Board to sockets wiring procedure ?

[Five_E35]

Push back wire isn't what it used to be.

Plan A was to wire up and solder the board outside the chassis including extra length wire for the sockets. Install the board, dress the wires, cut to length, push back & solder. Not going to work.

The Fender assembly diagrams and the pictures on the TAD site show the wires being added one at a time with the board installed.

I'm thinking it might be less tedious to solder up the board complete with wires. Temporarily install, dress, and cut. Remove, strip, and reinstall. Then dress and solder. My concern is what all the bending and straightening might do to the solder connections at the board. Anyone do it this way or any other way??

I haven't installed the filament lines yet and am wiring from the bottom up.

[Diablo]

Here's what I do. Install extra long leads on the board. Wire up and solder filament connections on tube sockets. Install board in chassis, dress and trim leads to correct length, use wire stripper (simple cheap style from radio shack that has wire gauge printed next to holes for stripping), and solder to components. I think you're trying to overcomplicate things.

[lmolter]

Hi, I agree with Diablo. Don't think too much and just get going ;-)

I just finished my first ever amp (a 5F6A). Built it from scratch with no plans other than a schematic and a poor wiring diagram. I wired just enough to power the heaters and the pilot light with the HV secondaries taped and moved away from everything else. I then wired all the heaters first before anything else was installed, and then I tested that part. I did not want to rip everything out if I had a bug with the heater wiring.

I then wired all the controls off the board, using the brass strip as a jig to hold them. I ran long leads from all the pots. I wired up the board next and left long leads for all wires leaving the board. I used white for signal, red for plate, green for ground, and black for cathode connections. Makes it easier to identify your wiring if you have an error later. One suggestion I would have is to use stranded wire if you can. I DID break a lug off of the volume pot due to excessive bending of the wire (I had to rewire the input jacks and controls a couple of times due to bad grounds and such. Long story.). And the solid wire is a bit more stiff and tends to jump out of tube socket holes when you're trying to solder it. You might be able to dress the stranded wire more neatly, too. It's more pliable.

I, too, tended to over-analyze the construction at first, especially since I had no previous experience to refer to. But I think my approach worked out fine and I will build my next amp (a 5E3) the same way.

Good luck,
Larry

[Five_E35]

Thanks for the suggestions. I went tool shopping and picked up a small stripper that can get down in there and do the job. I have some mini-pliers that are good for wrapping solid wire around terminals, so that doesn't bother me, but I am going to use stranded for the filaments.

I've read in a number of places to do the filaments first, but the originals and a lot of these builds have them running down right next to the chassis. I've noticed that both Fender and Victoria run the line slightly above the sockets next to the shielded back panel, I assume to reduce noise, so that's what I'm planning. I have a variac and a SS plug-in rectifier to fire it up, so I'm not too worried about that.

I wired the pots and jacks temporarily mounted to the brass plate, then installed it in the chassis. Since there are so many ways to ground these things, I used excess cap lead to make ground jumpers between the cap eyelets on top of the board instead of underneath.

Thanks again, now all I need is some time to work on it

[vinman753]

If I can put my two cents in...
I'm not an antique, buy eyes aren't as good and have big hands, so what I do is wire up the sockets outside of the board with extra length including the heater wires. then I install the sockets into the chassis. i then attach the heater wiring from the socket it's attached to, onto the next one and so on. Then I just run the wires to the board that I can see better and get my paws into.
I find for myself that I'm sure to get a good socket connection this way also. i'm not an expert, I make my share of OOPS. I've only built 3 amps but I found this easier for me.