Loud hum w/ standby on (no hum when standby off) & no signal coming out

[Wittgenstein]

Hi I'm new to this forum, so I apologize for posting this problem again, but I was not sure if I posted in the right forum the first time.

Here is a link to my first post explaining my troubles. I would really appreciate any help/advice.
Some more info...

-Link to Tridoe 5E3 layout diagram here

-Here is what happens when I turn the amp on with standby on. After about 30 seconds when the rectifier has warmed up, a buzz or hum starts really faintly and builds to a very loud noise and remains constant. If I then switch the standby off, the noise makes a weird dissipating noise (like turning off an old CRT TV) and the hum drops to almost nothing.

-The hum is not present when I have the 2 6V6's removed and just the rectifier in. It was still present but less severe with the 6V6's in and the 12ax7 and 12ay7 out.

-I also was poking around on the inside with the amp on using chopsticks (I was taking great care to avoid getting blasted by the caps) and I did find that pin #8 on the 6V6 closest to the rectifier affected the hum when the standby is off slightly (I could move the wire slightly to cause no hum while standby is off) but there is still no sound that comes out.

-Whether in standby or not, it seems to make no difference at all turning the tone and gain from 0-12. The same is true for having the guitar plugged into any of the 4 channels.

-One question I have. There are 2 black wires coming from the power transformer. One runs to the power switch and one connects to the neutral (white wire) on the power cord. Does it matter which is connected to which? The wire diagram I followed from Triode does not distinguish the two.

Please please help me!!!! I was so hoping to rock out on my first amp build =(

[d95err]

You need to provide more info. You need to measure the voltages at every pin on every tube and post them. Check some other debugging threads to see how it is done.

It seems that there is something fundamentally wrong since you're not getting any sound. Go over your build component by componen, wire by wire and make sure it is right. Measure all resistors where possible to make sure you have the correct value. Check every point that is grounded for continuity to the chassis, etc. Then wait a couple of hours and do it again, and again...

[Wittgenstein]

Thanks for the suggestions! I was a bonehead and had accidentally reversed the wiring on my 9 pin sockets (pin 1 was pin 9 and so on). I thought I had triple checked everything, but I kept making the same assumption about which pin was #1 (neither socket nor tube was marked like it is on the octal tubes). So I redid the work wiring the 12AX7 & 12AY7 up the correct way and now I have sound, but I'm still running into some trouble.

-It seems like I have to turn the pot to at least a volume of 2 or 3 before I can hear sound.... 1-2 does not produce sound. More importantly however, when I turn the amp up to half volume or louder and then strum all the strings the amp breaks up and makes a strange popping / electric sound and cuts out. If I play lightly it does not happen, and it seems to be especially worse when pushing out bass notes.

-There was a decent amount of hum that I reduced by moving the ground wire off the speaker output with chopsticks. That cut the hum in half but there is still a small amount I can hear.

-I did not have time last weekend after rewiring to check the voltages of all the pin-outs, but I will post them here as soon as I get a chance. I'm wondering if perhaps I burned something out when I had the wires mixed up. I plan on going back through every part with my Fluke meter to see if I can find any culprits. Any suggestions would be appreciated! I am so close and it felt good to play a guitar through it and hear that tube sound, however brief.

[Wittgenstein]

Pics uploaded!!

Got out the old 5MP camera tonight so I apologize for the bad quality. I plan on measuring the pin outs next. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Witt

[loudthud]

It's a good idea to "ohm out" (use your meters ohm function to look for very low resistance) those connections that are under the eyelet board from the top of the board. If two eyelets are supposed to be connected, ohm between the eyelets. If a wire is soldered to an eyelet under the board and comes out to a tube pin, pot or input jack, ohm from the eyelet to the destination.