5F1 Champ Amp DIY

Hi folks.  After reading many things about this project, safety about working on tube circuits etc. i m about to built my first tube amp. (i ve built many other fet etc projects in the past). I want to ask a bit "weird" question about turret board's material.
Dont laugh , my uncle is a pharmacist and gave me many materials and old stuff from old capsule machines  he used to make capsules with them. I ve attach some to photos to see what i m talking about.  It seems that these boards are made from a very thick,non conductive material, i think (and asked an expert educated in plexi glass etc.) it is porcelain.  And i thought , as they have all those holes already, if i could use them for turret boards. If i find the appropriate turrets for these holes, do u think it will be OK ?
And also,  their lenght isnt so big,  could i make the Champ amp in two of them for exampe?

Porcelain is an excellent insulator, but it is very brittle.  It would work but I would not take it out of the house.

No its for home use only. If i go scetch Eagle my own PCB and send it to manufact houses? Does it have to be specific traces dimensions and space? (most "guitar world' folks say yes but the more "electro" people say id doesnt matter, as long as clean-dirty signal parts are seperated enough etc). Whats your opinion?

If you can press turrets in and not crack it you'll probably be OK.

I didn't know porcelain could be transparent like that. It looks more like lexan / plexiglass.

Just look up some layouts for the 5f1. Print it off  and overlay it on your board to see if the size works.

Hm nice idea. So i guess distances etc. must be specific.(meanwhile i just checked with dmm and no beep as sippsosed).
Dont know, i feel more "safe" by the pcb way... If i go with pcb way is it right to make 2 pcbs instead of 1? Can i divide them?

For tube amps a turret board is better than a PCB.  Handles heat better and is more robust imo.  I've repaired some PCB tube amps that were a pain to work on and would never build one.
I'd suggest doing more research and looking at amp builds before starting. Hoffman amps has a good forum for tube amp building and a store with turret boards. A lot of people build the Champ so you don't need to reinvent the wheel.  A turret board owuld only run you $11 with the turrets installed.

Prototyping a PCB will be way more expensive

I am not the tube expert here, but tube circuits are high impedance so wiring lead dress can affect crosstalk and more. A well vetted PCB layout could provide at least standardized behavior in those respects.

JR

You can use 2 small boards, you can use no boards and build a point to point amp. Consider the board material will effect the sound of the amp too. Everything will physically resonate. Fender used Fish paper, it has a dull resonance. Later they dipped it in wax for the high gain amps. Printed circuit board amps may sound brittle compared to fish paper amps. You could probably buy a pre-made board, without the components, for this build.

JohnRoberts said:

I am not the tube expert here, but tube circuits are high impedance so wiring lead dress can affect crosstalk and more. A well vetted PCB layout could provide at least standardized behavior in those respects.

JR

Click to expand...

Mounting the tube sockets onto the PCB can give you shorter paths, but then you have mechanical stresses whenever tubes are changed. Unless the sockets are mechanically attached to the chassis as well. 
Tube amps 'sound' may actually benefit from some interactions and feedback from wiring lead dress.

Very usefull infos here really thank you guys! I ll probably go with prototyping in two smaller pcbs as i ve already sketched some other projects in Eagle waiting for manufacturing so to combined order (less cost). If i "copy" a well known layout (e.g. tubedepot) and "divide" it in 2 pbs due to dimensions (its 150x80 so 2 pcbs of 75x80 or smthng just to fit 100x100 of china manufacturers) it will be ok?Any tips on populating that would be appreciated.  Or anything useful too. I d be happy if i could built this (diy speaker-kind of cabinet-it really doesnt have ti be a "dedicated" cabinet) for really cheap. (Srry for that, i know there are many heads out there that will argue hearing the word "cheap"and they re right in many cases, but maybe its possible).

I also found some old tubes from an old Wega radio laying around. The vacuums are these: ECH81, EF89, EBC81, EL84, EZ80.
I know this s a bit off topic as the thread is for the Champ actually, but if i could built smthng from those in cheap the thread would be "solved" haha
I searched about and found guitar amp schematics that use some of them. The el84 for sure. If you know for sure a ptoject/scheme or smthn that use them (as most as i can) or in combinations with others plz share. I did a first test with multimeter based on their schemes and pins 4,5 beeped so thats good at least. They were pretty dirty as hell and i cleaned them carefully with 99 isopropyl  and get shiny again! Is there any other method i can test them (except for tube testers) ? Could i give them volt in somehow ? Just wondering.

The output transformer needs to be matched to the output tubes. EL84 is a great choice. But you might want to make sure yours are good before building an amp around them. Test them by swapping them into an amp. Even a tube tester won't test for noise / microphonics as well as simply trying in an amp.
Tubes are like light bulbs. They will need replacement.
As to the others, look up datasheets.

> an old Wega radio

Any tube radio *with power transformer* "is" a small Champ. Disconnect the top of the Volume control and feed your guitar in there. This is low-gain, hard work for your plucking arm. Now disconnect much of the IF stage (EF89), triode-wire it with typical audio-amp values, and put that gain between guitar and volume control.

However everybody cuts-up these radios, never marks the leads, and in general radio-salvage is rarely a happy thing.

Thanks PRR for tips, but the radio doesnt functions actually and some of its  components  are in total bad non-reversed condition(covered w black sticky oil dirt  thing over years lol). Anyway its not in my plans to restore the radio itelf.  I Ω tested the power transfo and seems to have survived though, i will salvage components as much as i can do from it(found some nice styro's  in there ).
I found some schemes of old Selmer tube amps using EZ80 and EL84. The Little Giant MK1 for example http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/selmer/schematic/lgmk1.html
Could i built this and use my Wega's transformers ?  Wega  uses EZ80 as power/rectifier tube and EL84 as "output" tube as Little Giant does.  So would it be OK if i go with those? And if so, are there any further infos on voltages specs of components, ress caps fuse etc. used in this schematic?  Any info would be appreciated.

PS. I also checked the output transformer of Wega by putting a 1khz sine into primary and  it came out from secondary to speaker so it  works too

hi zaraxisof!

Just my $0.02, but I say do it "right" the first time.  Get a 5f1 pre-made board.  John Roberts highlighted a major thing with high gain tube amps.  Lead dress (how you lay the wires out from the board) is so very critical.  A too-long lead from a sensitive stage flopping around and crossing other signal stages will make for a noisy amp and oscillations.

My input (and I have taught several people how to make this amp) is to make it look EXACTLY like Fender did.  Everything they did in regards to how the wires lay and etc. is important to making a good sounding champ.  You also need to rotate the transformers correctly so you are not inducing a hum from the power transformer to the output transformer.  So immensely critical for studio quality noise levels.
google "headphone trick"

best wishes to you! I'm excited for ya.
Andrew

Just going to throw out some concepts and you can do the homework:

-Lead dress.
-Transformer orientation.
-Twisted heaters.
-Heater center tap vs. artificial center tap.
-Max capacitance for 5Y3 (I always use 30mfd  )
-B+ voltage.
-Cathode bias: you may find that the stock 6v6 cathode resistance (470 ohm) for your particular build runs the tube too hot and need to up it a bit even to 680 ohm.
-Carbon composition plate resistors.
-Lastly, mods: do you only want a single "hi" input and can use the extra hole to make a "bright, none, normal" switch for the 1st gain stage cathode.  and if not always always add the cathode cap on the input gain stage (25mfd elytic like the 5f2a). this will make your amp really crunch when you crank it. 
- Lastly lastly, the original Fender layout is missing the ground connection from the volume pot (and they omit the aforementioned pin 3 cathode bypass cap).

take care!