Building A Stereo Tube Amp

Step 7 The Build: The Power Supply

As long as you can read a schematic and solder, you should be able to put everything together. However, if you're like me, you'll do it wrong the first few times. As you can see, there are two copper plates, one for the power supply and one for the audio circuit. It would have been even better to have one big plate covering the entire surface, but I didn't have one big enough, so I had to make do. In this first picture, I was just getting a feeling for the layout of the rest of the amp, figuring out where to put the tubes and how to bridge the gap between the audio circuit and power supply.

In the later pictures, there's some of the 'free-form' circuitry I was talking about. There are these little clumps of components soldered directly to one another, which is a little more confusing than using a PCB, but it's quick and does save you the trouble of worrying about making space for and possibly designing a circuit board (and it's hardcore). The terminal strips keep most of them anchored fairly securely to the case, anyway.

The Amveco toroid is wired a little strangely, but never fear, there's a very handy diagram.

Comments

[Wyle_E]

The traditional way to mount small components is to use terminal strips. I think you can still find them; strips of insulating material with mounting brackets and several isolated solder lugs. A row of resistors and capacitors mounted between two terminal strips looks a *lot* better than a "free form" rat's nest, and is easier to trace if you suspect that you've misconnected something.

[thobson]

I definitely agree that a little more organization and forethought would have helped. I do actually have terminal strips in the amp, they're just not the more traditional ones you're describing. However, when it came to certain parts of the power supply, my impatience got the better of me, and I just soldered the components directly together. When I build another amp/rework this one, the first thing I'll be looking to do is clean things up and reduce some of the clutter that's going on in there.