Recent content by electroken

I don't know about the more sturdy part, but certainly cheaper. There was very little plate voltage during warm-up in many designs. The heavy rectifier filament was the last one to heat up. I have many tube radios from the '30s to '50s. I use one from 1947 quite often. There is nothing in...

To get by with a low power soldering iron you need a solder with the lowest melting point you can get. That's going to be what they call eutectic solder and it's 67% tin, 37% lead. It melts at around 362F. Get the stuff with a rosin flux core.

The schematic should have the tube numbers right next to the symbol for each tube. If you can post the schematic and a photo of the underside of the chassis, I'm sure dozens of people here (me too) can tell you what to plug in where.

Just got my BX500NT (No Tube) yesterday. Just like the folks at Carvin said, I popped in a 12AX7 I already had and it's just like all the rest of 'em... except $30 less. The main PCB is now at rev G. It seems they've had some trouble taming this beast. So far, so good...

I've been staring at the schematic for this amp for an hour this morning. I have to get me some of what these Carvinites are on. A couple things jump out: The printed circuit board was revised to rev F on 2/25/2010. That means there a 5 revisions that don't act the way Carvin wants them to...

Carvin is selling some of these under the part number BX500NT on Ebay for $349. I wrote them for an explanation of the NT and they said they are new units with the 12AX7 omitted for for customers that aren't interested in the tube preamp. They claimed that all I have to do is plug in a 12AX7 and...

You heard correctly. The body wood in the PB10 kit I attempted to build was garbage.

I hope the body wood isn't the same as in the Saga kits. I tried building one of the P kits last year. Even finished, the body was so soft it could be dented with light pressure from my thumbnail.

We're going to have to define "made in USA" before this can really be answered. I design electronic stuff for a living (not amps). Everything I design is built right here in Shelton, CT. However, every transistor, diode, relay, LCD display, and resistor, every one, comes from outside the US...

OK, so technically it's sunset burst.

I prefer to set the iron at 680F/360C for eutectic tin/lead solder and 750F/400C for the lead-free alloys. Given the choice, I'll use the tin/lead every time.

The thread could have stopped right here. Unless you can fit a flux capacitor in your bass.

Sign me up... here is my swamp ash, sunset burst B4. It's too good for me.

I've noticed changes in tuning from both temperature and humidity changes. I see this more in my crappy basses than in my swamp ash Carvin. Increasing temperature lowers string tension (and therefore pitch) while decreasing temperature raises pitch. These changes are quick and noticeable for...

Leave the battery out - It's only there for the lights. I like my RBX4A2 and it was a steal at $249.