DIY cheap solid-state amplifier (from salvaged parts)

Living in a third-world country, amplifiers like marshall, fender, line6, peavey and others are just too expensive for poor guitar players like me, since most amps are toys for the rich boys. So with a mix of inspiration and imagination I came up with this design and idea. I always wanted to have an Amp head since they look way cooler than combo amps, so this gave me an inspiration for my new build an amp head, (this instructable can also be used for making a combo amp).

If you have any practice amps that you have not used or somehow not working anymore, then it is the best time to give it a make-over, I'll give you an inspiration on how to give your amp a new breathe of life.

In this instrcutable I will build an amplifier out of salvaged parts from existing guitar amp that I have and add other circuits to give new sound to the amp. One good thing about this is that it is cheap.

I salvaged a damaged 10watt practice amp and a 150watt PA amp that I have a long time ago, I made other circuits to give the old amp a new sound.

You have the option to build it in a combo type manner or a cool looking amp head.

Step 1: Gather the parts

Before I made my amp I had to search and build other circuits to give it a new sound.

Materials:
Any salvageable amplifier,
soldering Iron and lead
cutting tools(wire cutter, strippers and the likes)
wires
tester
drill
breadboard(fro prototyping and testing circuits before soldering it)
PCB, Ferric acid(if you like to etch)
universal PCB(if you hate to etch)
components(resistor, opamp, transistors, diodes, capacitors etc.)
9-12volt power supply(use to test your circuit) or a 9v battery

--------additional circuits---------
I decided to build the simplest circuits (since I it is difficult to find most of the parts needed for complex circuits especially in the country where I am from). any circuit you can think of can be used whether it is a transistor, op amp or valves(but I would discourage you with using valve pre amp since it would just kill the beauty of the valve sound if you pair it with a 10 watt practice amp it is not worth it).
-->Tonemender from runoffgroove
-->Trotsky overdrive from beavis audio
-->LM386 design
-->ua741 design
-->some tone stack designs.

Materials(Casing)
This may vary as to what is available that you have right now.
but for my design I used
-3/4" plywood

Comments

[Insonicbloom]

I too make stuff from salvaged parts alot - often you find the TDA2030 in old surround sound amplifiers and other such consumer stuff, so if you want an amp with a bit more power go here I designed a quite powerful guitar amp using the TDA2030 on stripboard - there are soundsamples too!

it is quite simple and as per most of my designs I try to use parts I've salvaged, in this case most of the parts probably came from the same PCB as the TDA2030 - people were so impressed I had a few local players pay me to make them one - maybe you could make a bit of money doing the same!

[VAustin89]

I have both a tda2030 and a tda2003 design. I am heading in that direction selling amps, I have sold a couple of LM386 designs. Any op-amp design that can somehow "get a tube sound"?

[shredjv]

I like your amp build a lot. Great way how you integrated the guitar effect circuits into the head. If I understand , you plug your guitar cable into the effect channel you want?..by the way did you dig up parts for your circuits from from old radios and other electronics?..I have a hard time looking for the correct semi conductors for the effect circuits. Nevertheless, amazing build on a budget!!

[VAustin89]

Yes, that is basically the concept. Pretty much, I used parts from old projects that I had in college, some broken computer speakers and anything that most people will find as trash.

[freeza36]

What design is on the pickguard of the white "Strat-style" guitar? It looks very interesting.

[VAustin89]

just an ordinary pick guard and did a "mosaic-art" using front cover of PSone games that were still with me.

[vov35]

Your clear plastic enclosure is just begging for the installation of an LED light organ, IMO.

I like your approach of cutting the boards apart, well done!

[VAustin89]

yah, I am still match making what LED color to use.

[mrsocky]

It could probably be perspex/ plexiglass. they're usually clear plastics used as windows and i think it can be used as bulletproof windows

[vov35]

remember that material acoustics matter too! That said, I've seen some plexi/lexan amplifier boxes and even speaker enclosures, so it may be reasonable.