Assemble tube amplifiers for beginner and those of you who are curious about how to. Here I write the steps one by one so that they are clear and directed. Please note that the tube amplifier works with high voltage so you have to be very careful in assembling it.
Especially Elco on the power supply leveler, which usually still holds a high voltage of around 100-200 volts. Which if held (even if it does not connect electricity) will be painful.
As an example of the assembly we will take a fairly easy scheme. And part components are not difficult to find. Namely, amplifiers that use EL84 tubes as final and ECC83 tubes as pre/buffers.
This amplifier uses a Single Ended system. This scheme is fairly easy for beginners. Even though the wattage produced is less than 10 watts, the sound quality is sufficient for a medium-sized room.
This simple schematic I found in Gustomo Blog.
The steps are as follows:
1. Look for parts/components needed.
You have to make a list of the components. To purchased After studying the scheme you can list it. Some components may be available at the nearest electronics store in your city. Some components purchased online. It is because it is difficult to get them in common electronic shop. In choosing components you can look for high-quality items or audiophile class parts, or just ordinary components.
The value of the components that must be the same. As those listed in the scheme. If you need elco with a value of 100uF / 250V. And because it is difficult to get it, you can replace it with a value of 100uF / 100V. So that it can cause elco to explode and endanger yourself. If you are someone with good audiophile hearing, maybe you can replace standard components. With audio-grade components such as blackgate capacitors and so on. Audiophile components can be everywhere. Make sure all materials/components are complete when you will start assembling amplifiers.
2. Make/look for amplifier chassis.
Chassis Amplifier tube is different from ordinary /non-tube chassis. In the tube amplifier chassis usually contains two parts of the chassis. The lower chassis holds a series of electronic parts. While the upper chassis is usually used to hold large tubes, transformers, and elco. Because of that, some tube amplifier assemblers prefer to make their own chassis. So that they are free to arrange components and tubes to make them more pleasing to the eye. Ordinary chassis is made of wood, metal (aluminum, iron plate) or a mixture of both. Here are some chassis references for you :
3. Create a component installation layout.
After your components and chassis are complete, the next step is to create a soldering/installation component layout. This is very important because the tube amplifiers that we will make do not use PCBs. And soldering is done point to point. So we have to translate the real layout in the chassis from the existing scheme. You will need a lot of paper. Notice the tube pin that might be read from left to right or from right to left? don’t get it wrong, because if this step is wrong when you translate the scheme. The result will be fatal, the amplifier can not on at all.
4. To be continued
