18Watt.com

Help!!!!
Don't understand plate voltages and grids toppers. I am an electric forklift technician....I can copy nearly anything, but not really creative....
I own a crate v33-212 with jj and tong-sols and pre amp voicing kit from triodeelectronics out of Tampa installed by me. I'm tired of taking it to the shop for "other" problems... Thought, why not rip the pinted circuit board out, keep the cabinet, speakers, chassis, and xformers build a turret board? Looked at the 36 watter, looks simple, doable, affordable. Please offer guidance....I new here, but I' m earnest about stepping up. I have a 75 Princeton SF and its bulletproof....I would like to obtain similar results on the cheep, sorry. Would like to build a kit, next but baby steps first.....Many thanks for your consideration.!!!!

Your first step would be to see if those transformers will work or not. Then you have to decide, even if they will work, will they be good enough to use for a 36W build. If the power supply is within range, you might be able to get away with just replacing the output transformer, but sticking with the stock output transformer is probably not going to be a great idea, even if it is sufficient.

A V33 has a weak, poor designed (prone to failure) switching power supply ...

So what you have that could be recycled is really just the cabinet and chassis ...

The OT is usable but not good ...

It can be done. I built an all octal Lite IIb in a broken Crate Vintage Club 30 that I got for free. Plenty of room in that damn thing, but I replaced everything. Only thing I ended up using was the cabinet and the Chassis.

That's what I expected. You can contact http://gdsamps.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for 36 watt transformers, or for a kit you can build into the chassis/combo.

Well,
Opened her up aaaaaaaand I'm thinking 18 watter, of the TMB flavor. Maybe a kit, minus chassis, cabinet, and speakers. Don't really need multiple impedance selection. Any chance there's a half power option? Kinda sad that a tube amp looks like a pc on the inside. Tithe 18 TMB is probably overkill in my man space, I've never had the crate above 3. Many thanks for the informed responses, this may be a long journey........don't really want to go cheep, but I do want to pay cash as I go. Can this be done in hundred dollar blocks? Again many, many thanks!!!!

You can definitely work it out that way. Contact http://gdsamps.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; about his transformers. You can buy those separately and discuss the rest of the parts. Besides the transformers, you already have the most expensive parts you need.

If you don't want to do a kit, you can source the parts besides the trannies from other places like Mouser, but then you need to spend more time figuring out which components are best (values, tolerances, materials, etc...). Personally, I like Xicon carbon film for most resistors, metal film or metal oxide for the higher wattage resistors, and I like the Mallory 150M series for the non-electrolytic capacitors. I like SoZo caps better than the Mallory, but they're both good.

Per JMP contacted GDS, super insite, basically I need small parts and pt. mojo may have a tmb small parts kit after the first....not sure....how about triode, Hoffman, or should I buy a board from watts maybe and source my own parts? Or give my ignorance but GDS iron seems pretty pricey.....triode looks cheep, classictone in between, heard no nice words about w****r. Mojo parts and triode pt looks like the icing for my cake. Mr. Bang for Buck over here. ( I play Korean epis and Mexican fenders with American hdw.) . Are sozo caps really better than mallory? CTS and Switchcraft I get, JJ and Tungsol I sorta get, nos too deep.....Plans have slightly changed......would like to complete 18 tmb, then, add 1/4 power switch and single tube reverb. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Again many,many thanks in advance for the wisdom and guidance!!!!!

I've used the ClassicTone transformers, and they were good, but to my ears they're just not as good as the GDS iron. The other thing I like about the GDS PT is that they have solder terminals instead of wires coming off the transformer. So you can measure the wire yourself, and if you ever need to replace a wire, you can go back to the solder lug instead of having to splice a wire. Bottom line: the one place not to make your choice based on the price tag is the transformers.

SoZo vs. Mallory: I don't know. I really like SoZo a lot, and they're very high quality caps. But the Mallory caps have been perfectly reliable for me and sound good as well, so it's really hard to say what's better. There are plenty of opinions on the subject, but to say which sounds better is subjective.

To hear a slightly limited comparison of the capacitors, check out this video I made: http://youtu.be/kUDhBnMSuG0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - I built three amp heads, exactly the same except that I used Mallory, SoZo, and Orange Drop capacitors exclusively (one brand per amp). The comparison is limited because I should have prerecorded a loop on my guitar, and then ran the loop for the comparison so that every aspect was consistent, but you still can get a decent idea.

Many thanks again,
Forgive my ears, but the sozo and the mallory sounded very similar darkish and mellow. The orange seemed a bit brighter, harsh maybe. Spoke with Steve at Mojotone, they sell Heyboer iron and planto have a parts kit end of Jan. word is that they provide little documentation, but I can download at the Depot. Looks like about $300.00, and I already have that in my pocket. Any thought on single tube reverb? Saw one post without xformer and clip sounded really good. Plan to keep the initial build as simple as possible and then easy add ons later, after up and running. Need to buy a solder station and build a cradle. Did Marshall actually buil a 18 tmb? If so what was the model? Found 73x, 74x, 58 x, 2061, no tmb. Watched build vid on the Tube, hope mine goes as well.......super tones y'all and Merry Christmas!!!!

Arkoldguy

I like mojotone's cabinets, but if you look through this site you'll see people have had a lot of issues with their kits.

Everybody perceives that demo differently. Hopefully it helped you decide which caps you like better.

I use a single-tube reverb method with some of my 18 watt builds, and it sounds great. I'm not really sharing that info, but you can google it and work it into your build.

AFAIK the 18 Watt TMB was developed by members of this site.

When you're looking at the models with the "x" suffix you're looking at the reissues. The originals had no "x," just the four-digit numbers. I believe that the reissues closely follow the original design, though, admittedly, I've not paid them any mind at all. The early reissues had transformer problems that are long since resolved.

The TMB is a mod, well it began as a mod, that is particularly popular, though IMO its sonic drawbacks outweigh its benefits.

Setting that aside, even if you decide buy a Mojo kit I urge you to consider building your amp with a layout from this site. The Mojo kit quality seems fine but reported issues with amps built from their kits are usually traced to their layout.

KennyO
Retired engineer cum Luddite

Yeah, the component are probably fine, but don't get their pre-made turret board. The layout is very specific to their build docs, and a little weird.

Greetings and Happy New Year,
Reconsidered again!!! Unable to recontact GDS. Pulled the trigger, ordered sIII from Trinity with Heyboer iron. Decided to purchase chassis (complete kit), very reasonable, may never clear customs. Warning all now......the really, really dumb, questions will undoubtedly start very soon. Thanks to all in advance.....the journey is about to begin. Note: will still reuse the Crate cab and speakers for now, already spent money customizing the cab, thinking of installing Marshall logo just for S**** and Giggles.

I have the Crate V18 2X12. Same cab, speakers and raw chassis as the V33. Did a few mods but was never completely satisfied with the results. Changing the speakers out made the biggest difference. Use the amp occasionally as a speaker cabinet for an 18 watt TMB head. My assessment is the cabinet is decent. At least it is plywood and not MDF. It may not hurt to beef the speaker baffle board up a little with some wood strips. I did and it solved some rattling/buzzing problems. The speaker baffle looks like it is a little thinner than 1/2 inch plywood so could stand some reinforcement. The crate stock speakers are bottom of the barrel (horrible). Almost anything else you throw in there will be an big improvement.

Greetings from the great state of tennessee,
Just a quick update....finished the build of my Trinity sIII kit, still waiting on the ez81 to arrive to begin check out. Guess I'll have to move over to the 18 watt forum now that I'm no longer relevant....many, many, thanks for all the kindly advice and guidance....

Arkoldguy