Online courses

[emresound]

Hi everyone,

I'm pretty new here and want to get my electronic knowledge up to scratch. I've been trying to find online courses that would help me best with being able to understand how to build and/or troubleshoot valve amps. I've started watching some youtubes but I was wondering if there was anything such as an online course that someone could recommend. It would be great to have a course that I could follow regularly after work or if anyone has any specific website that they can refer to, I'd love to look into it.

Even week-end courses would be great but being down under in Australia, they are few and far in between.

Look forward to hearing from anyone

Emre

[Enzo]

With the internet, they can be in ZImbabwe, where they are even scarcer, but you can still attend.

You will find various you tube presentations on someone's project or on particular aspects. I myself know of no course in guitar amplifier. Electronics is electronics, so learn that. I use Ohm's Law every single day, I keep a small calculator next to me for using OL. A resistor and a capacitor work the same way whether in a guitar amp or a missile radar or the timer on your lawn sprinkler. So ther are not courses for electronics specific to amplifiers, other than if they go over the basics in that context, because it is the same.

What I try to teach is troubleshooting, a learned skill. The principles are the same again whether on guitar amps or microwave ovens. Most modern courses in general electronics do not cover vacuum tubes, while most of us here work with tubes. But there are tutorials on how tubes work, and the chapters in the old RCA tube manual are pretty good in my mind.

Understanding how to build an amp is not the same as understanding how they work. To build one you need to know about hand tools, drilling, soldering, and identifying parts. But you don't need to know how they work to do that. Of course if you have trouble, you need to understand the circuits to get anywhere solving the problem. The people that assemble amps for a living often have little idea how they work, any more than the people who build cars in the factories know anything about thermodynamics in engine design.

[Richard]

Reading this site as well as Valve Wizard, Duncan Amps, and many others will get you going. Many sites that sell amp parts/make custom amps have lots of technical information on them, they want you to be successful so you build more amps, buy more stuff. Valve Wizard seems to me to have the most well laid out information. Do you have an amp that you are working on? Silverface Fenders are a good choice, relatively inexpensive, hand wired, and the circuits are well known.

How to design valve guitar amplifiers

Duncan's Amp Pages

[big_teee]

When I started building amps several years ago, I read every amp kit instruction manual I could find.
There are not as many of them listed but there are a lot of layouts available.
Here's some of the sites to look at.
ceritone has a lot of layouts under documentation for each amp design.
CeriaTone.Com - DIY Guitar Tube Amp
Tube Depot actually has online manuals available with each amp.
https://tubedepot.com/t/diy-central/...-tube-amp-kits
Here is an example of there manuals, this one is for the marshall 18 watt clone.
https://d1sjrnpi226dnf.cloudfront.ne...pdf?1382391857
GL,
T

[loudthud]

The most basic part of electronics (electricity really) starts with simple circuits that contain a battery, a switch and one or more resistors. If you skip this, you miss out on learning the foundation upon which all other circuits sit. This is where you learn about electron flow, Ohm's Law and the all important Voltage divider. I've worked with PHDs that were weak on having a gut feeling how things work. If I show them the math, then they get it.

[Steve A.]

When I was the parts dept supervisor at Pacific Stereo in the mid 70's I was handed the 1974 edition of the Radio Amateurs Handbook and was told to learn the basics... and yes there will be a test. So that got me hooked on electronics and here it is 40+ years later.

You can get the 1974 edition from Amazon for under $10. I recommend that year because they cover both tubes and solid state (I have no idea when they dropped tubes.) I still refer to that book all the time.

https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Amateur.../dp/B000K0945C

https://www.amazon.com/Amateurs-Hand.../dp/B0083OQZTK

Remember those electronics correspondence courses advertised in the back pages of comic books? I found a large box full of 50+ lessons at a yard sale many years ago.

Speaking of which Gerald Weber sells a 20 lesson correspondence course on tube guitar amps for $599...

Kendrick Amplifiers Online Store: 20 Lesson Tube Guitar Amp Electronics Correspondence Course

... and weekly webinars for $1 for the first month ($50/mo thereafter)

Kendrick Tube Amp Webinars

FWIW you can buy a CD with a scanned PDF of Dan Torres' "Inside Tube Amps" book for $16.99. Lots of cool tricks in there for mods although it doesn't really get very deep into the theory of amp design. I cut my teeth on that book in the mid 90's but learned much more here at AMPAGE.

"Inside Tube Amps"AVAILABLE ON CD NOW! Everyone has learned about tube amps from this book!


Steve Ahola

P.S. As for the test on electronics back at Pacific Stereo I outscored some of the service techs most of whom learned the trade in the Navy.

[Enzo]

Yep, the Radio Amateurs Handbook was great, came out new every year. It slowly evolved over the years. In like 1962, they were covering some transistors, but mostly all tube still. A 1950s edition would be great. By the 1970s, the tubes were a minor emphasis. I learned a lot of my electronics from that book.

[Steve A.]

Good point, Enzo- here is a listing for the 1950 hardcover edition for under $11...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001BHI03A

Here's one from 1961...

https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Amateur.../dp/B000Y4UNJA

Actually I like the 1974 edition because of its mixed coverage of solid state devices as tubes... I like to screw around with both. Even has rechargeable battery circuits!

Steve Ahola

[Enzo]

Sure.

The early ones covered tubes pretty well with a smattering of solid state. Later ones cover solid state pretty well, with a smattering of tube. Couldn;t hurt to get say 1959 and 1989.

[olddawg]

I got an AS Degree in Electronics from a JC in 1976. Each semester had a text. The progression went like this: Passive components, Active components, Opamps, Digital ...
We also took separate math classes concurrent with the electronics classes. If you went to the a JC library or even a local city library, I would bet the ciriculum texts are still on the shelves.

[E biddy]

I learned a lot here.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Stratosaurus1
Starting here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5SSKX74DKg
and here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=901iaPVVzY0

[tbonuss]

Its not an online course per se, but for some reason, the United States Navy Basic Electronics and Electricity course documents are all available online. These are designed to be self-paced, self-guided instruction--taking people who have absolutely no background in electronics to head to labs where they will work directly with more specific gear: radar / comm / navigation and / nuclear gear. Its helpful that the Navy still cares about tubes.

Here's an example: Module 6—Introduction to Electronic
Emission, Tubes, and Power Supplies

http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/14178.pdf

[kkregsg]

NEETS is one source I came to post. One tip, I scour the internet, and download pretty much every scrap of tube amp info I can find. The important part is be sure to back it all up often, because a HD failure would be catastrophic. I have all mine in 3 locations just to be paranoid. I learn a lot just stumbling from link to link, and finding unexpected gems of information.

One thing that helped me was taking copies of several 5 watt schematics from different manufacturers and tracing the differences in the circuits, then going on youtube to find sound samples to try and understand the affect of different choices.

[Steve A.]

Its not an online course per se, but for some reason, the United States Navy Basic Electronics and Electricity course documents are all available online. These are designed to be self-paced, self-guided instruction--taking people who have absolutely no background in electronics to head to labs where they will work directly with more specific gear: radar / comm / navigation and / nuclear gear. Its helpful that the Navy still cares about tubes.

Here's an example: Module 6—Introduction to Electronic
Emission, Tubes, and Power Supplies

http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/14178.pdf

Thanks for the heads up! Here is a link to the full series...

NEETS - Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series

Steve Ahola

P.S. I started reading Module 6 and learned how rectifier tubes worked... interesting!

[Old Tele man]

Look for older USN training books (circa 1960's, they ARE out there) because THEY covered vacuum tubes...by the 1970-80's the books were teaching solid-state devices and integrated circuits.