18Watt.com

Hi, after "retiring" from amp-building some years ago, i want to get back into it again. I have build a 18watter (lite/normal hybrid) about 10 years ago, but after firing it up, its very thin and weak sounding. Now i want to salvage the parts and rebuild it. I love tremolo- and clean/slightly crunch sounds. Therefore my preferable version would be: just the tremolo channel with the poweramp of the 18watt. Has this ever been done? is there a schematic/layout for something like this? Thank You in advance, any answer is appreciated. cheers Dirk

You could keep it simple sans the lite channel, or you could build my Tremolo TMB version: viewtopic.php?t=25550

As the name suggests, it's a single channel 18W Tremolo amp with a TMB tone stack.

Thanks,
Josh

Thank You Josh, thats perfect, im gonna go for the tremolo TMB, probably with a single tone knob instead of the TMB, as i want to keep it simple.

I would watch out with that. The tremolo TMB is a pretty gainy amp. It's pretty hard to get clean tones out of it already.. so if you omit the TMB stack and go for a single tone control, it might be too gainy.. or not
Building that stock amp will make you a very , very happy person!! I have 3 of them

ok im going for the standard config of the tremolo TMB,
im just about to make a BOM for it. that ll makes it easier to work after the provided layout.

rexindigo wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 7:54 am

ok im going for the standard config of the tremolo TMB,
im just about to make a BOM for it. that ll makes it easier to work after the provided layout.

There's a BOM on the page I linked above.

Don't believe Bieworm, you can get great clean tones out of it. He biases his amps hot on purpose (and he's made a bunch of the Tremolo TMBs - he's possibly addicted to this circuit ).

Whether you want more gain, or more headroom in this circuit primarily depends on a couple things. First, your B+. If you target 345VDC, you'll have a good balance. 350 to 355VDC will give you slightly more headroom. 340VDC will give a touch earlier gain. Then there's the biasing in the preamp, and the Gain knob. 250K gain knob will give you from clean to dirt in the preamp. Bieworm likes 500K gain pots, which will give a lot more dirt from the preamp.

Of course, keep in mind that a guitar amp's "clean" should never be truly clean.

Thanks,
Josh

ok.. I admit everything Josh stated above
and I am truly addicted to the Trem TMB. I feel love towards it when playing.. I don't have that kind of feelings for any other amp, no matter how great it may be.
Recently I started tweaking the circuit for more gain on tap and I came up with the idea of adding a parallel/cascade switch on the 2nd amplification stage. Though I feel it's already there where I want it, I might start tweaking it again. But I do have to play it more and more for that. I haven't had the chance to take it to practice due to covid of band members.

Here's the thread with some sound clips if you're interested:

viewtopic.php?p=252644#p252644

@Bieworm: that Amp looks and sounds phantastic! exactly what i am aiming for.
@Josh: thank Yot for the link to the BOM that makes life easier

JMPGuitars wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 6:54 am

You could keep it simple sans the lite channel:

Yes, it's real simple. Basically, you take a regular 18W, with the the PI's Normal-channel input disconnected and grounded via a 0.1 uF cap, just like the Lite IIb's PI. You should get a wide range of typical 18W classic clean and dirt tones, plus that awesome tremolo , bearing in mind most of the distortion is in the power amp section

zaphod_phil wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 3:27 pm

Yes, it's real simple. Basically, you take a regular 18W, with the the PI's Normal -channel input disconnected and grounded via a 0.1 uF cap, just like the Lite IIb's PI. You should get a wide range of Classic 18W clean and dirt tones, plus that awesome tremolo

True, but not as awesome as the Tremolo TMB version.

ZP needs to get woke on the subject.

Bieworm wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 5:14 pm

ZP needs to get woke on the subject.

ZP wrote the book on the subject!

JMPGuitars wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 5:32 pm

Bieworm wrote: ↑

Thu 03/03/22 5:14 pm

ZP needs to get woke on the subject.

ZP wrote the book on the subject!

Just mocking.. I have a huge amount of respect for ZP!!!

Chassis is drilled, waiting for BOM to arrive, meanwhile I am making my own Turret-board. Printed the Layout
And glued to some wooden board, holes for turrets are drill, turrets will be of brass Tubes i have lying around hope that will work because i ve forgotten to order the turret board….getting old…

Chassis is drilled, waiting for BOM to arrive, meanwhile I am making my own Turret-board. Printed the Layout
And glued to some wooden board, holes for turrets are drill, turrets will be of brass Tubes i have lying around hope that will work because i ve forgotten to order the turret board….getting old…