How about that Vox AC30?

[Glasgow]

You should definitely build your own, if you can.

You are just kidding about the Beatles and Kinks, right?

B

[some1else]

At 52 ..... you bet I am kidding ......... I remember being 5 and going to the milk bar to play the pin balls and lsiten to the Beatles on the Juke Box.

I am being mentored through my AC30 build with a new friend who has done all of this before........ in return I will show him and his son how to build Les Pauls which I do with my son ...... It is a good trade of skills and one I will encourage everyone to do.

When I did my fitter apprenticeship I learned from a bunch of old guys every little trick they had developed or been taught. We need to keep all the skills alive for the betterment of humanity. When we leave it up to corporations they use what is profitable today and discard the rest without any sense of how important these things are.

The idea of building an old valve amp with point to point construction seems odd in this day of PCBs and ICs ..... but there you go ...... its the maintaining of a traditional industrial form that should not be let to die away because it doesn't suit a manufacturers profit imperatives.

[Glasgow]

Here's to keeping the spirit alive!

B

[some1else]

.............. absolutely ........... we should be rejecting crap in manufacture at every level!

This idea of pulling minerals out of the ground to make cheapo consumer products that last a few years until we dump them and then they are bulldozed into land fill is not industrial growth ........ it is stupidity.

Do you remember when washing machines lasted 25 or 30 years? I do. I met some material scientists and industrial designers a few years ago and they said that one of the things they were taught at university was to try and make the material last marginally longer than the warranty period.

My company in Australia manufactures a quality product that competes with a cheapo chinese product. The importers of this product do no repairs. During warranty they will swap the unit out if it is a warranty item. After that you have to buy a new unit because there is no repair facility associated with this product.

One of the Korean cars here has a sealed gearbox....... ie you cannot open it for service. If it breaks in warranty they replace it. After that you must buy a new gearbox at $8000 .......... this is basically dumbness.

If we all banded together and refused to buy any product like these the industrial companies would have to respond with better products and spare parts.

Keep all the trades alive I say ............. who do you know who is a copper smith ...... or a white smith ............. or a ship wright ...... we need nto be careful ......... these trades took hundreds of years to develop and have been wiped out in one generation by so called economic and industrial rationalism

[Steve Conner]

not industrial growth ........ it is stupidity.

Do you remember when washing machines lasted 25 or 30 years? I do. I met some material scientists and industrial designers a few years ago and they said that one of the things they were taught at university was to try and make the material last marginally longer than the warranty period.

... these trades took hundreds of years to develop and have been wiped out in one generation by so called economic and industrial rationalism

The "self-destruct as soon as the warranty runs out" is no joke. It's the dream product, because you need to buy another one as soon as the warranty runs out. You can think of the warranty period as a kind of lease after which your cellphone, washing machine or whatever goes to the landfill.

It makes perfect economic-rational sense, because the washing-machine company sells more product, and they're the ones designing the product, so they get to decide how long it lasts. Why should we expect them to act otherwise than in their own interest? Adam Smith and Milton Friedman certainly didn't.

I don't like it any more than you guys. And you can't refuse to buy it, because all products are the same. (Proof: The ones that were built to last cost more, so got driven out of the market by the Chinese crap.)

[some1else]

Years ago I worked in a school for criminal kids. We had to teach them life skills. One was how to do the washing. I decided to show the kids ...how to do the washing when you dont have a machine.

This involved putting their clothes into a bath filled with water and soap and using the mop as the plunging agitator. Any technology above this method becomes a simplifier to the process. For most cycle machines it is set and forget type of thing.

In Australia we have a company that makes a pedal powered washer for third world countries and hippie communes.

I think we should all band together to come up with robust designs.... use off the shelf parts ..... throw these into the public domain and then teach people how to make them.

I have had three enquiries this week about retro fitting some of my parts to a cheap similar product to mine that has been imported from China. The client has paid half the retail of my product and is now in the sh1T because the importer doesn't provide parts or service. This is barely a years after it was purchased ....... the final outcome is that they are going to end up paying more than if they bought a quality product in the first place .... mind you they are bitching about it because a new crap one still costs half the price of mine. I have invited them to go back to the importer to get another one but then they that the imported product doesn't last.....

.....meanwhile one of my clients phoned in after 5 years with an operational issue ..... the equipment is still chugging along.

I remember when I was designing my product I needed a particular part .... a four channel sliding contactor....... this was going to cost me $2k from a local company that imports them from the US ....... I still had to build the housing to hold it in my machine....... In the end I bought some off the shelf parts from the local electronics store for $5.98 and engineered them into my machine........ The biggest issue I find in our country is that people are forgetting how to make things and they dont bother to try anymore

[Prairie Dawg]

Years ago I worked in a school for criminal kids. We had to teach them life skills. One was how to do the washing. I decided to show the kids ...how to do the washing when you dont have a machine.

This involved putting their clothes into a bath filled with water and soap and using the mop as the plunging agitator. Any technology above this method becomes a simplifier to the process. For most cycle machines it is set and forget type of thing.

In Australia we have a company that makes a pedal powered washer for third world countries and hippie communes.

I think we should all band together to come up with robust designs.... use off the shelf parts ..... throw these into the public domain and then teach people how to make them.

The biggest issue I find in our country is that people are forgetting how to make things and they dont bother to try anymore

That's why you and I are here. We're friends of General Ludd. You don't have to convince me.

On the other hand, you, I and others can do this at present if we're intelligent enough to live within our means in a sustainable manner and learn how to fix what's broken.

If that's what you like to do, there is no better time than the present to live off the consumer grid because there's so much stuff around that can be bought for a song and recycled.

It also doesn't mean the Chinese are incapable of building good products either. They're like the rest of us-a mixed bag.



"The US is the world's biggest poluter etc etc"

[Glasgow]

If we all banded together and refused to buy any product like these the industrial companies would have to respond with better products and spare parts.

Exactly, because the reason we are in this sad state of affairs is because we all banded together and refused to pay for anything of quality. The lowest price and the soonest delivery became what we demanded and the manufacturers responded.

If we vote for good stuff by demanding good stuff, they'll make good stuff.

We should definitely also make our own stuff and teach our kids, neighbors, etc. how to also. Let us never forget that as humans, we can create!

Brian

[Prairie Dawg]

Exactly, because the reason we are in this sad state of affairs is because we all banded together and refused to pay for anything of quality. The lowest price and the soonest delivery became what we demanded and the manufacturers responded.

If we vote for good stuff by demanding good stuff, they'll make good stuff.

We should definitely also make our own stuff and teach our kids, neighbors, etc. how to also. Let us never forget that as humans, we can create!

Brian

Pogo said it best. We have seen the enemy, and he is US.

Every dollar you spend is a vote on what you want your world to look like.

[some1else]

Guys it sounds like we are great agreement.

Maybe we need to start a collective on Facebook or something like that to get us all together in the one forum.

Part of the problem is apathy and a lack of organisation towards a collective goal. A good bit of my adult working life I spent in maintenance departments of various organisations. The really good ones embraced the idea that you needed spare parts around waiting for when things broke so they could be fixed.

A friend of mine taught me much about joinery. My first project was a bookcase about 7' tall and 5' wide. We made it out of construction grade pine that we selected at the wood yard. It cost then anout $120 for wood glue nails etc. This piece of furniture still sits in my loungerom and will be passed onto my grandchildren I should suppose. Part of the final test for it was to climb up the front of the bookcase using the shelves as steps ..... nothing broke.

All of my friends immediately wanted one and my suggestion was I would teach them how to rather than just build it for them. One guy took up the challenge and made his even bigger.

The others went and spent heaps of $$ buying a piece of crap out of a pine furniture shop ..... these have long since fallen apart and were approximately 4 times the price.

The guy that taught me this had his washing machine break down. he was at the end of the school year and had year 12 students ..... he felt he couldn't take any time off to deal with his problem. He just went and bought a new machine. He explained this to me and said he will just ahve to take the old one to the dump on the weekend. I told him we should fix it and put it in his shed as a spare machine. We did this a few weeks later. We put it on an old pallet and wrapped it in plastic to wait for the inevitable. This happened about 4 years later. He went tot he shed and wheeled out the other machine and swapped them over. He fixed his other machine at his leisure.

I also taught turning to a frind of mine who bought his own lathe. He needed projects to satisfy his newly emerging engineering mind and started collecting old washers and fixing them. He ended up with about 10 machines that were like new. He rang a charity and told them about his excess and asked if they knew anyone in the community that needed a washer. They knew heaps. He became the washing machine king by giving away bits of other peoples junk he repaired. Ultimately he was awarded the Order of Australia for his work to ........ washing machine repair ...... no wait ..... the community.

All Jim did was re-enact a script our grandparents used.

If any or all are interested in a group so am I ..... what should we call ourselves ...... The Home Repairers Guild ...... The Guild of Scavengers ..... what thought do you guys have?

but then again is it ....... we seem to have all created a new topic

[wmoore567]

So does anyone have a schematic for the AC30HH, or any of the AC30 Handwired amps? I have a 2007 50th anniversary handwired head and I'm a little annoyed with Vox that they have been unwilling to provide me with a schematic for this model (didn't have the same issue with Fender!)

Also if there is anyone who has owned this model and can comment on the quality of any particular components that you think I should consider swapping for better sound or reliability either one...

A very cool amp I must say... it's made in China, whether it's handwired or not, and I am sure that the company must have skimped on some parts as most of them do...

But anyway if anyone knows where to get this schematic I would appreciate it.

[some1else]

I dont have a schematic for this model but I do know a great custom builder who is making replicas of the original with plenty of old style parts to get the sound going just perfect...... sell your new Vox and get a custome build done for yourself ..... where are you located?