Having some trouble finding components.

[Enzo]

Without me looking back, I can;t recall what heat sink you needed. But "large" reminds me, I often strip out old stereo receivers for fun and save some parts. I usually save the heat sinks. So one source of "large" heat sinks is old dead stereo receivers you can find for free. Other fun parts on them are the powr cord, sometimes the power transformer is useful. Knobs, feet, screws...

[tonequester]

heat-sink

tonequester here.



Greetings Enzo. Your suggestion to check for salvage concerning the heat-sink that I need is one that I'll give a try. I have a large family and might find something useful among them, even if a power cord is all I find, that is something that I need as well. The heat -sink is the largest that I've seen, other than on the
440V. three phase, printing presses that I used to watch being serviced. It runs a little over $30.00, pre-drilled. I have a brother who was a welder/machinist
before he became a postman. He still maintains some work on the side, and I might have an out there. I just don't know how important/critical design is. The correct heat-sink just looks like a large rectangular block, with fins. If I remember correctly, the shipping weight was around .7 lbs. It really took me by surprise because I had a Sansui
amplifier years ago that was a 100 Watter, and I had to replace a power transistor in it. I remember the heat-sinking on it, and it was a small, black, finned piece no larger than an inch square and weighing not an ounce in weight. However, I also remember that the tech who advised me on troubleshooting it and fixing the problem, told me that
Sansui's were notorious for bad heat-sinking, leading to power transistor failure(circa 1980). After I replaced the blown power transistor, I put larger heat-sinks on both anyway. They weren't anywhere close to the size of the one I need for the kit. Anyway, I'm going to check everywhere I can think of for salvage, before I buy
that hunk of aluminum. If I can locate the right size of aluminum block, I'm pretty sure that my brother could approximate it, if approximation is acceptable in this case.
I guess that this is actually "engineering" territory if one needs to be precise. In all honesty, I don't know if forced ventilation could equal what that sink must do.
Thanks for reminding me of the value of salvaging. With the size of my family alone, I should always check with them. It wasn't that long ago that my brother the "metalworker", gave me an old VCR, Which yielded easily over $50.00 worth of odd parts(including knobs and power cord). Unless I get really lucky here, I'll probably be forced to buy the correct sink. Thanks for your time and advice Enzo. I really appreciate it. I seem to have the right kit now, and an idea about how I can make it work as intended. I sure don't want to cause a disaster by going "cheap" on the wrong thing. Have a great day my friend ! tonequester.

[Chuck H]

Other fun parts on them are the powr cord, sometimes the power transformer is useful. Knobs, feet, screws...

+++
Sometimes odd value pots. sometimes the cabinet can be retrofitted with another front panel and used for a project (if you tinker). If you make your own inductors, many have a big ferrite rod in them. Old ball end toggle switches look especially cool on projects. VU meters are expensive and worth saving. Even if you just sell them on Ebay. Sometimes there are really cool things inside like a 12" terminal strip or a headphone amp on it's own little board. Always worth breaking them open.

[tonequester]

tonequester here.

Greetings Chuck ! I'm definitely in "salvage mode" Chuck. I'm getting the word out to all family and friends for starters. I could kick my own butt for all of the things I've
let get away during my last move. Most of my family are "rat-packs" who never throw away anything. A month ago one of my brothers brought me an old VCR because he knows my "scrapping ways". I got a good power cord, a working motor, and I de-soldered two circuit boards mainly for the large electrolytics(haven't checked them out yet), and even some belts.
I also found an old auto stereo cassette which I haven't dug into yet. My "junk" pile is only 1/10th the size it used to be, but that's exactly how I got it all. I had a garage sale when I moved, in 2005, and actually made some serious cash from some of the things that I had. It came in handy with the move, but I sure wish I had it back now. Anyway, I'm on the "make"
now ! Hey, since I'm making this reply, I hope that you won't mind a "dumb' question. Today, I had the first opportunity to take my HT-1R outside and give it a thorough "blasting'. I have had several 2 channel amps in my time, including a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe(which I still have access to) and they all seemed to have close to the same max., volume on the clean channel
as on the high gain channel. My first amp(Princeton,circa 1960) did not, but I know that was a different type of two channel set up. I found out today that the Ht-1R only has about half of the max.,volume on the clean channel as the high gain channel. What are your thoughts on this. The "Hot Rod" is a 40W, if I remember correctly, and it screams on both channels, but I have never noticed that it is any louder, maxed out, on the high gain channel. Am I "hearing things", or is this common to some amps. The head engineer at Blackstar, by e-mail(I asked a few questions), told me that the amp should be able to "overdrive" the "power tube"(12au7) at full volume, on the clean channel. My attempt was a "no go". My dealer is a good guy,
but would probably S--- if I were to call him again about this amp. I've always refrained from "cranking one up" in the store as it's a very small store. Perhaps I should re-think that.
Any of your thoughts would be of great interest to me, and thanks for the reminder about "hidden treasure". I finally have the room for another BIG pile ! tonequester.

[Enzo]

A lot of those row of LED VU meters are on one board, including the chips. Four wires: power ground left right.

[tonequester]

tonequester here.

Hey Enzo, thanks for the tip on the LED VU meters, and the wiring. One thing that I have never give much thought to salvaging are VU meters. I don't know why because
I knew they weren't cheap. I will be sure to keep any of these I run onto at high priority for future use, as well as the dollar value. Thanks for another good tip. I'm collecting enough of these that I've had to start a bigger notebook ! I knew that new out-building would be good for something besides the lawn-mower ! Have a great day ! tonequester.

[Chuck H]

Tube amps have the virtue of actually sounding good when overdriven without much design consideration. This is for many reasons that have been discussed here ad infinitem. But what it amounts to is that you can design a simple tube circuit that gives good overdrive clipping character when the power tube is the first thing to clip. What that means is that when the smooth, rounded waveform reaches it's max volume and begins to clip, the actual voltage swing doesn't increase as the tops of the waveform flatten out. Even if you design such that earlier stages in the amp start to clip as the gain is increased, the max voltage swing has already been reached. Ergo, same voltage swing clean as clipped. A clipped signal will still SOUND louder. At least a little. This is because of the compression affect over the frequency band. But the difference is usually very acceptible. Especially since clean guitar parts are typically less agressive musical passages anyway. So, switching from clean to dirty, or, as with my amps, controlling the clipping level with input signal, the music happens just as it should. It's not a magic trick. But it sounds like one.

[tonequester]

Greetings Chuck.

To quote a WWF wrestler my kids used to watch(the"Rock") "I smell what you"re cookin'. However, does this apply as explained with a hybrid amp like my HT-1R ?
I feel confident that no matter how you adjusted the gain control(which works in clean mode and "dirty", but differently on each). This is from an e-mail sent to me by Bruce Kier, Technical Director of Blackstar : FW: Getting to Know the Blackstar HT-1R Better! "The gain control on your HT-1(the no reverb model) controls the gain of an operational amplifier symmetrical clipping stage that precedes the ECC83/12ax7 valve stages." We use this configuration to limit the amount of drive into the two valve stages." " The actual distortion is always produced initially at the anode output of the second valve stage(12au7), but we use clippers to limit the amount of peak to peak voltage that is applied to both valve stages, as contrary to popular belief, driving a cascaded ECC/83/12ax7 gain circuit with too high an input voltage has a detrimental effect on the tonality of the distortion thus produced." "The actual gain of the valve stages in OD mode remains constant regardless of the setting of the front panel gain control, and does not change with the setting of the front panel gain control." I don't understand how
this is so when in OD mode, turning up the gain control increases distortion AND volume, through it,s full range. It functions in much the same way on the clean channel, except the volume is increased cleanly, until about half way up before you begin to notice an overdriven tone which at maximum, is what I would call mild distortion. Just changing to the "dirty" channel results in noticeable increase in distortion and volume. On this channel I would say that distortion is maximum, again at about half way up, but the volume continues to rise until the gain control is at maximum. All of this happens with the volume cranked. To get maximum volume, both controls have to be maxxed. This means max volume, by far, only with max distortion. There's a lot going on under the hood. Besides two tubes that I know fairly well, there is a 28pin mystery chip, 7 X 8pin,unmarked I.C.'s. 3 small transistors, and two large STK 830 (power transistors ?)
which I have not been able to reference. The thing that bothers me most is that the first amp did not seem to have that much more volume in OD mode, or perhaps that much less in clean mode. As I said before, it may well be my bad ears and poor memory. Also, with this being my third HT-1R I might just be "gun shy". I figured you would understand much better than I do
what Mr. Kier is talking about, and that you might be able to down-talk it to me as you have so well many times before, when my understanding failed me. This, if and when you get the time. I do know that a distorted signal will sound louder, but this is looouuuddd, or like I said before, the clean channel is weeeaaakkk. Mostly, I'm cooonnnfffuuussseeddd !(humor intended). As for the "attack" of my trial playing, I played the same standard blues licks the same way on both channels. I also noticed that turning the reverb up to full further increases the volume.????