take it to band rehearsal on Tuesday where we'll introduce her to some Hendrix tunes.


Snowy

I recorded some voltages for other builder's reference, especially for anyone else building the amp to run off 240 Volt mains like mine.
These were all recorded to ground with the VRM B+ dialled to 400VDC at the positive side of C12.

6V6
pin 2 = 3.3 VAC (fillament)
pin 3 = 397 VDC
pin 4 = 395 VDC
pin 7 = 3.3 VAC (fillament)
pin 8 = 28 VDC

12AX7
pin 1 = 179 VDC
pin 3 = 1.84 VDC
pins 4 and 5 = 3.3 VAC (filament)
pin 6 = 178 VDC
pin 8 = 1.6 VDC
pin 9 = 3.3 VAC (fillament)


For reference I also took the following B+ readings for the various numbered positions of the Power Level (VRM) control. (Mine was marked as "A" taper)

VRM B+ measured at positive side of C12
position Idle = 40 VDC
position 4 = 50 VDC
position 5 = 75 VDC
position 6 = 95 VDC
position 7 = 116 VDC
position 8 = 146 VDC
position 9 = 259 VDC
position 10 = 382 VDC
MAX = 427 VDC


Snowy