Homemade Circuit Board

[brokennarsil]

Gotcha, thanks very much.

[defaced]

The problem is not from the soldering iron but from the heat generated by the components themselves over time. Most pcbs in consumer and some industrial electronics are made from a combination of paper and resin. They're cheap, flexible, and work well in wave solder machines. I don't know many times I have had to cut out an area that has become burnt and conductive to jumper over it to effect a repair. Wood, paper, cardboard, anything like that turns to carbon when heated and therefore becomes conductive. IMHO it is asking for trouble if you want reliability, especially if it is a high voltage and/or high current circuit and especially for any output device or power supply components. It's a really bad idea for tube stuff. The classic example is trying to pull a tube from an integrated socket and ripping out part of the board because it has become brittle. Wood will dry, char, split, shrink, get brittle and become conductive over time. But...whatever floats your boat.

Um, what was that all about?...

I prototype tube circuits using wood and copper plated nails, a method that pre-dates me by easily 40 years, and for that it's great, but I can't say I'd want that inside my amp day in/day out.

[unparalleled]

I used wood for circuit board with great success Look at : Twin Tweed Deluxe (5E3x2) and scroll down to the reverb unit.

It is very economical and can be very pleasant to look at with nice piece of wood. I also tryed with plexiglass and no, this stuff don't resist to the heat very well. Wood is a winner !

Polycarbonate clear is more resistant to heat. The only problem I have had is the board cracks if you are too aggressive when flaring your terminals.
By the way, I like the look of your builds!
Alan. (Anvil Amplifiers NZ)

[brokennarsil]

Maybe I'm just nieve, but you lost me on the 'slicing tomatoes' remark

But wood would be a handy and easy-to-get material... what about the formica someone mentioned, where can I get this? Isn't that countertop material? So maybe a Lowes or some such?

I'm too much of a sucker for homemade crap I guess. I said before it would cost next to nothing to buy the proper stuff and here I am still trying to jury-rig my expensive amp...I'm hopeless

[JHow]

You know, we didn't mention it in this thread, but tag strips and point to point are perfectly usable for smaller circuits. I started fooling with tube radios before I started on amps and many multi-tube circuits were accomplished without any sort of board.

[brokennarsil]

I don't know about tag strips, but isn't point to point is simply wiring everything together within the chassis? Looks kinda like a bomb went off in there?

If that's the case, the original amp that I'm building from (an old PA) was wired in this manner. Looked rather messy. I was going to do this, but since the wiring diagram for the amp I'm building uses a board, I figured I'd use one as well. Not to mention how much neater it would keep everything.

But it is a really simple amp, with no bells and whistles so to speak. The four imputs are the biggest mess as far as the amout of components needed to stick in the thing. It's a two-volume, one tone little fender basically.

[tubeswell]

I use switchpanel from a local electrical wholesaler (the stuff you do use for mains voltage wiring jobs) and brass eyelets. Each board costs about $10 max. (incl standoff mounting nuts)

[JHow]

I don't know about tag strips, but isn't point to point is simply wiring everything together within the chassis?

Yep. Pretty much. Its harder to do - but done right it works fine - and done really right it's almost an art form. It takes a lot of planning.

The four imputs are the biggest mess...

Those inputs look redundant to me, in that they don't offer anything different in terms of circuit. You could consider experimenting on the other tube with cathode bias, or parallel triodes, hi/lo jack, etc.

[brokennarsil]

I agree with you JHow about the four imputs being redundant. However, since this my first build, and first major electronics venture at all, I'm not sure if I have the ability to change the thing that much.

It's embarassing, but what I'm doing here is really just following the schematic I have step-by-step without any real problem-solving of my own. The biggest thing I have to worry about is where to solder everything.

So I'm really just trying to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the thing will even work. That will be a major sucess. I've already learned so much just doing what I have thusfar, and perhaps with future builds I can design circuits and bias myself.

(But as far as my friends are concerned, yep I built her from the ground up all by myself )

[Gtr_tech]

Formica drilled for eyelets seems to work well. There's a guy here local that does that with his new builds. If there's a cabinet shop near you they'll prob'ly give you some scrap pieces.