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I received my first 18 watt amp kit Plexi and VRM. Stephen immediately shipped my order upon receiving my money order. This kit arrived in excellent shape and was well packed. Once I opened the box I was a little overwhelmed about all the parts, pots, wires, transistors, capacitors and many other small parts. These parts are a lot smaller than I thought when I have read threads and looked at many pictures.

Once I read the instructions before unpacking all the pieces it does not appear to be as complicated as I thought. At the end of the instructions is your packing list, I am still trying to figure out some of the resistors by the color coding and will continue to do some research until I get them organized and sorted out.

This is going to be a great journey into something I have never done before; in fact I have never used a soldering iron but have been working with wood working tools all my adult life so I have great hand and eye coordination. I have called on a friend who is coming over to give me some tips on soldering before I start diving into the kit. In fact I am going to try my hand on some old electronics before I start soldering on all the parts in the kit. He told me the most important thing is not get a cold weld.

I am going to read and more importantly understand what I am doing by going through the instructions many times before I start.
If you are thinking of an amp kit, I highly recommend Trinity Amps, my buying experience was second to none, the communication with Stephen was fast and courteous, and more over the Trinity Forum has a wealth of people who are knowledgeable and are willing to help.

I look forward to getting this put together and seeing how she sounds.

Skip Jack

It's faster to check the resisitors with a DVM and either tape them to a build sheet with the vaulues next to them or stick them in a piece of styrofoam with tape labels.

Group the caps the same way and it helps organization.

Excellent idea on the Styrofoam. On the resistor tolerance band will that be the fluctuations on the resistor? I did check some after doing the color chart calculations and they seam to very a bit.

Also is it necessary to get some iso alcohol?

I have not opened the vrm as it says it can be damaged from static electricity what is the easiest way to discharge myself from that?

My wire stripper only goes down to 1/4 inch it appears most leads are shorter once stripped.

Skip Jack

Good luck with your build. I found that I could get very zen while soldering... a little Led Zep in the back ground and strange smelling smoke wafting up to my face...hmmm sounds like my college years....

That was great.

the alcohol helps, not madatory though

The resistors have a tolerance, most are either +/-10% or +/-5% so there will be some variation but not enough to worry about, tolerances in the old days and drift on vintage amps can be higher than that.

Make sure that you get the electrolytic caps in the correct orientation when soldering, they have a polarity that has to be correct (they will have a band or arrows on them).

just take your time and you'll do fine

I did notice in the instruction it said the (SOZO) caps have an identifying line on them as this marks the outer foil and it said to connect the foil side to the incoming signal. And for tone stack capacitors or bypass connect foil side to ground. It did say the resistors do not have polarity but it's best to align them in the same direction for ease identifying and will make a cleaner build.

I have printed some of the build pictures and will align as noted in the manual.

I think I will bypass on the alcohol as you noted if it is not a necessity.

Thanks for the response

Skip Jack

Hi! Nice to see some more pics of an unassembled kit. I am waiting for my kit to arrive to Finland, I cannot wait to get started with it. I know a guy that sits on a few vintage Marshall plexis so it will be fun to run some comparisons when the kit is done.

I plan to build the cabinet myself.

thefretrunner,

Glad you ordered a Trinity you will be very impressed once you receive the kit. I will be posting pics through out my build to get advise from the professional builders on this form.

I hope you post also your build and the cabinet. I'm going to build a unique cabinet not decided on the design yet but once I get a few things on paper I will see if its not against the rules to post the cab build in the dressing room or 18 watt.

Glad to have a fellow builder a cross the pond.

Skip Jack

Like that idea but there's also an app I use sometimes as not all of us can read colour codes like the pros

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/etools-pro/id480157834?mt=8

There's also some free ones and prolly some for android and blackberry

Sazafraz,

Thanks for the tip, I looked and found one for my Droid. This will definitely help.

I am hoping to get started on the kit in the next few weeks, the cabinet company I work for is in the process of building a new showroom so all my spare time has been working at the new shop and showroom, our move is scheduled in the next few weeks and hopefully I will have a little R&R to get to smell some smoldering solder.



Skip Jack

Hi Skip Jack!

I've started the build now, I decided to document it in a blog. You will find it here:

http://handwired.wordpress.com

Good luck with yours!

thefretrunner,

Thanks for the link, I have been so busy for the last few months I have not had a chance to start my build yet. I want to thank you for posting a build link, I have book marked the link so when I actually have some extra time I will read it through.

Thanks again,

Skip Jack

Highly recommend the blog fretrunner is doing . Looks great!

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Stephen
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