Josh's 18W Tremolo TMB Builds

[JMPGuitars]

And here it is with turrets:

TremTMBR-PCB-Turrets.jpg

[geoff 1965]

cool! are you going to sell any and how are the turrets seated,do you solder them in?

[crgfrench]

My PCBs finally arrived today. They look great.

Dude! that looks great, I love the color and the graphics.

[JMPGuitars]

cool! are you going to sell any and how are the turrets seated,do you solder them in?

Thanks!

The board is standard 1/8" (3.2mm) thick to work with 1509-4 turrets. They are swaged in as normal (I use a modified 1/2 ton press), and then the bottoms are soldered. Solder + mechanical connection as always. However, I designed the board to work with or without the turrets, for anybody that doesn't want to deal with them.

I will sell the boards. I bought 20 to start with. I'm probably going to offer them individually and as part of a kit. I have to say, I thought the shipping charges were a scam, but 20 of these boards weighs around 10 pounds. They're pretty serious. I'm going to build one out before I sell any of them.

Thanks,
Josh

[JMPGuitars]

My PCBs finally arrived today. They look great.

Dude! that looks great, I love the color and the graphics.

Thank you! I'm very happy with how they turned out so far.

[geoff 1965]

yeah they do look good quality and i agree swaging and soldered will be the best connection.i'd be interested in one Josh when you decide to sell but as i'm in the U.K. postage cost comes into it.
can you use the same board for either the 18W and 36W with just some component value changes?

[JMPGuitars]

yeah they do look good quality and i agree swaging and soldered will be the best connection.i'd be interested in one Josh when you decide to sell but as i'm in the U.K. postage cost comes into it.
can you use the same board for either the 18W and 36W with just some component value changes?

Fine with me, I'm not the one paying the shipping charges. I haven't figured out pricing yet anyway.

Yes, it will work for 18W or 36W. The values on the board are for 18W, but I will be building a 36W EL34 version with it first. I'll probably write a build manual with info for both.

[geoff 1965]

even more cool!
i'll be watching for your el34 version build with a keen eye
thanks Josh

[JMPGuitars]

even more cool!
i'll be watching for your el34 version build with a keen eye
thanks Josh

I'm looking forward to hearing it when it's done. Hopefully the cabinets will arrive this month.

If this gets a good response, I'll probably make similar PCBs for other 18W circuits including the Superlite TMB. Maybe even my high gain Xtra TMB that I never released.

[Bieworm]

even more cool!
i'll be watching for your el34 version build with a keen eye
thanks Josh

I'm looking forward to hearing it when it's done. Hopefully the cabinets will arrive this month.

If this gets a good response, I'll probably make similar PCBs for other 18W circuits including the Superlite TMB. Maybe even my high gain Xtra TMB that I never released.

Is there another puzzle session awaiting for the Xtra TMB... like you have put us through with the reverb enigma?

[JMPGuitars]

Is there another puzzle session awaiting for the Xtra TMB... like you have put us through with the reverb enigma?

lol, not exactly. I haven't decided if I want to share it or not. I'm more likely to share it in PCB format because it will probably be an easier build that way. The Xtra TMB is an advanced build, and needs to have very good soldering and layout...and the reverb version is a little crowded.

[JMPGuitars]

JMPGuitars-TremTMBR-PCB-Complete.jpg

Here's the completed board with the foils marked. I also marked the schematic so anybody making either version knows which way they go.

Thanks,
Josh

[crgfrench]

Josh what are the overall board dimensions and hole mounting dimensions? I'll make some suggestions depending on what they fit.

[JMPGuitars]

Josh what are the overall board dimensions and hole mounting dimensions? I'll make some suggestions depending on what they fit.

The board is about 12.1" by 3.75". Holes are drilled for #6 screws.

[crgfrench]

Josh here are some immediate thoughts:
A good pricepoint for this board (bare) would be approx. $50 to $75, based on comps (obviously these are not circuit comps, just a sampling of some currently available PCBs out there for builders):
$10 Wattkins Big British Distortion PCB (9"x6")
$20 TubeDepot 5E3+ PCB (8.25"x3.125")
$29 Granger JMP/2203/2204 ST1 PCB (dimensions unknown)
$30 GAPCB Baby Will PCB (10"x3")
$35 GAPCB Plexi SE PCB (8"x4")
$45 Wattkins Universal PCB (9"x3.75")
$75 AA Electronics Dumble ODS PCB (13.6"x4.5")
$100 Ceriatone Son of Yeti PCB (11"x3.25")

This board would not fit in a Hoffman Stout chassis, but it would fit in a lot of others, such as:
Wattkins Universal Chassis (aluminum) $50
Weber 6M36CH-REVB (aluminum) $99
Ceriatone 36W aluminum chassis $75
Ceriatone Son of Yeti steel chassis $55
(...& a lot more I'm sure, these just popped to mind.)

[JMPGuitars]

Josh here are some immediate thoughts:
A good pricepoint for this board (bare) would be approx. $50 to $75, based on comps

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking $50 would be a good price. Of course if you compare the quality/thickness of these boards to those others, $75 is better. lol But I'll probably do about $50 and then have a small discount for members of this site.

That's good to know about chassis for other people to use. I'll obviously continue to have my own made, and possibly have a kit version available with them.

I'm thinking about offering kits like this:

Option 1:
PCB only

Option 2:
PCB + Small parts kit including resistors, caps, etc...

Option 3:
PCB + Small parts kit + chassis / faceplates + all parts (including sockets), excluding transformers

Then maybe offer turrets and transformers separately as addons.


None of it matters until I've built out a couple of them for the 36W and 18W versions to make sure it sounds great either way. The 36W version I'm building is using turrets as pictured above, but the 18W version I build I'll skip the turrets except for maybe the ground connections.

I shouldn't mention this, but I had an idea for the next version of the board where I'll include a switchable .01µF cap in parallel with one of the others in the preamp to make the tremolo speed switchable. Obviously it can still be done point to point(ish) on this board. I'll probably do it on the 18W version to illustrate it.

Thanks,
Josh

[ViperDoc]

All looking quite nice!

I noticed a revision posted for the TMB Trem SCH. Value tweaks?

[JMPGuitars]

All looking quite nice!

I noticed a revision posted for the TMB Trem SCH. Value tweaks?

Thanks!

I dunno. I don't remember. If you mean the one I linked above with the foils, I think the only difference is the foils? It depends on which version you're comparing it too.

On my 36W PCB pictured above, I did make some changes to values, but they're all optional. I used a 220pF treble cap, I'll be using a 25K mid pot, and one of the .01µF trem preamp caps is .022µF to get slower trem speed. My combo sounded a little bright for my taste, so I'm making some small tweaks to see what I like.

[Bieworm]

All looking quite nice!

I noticed a revision posted for the TMB Trem SCH. Value tweaks?

Thanks!

I dunno. I don't remember. If you mean the one I linked above with the foils, I think the only difference is the foils? It depends on which version you're comparing it too.

On my 36W PCB pictured above, I did make some changes to values, but they're all optional. I used a 220pF treble cap, I'll be using a 25K mid pot, and one of the .01µF trem preamp caps is .022µF to get slower trem speed. My combo sounded a little bright for my taste, so I'm making some small tweaks to see what I like.

I can confirm the amp sounding bright. My 2nd tremolo TMB was rather bright too. The 1st was not. So I took that early 70s g12h30 from the 1st and swapped that one with the G12M65 Creamback that was in there. Overly brightness gone and nice creamy sounds on tap.
Fwiw, I think if you can find an emi 1228K the perfect marriage would be a fact.

[JMPGuitars]

I can confirm the amp sounding bright. My 2nd tremolo TMB was rather bright too. The 1st was not. So I took that early 70s g12h30 from the 1st and swapped that one with the G12M65 Creamback that was in there. Overly brightness gone and nice creamy sounds on tap.
Fwiw, I think if you can find an emi 1228K the perfect marriage would be a fact.

Yes, speaker has the biggest impact usually. But that's why I'm making small tweaks, because I'd rather stick with the speaker I'm using. It sounds amazing if I turn the treble down, so I'll adjust my build to suit.

I also prefer to use a 2x12 cab with only one speaker in it, so pairing a speaker doesn't work for me either.