Ceriatone Yeti build. Complete

I have finally got around to completing the Ceriatone Yeti 50 build. It is a very versatile amp with it's selection of gain controls & bright switches.

I will do a full review/write up over the weekend once I have had a little more play time with the amp. There are also a couple of pickup reviews that I need to publish too!

I haven't taken too many photos just yet as I need to do a little tidying of the build but more shall follow soon.

As can be seen in the photos I used a selection of transformers from Classictone made by magnetic components.

 The power transformer is a JTM45 transform built to original specs. I used the additional 5V winding for the DC supply on V1 & 2 so there is enough current handling capacity on the filament winding so I can experiment with alternative power valves such as 6550/KT88.

 The output transformer is a 50w Plexi transformer with a 3.6k primary & the Choke is a standard 3H, 250mA marshall style choke.

Here is a shot of the DC heater supply for V1 & V2 which is powered from the 5V rectifier winding on the JTM45 Power transformer. The rest of the filaments are using the 6.3V winding

Here is a shot showing the tonestack, Presence & Depth control wiring.

And here are the dual gain controls (first and second gain stages) the master volume and the Bright & Era switching.

This photo shows the wiring of V1/1 and also the Pussy Trimmer control which controls the output level from the first to the second gain stages. With this control you can really fine tune your tone. Ceriatone set this pot to full when shipping out amps but I prefer it around 3/4 full.

This is a photo of the completed amplifier. The bias circuit is particularly handy in this amp with the filtering and individual controls for each power valve.

 Here is an top down view of the completed amplifier.

Here is the rear of the amp showing the full length rear faceplate that I had custom made. The reasoning for this is explained below.

 I didn't want to have the beer inlet cutout on the top of the amp so I opted for a rear grill for maximum ventilation.

Fully Loaded - Ceriatone Yeti

It's been a bit quiet here recently due to work restrictions but I managed to get the board fully populated.

I had to swap some parts of the kit out due to space being a premium on the board but I managed to keep it all clean and tidy.

I decided to stick with the Holy Grail electrolytics and see how they fare over time as they are the only unknown in this situation. If they fail or I feel they could be better which is unlikely judging by the high quality standard set by the rest of the kit they should be nice and easy to replace being on turrets.

Now i'm just waiting on the headshell & chassis to come back to me and of course for Triode to hurry up and ship the transformers.

Watch this space!

New horizons! First Turret Build. Ceriatone Yeti 50w

Hi to anyone that still reads this. It has been far too long since I updated things but i've had a lot on with buying a house and various other 'life' things getting in the way. Enough waffle though! Onto the main course. I exchanged a few emails with Nik @ Ceriatone and ended up ordering his basic kit for his Yeti model which is a Marshall style amp with the ever popular Jose mod that is currently being rammed down peoples throats by the likes of Friedman etc. This is the first time that I have ever built anything using turrets. I have always liked the idea and the look but just haven't gotten around to it so this may take a little longer than usual as it's a new experience. The kit itself came with a very nice selection of parts that I wouldn't usually go out and choose myself such as carbon comp resistors and some very nice looking Ero MKT1813 caps and some TAD mustard caps that I have heard many good things about. The other parts such as chassis, faceplates, switches and jacks are all very high quality and your usual suspects for jacks being Cliff UK and my usual choice for valve sockets, Belton. I have only just started building this and I haven't had much time on it so far so here are a few pics of the progress so far. I have no idea on the specs on Ceriatones custom 'Holy Grail' electrolytics so that could turn out interesting but time will tell.

Me$a MKIIC+ Build : Part 2

This update has very little information as not much has changed really.

I have installed all of the capacitors.

I aren't too familiar with the circuit so i went with safe bets on the cap choices. I'm using Mallory 150 alongside nichicon and Vishay electrolytic capacitors with a few Kemet & Vishay Tantalum capacitors.

Me$a Simul-Class Style Output Transformer

Hi guys. This is going to be short and sweet as not much has happened.

It's just a quick update to show off the custom wound Simul-Class Output Transformer.

It took a heck of a lot of research finding all of the info regarding the Simul-Class architecture. After scouring the internet for a few months I found a wealth of information on the SLOclone forums (should have checked there first) And this is the result....

Me$a MKIIC+ Build

Hey guys I've been pretty quiet lately due to work commitments and life in general.

I have always wanted a MKIIC+ with the Simul-class power amp, reverb and graphic EQ and have been watching eBay for years now and they all keep going for £2k+ or are in terrible condition.

So I finally decided that I should build one myself. This amp is easily the most complex thing that I have attempted and has taken a few months of research just to get my head around the circuit.

The PCB & Chassis are from Ampclones.com and they're incredibly well made and easy to solder to.

I haven't done much work on this yet as it's a pretty expensive build so i'm going to be doing it a bit at a time over the next 4-5 months.

I have the a custom Simul-Class output transformer on order from BLS Electronics. I am really looking forward to getting this after putting in so much time researching the output transformer design and I have wanted to try some BLS transformers for quite some time now.

Here is a picture of the chassis (I scuffed it unfortunately when jamming it back into the box but i'll just get some faceplates to cover the damage)

And here is a picture of the boards populated with resistors, diodes and transistors.

I will post more as the build progresses.

Building a high gain amplifier part 2: The poweramp

Hey guys. I haven't been keeping up with this as well as I had hoped to but life gets in the way you know?

Today i'll give a brief overview of the poweramp. If you are using PCBs from C3amps or SmashGuitars this is all silkscreened so is an absolute breeze.

As usual I always start with the smallest components as it makes it far easier to keep things flush against the board as you build it up.

The smallest parts on the poweramp PCB are the balancing resistors for the filter caps which make sure that the caps see an even voltage. They also perform an additional function of bleeding away any voltage once the amp is powered off making it safer to work on which is a nice bonus. It does take a few minutes though so always check the voltages before working on the amp.

From here we move onto the diodes that form the rectifier for the AC input and also the bias supply. These have a polarity so make sure to check the circuit and silkscreen matches up with the way you insert them.

Also notice in this picture there is a jumper. This is one of the capacitor legs that I saved whilst doing the preamp. 

Next I install the axial capacitors for the bias and filtering. Again these are polarised so be mindful of this when soldering.

And finally moving onto the main filter caps. The F&T caps are truly fantastic for this application and they are what I will be using.

And that is all! Nice and simple just so long as you keep track of the polarities. The next post that I do will actually be wiring the preamp into the amp as I got my chassis predrilled and prepped from C3amps to save some time and work. I'm not going to say when the post will be up as everytime I do that something gets in the way so just keep checking back!

TK

Building a high gain amplifier part 1.5: The preamp continued.

I didn't get much time to take photos during this part as I was rushing somewhat as I had other things on later in the evening.

In this post you will see the board populated with the coupling & bypass caps. Some people will swear by one brand and type of cap whilst others will say that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. In my experience it does but not as much as some would have you believe.

I have chosen Sprague 716p Orange Drops for the majority of the preamp because they have a certain hifi vibe to them that I like and seem well balanced tonally. For the 1uf bypass caps I have gone for Vishay MKT's, these are polyester caps and have more of a gritty feel to them. Another reason that I chose these for these positions is purely based on the physical size as a 225p orange drop is a really tight squeeze and  I like thing to look nice and clean in my builds so these are not an option.

Below is a quick comparison shot of the 225p and the MKT as you can see the 225p is gigantic!

In this next shot you can see the preamp fully populated with 716ps and the MKTs

And here is the lone Mallory 150 2.2nf cap as I forgot to order the 716p in this value. Luckily I had this kicking about.

And finally we have a bunch of leg cut offs from the caps. I'm going to save a couple of these as they will come in handy for the next post

In a few days I should have part 2 of this log up which is the power amp.

Thanks for reading

TK

Building a high gain amplifier part 1: The preamp

This has been a long time coming and will be the last ever Soldano influenced amplifier that I build.

All I'm doing here is rebuilding my original amp with a few tweaks that I have found that I prefer over the stock circuit.

First up we will start with populating the preamp board with the smaller components as it is always best to do it in height order to stop things slipping out and looking messy later.

So here we have the bridge rectifier for the channel switching circuit. It is the smallest component of the preamp therefore it is done first. Please note the polarity markings as this is critical for correct operation. The PCB also has a silkscreen that matches the markings so it's pretty hard to go wrong here.

 

And now it's time to go onto the bulk of the preamp which is the resistors. I am not going to go through these one by one as it will just be lots of repetition and there are no polarities to be concerned with so just solder away! One thing to keep in mind is that some resistors have very similar colour bandings so take your time and make sure you match them correct values up with the silkscreen.

 

 

With resistors I usually use a lead forming tool to help keep things nice and tidy.

 

And here is a nicely formed resistor ready to be soldered in. 

 

I've added a few extra shots of the preamp just for reference as to what it looks like as you go along.

In this last shot you will notice that I have left R14 blank. This resistor is the Soldano signature move, the cold clipper. It determines when the lead channel saturates and the amount of gain on tap. My reasoning for leaving this blank is that I am going to add a front panel toggle with the stock value and a lower value so that I can switch between two gain voicings as and when needed.



 

 



 

From here we are going to go onto the small value capacitors. For these I choose silver mica caps just because I like the way they sound over ceramics. However a cheaper ceramic cap will do a good enough job also it just depends if you want to spend the extra 30p or so.

 

These capacitors are unpolarised so again orientation isn't important here.

 

 

 

The last step that I am going to cover today are the three electrolytic capacitors in the preamp for the B+ & channel switching parts of the circuit.

 

These three capacitors are polarised and you really want to make sure that you get these in the right way as it isn't pretty if you power up with them the wrong way. Electrolytic capacitors failing can be very messy and sometimes dangerous. See this video for a demonstration.

 

 

 



 

As you can see the polarities are clearly marked on these capacitors making the chances of an error during installation very minimal as the PCB silkscreen also marks the polarity.

 

That is all for today but in the very near future I will be finishing the preamp in a bit more depth and also the power amp in the next post.

 

After that things will get a lot more in depth and also move into a more step by step manner as things get a little more complex.

 

If you have any questions just leave a comment and i'll do my best to answer you.

 







Soldano influenced High Gain Amplifier Build. Now with Audio sample

This again is a follow up from the modded preamp that I did around December.

Because I've done similar builds before on here I will just post a few pictures from the build.

It turned out incredibly quiet. Elevating the heaters is an invaluable approach that really should be in every amp as it's so inexpensive and effective. I can confidently say that the noise floor in this amp is considerably lower than most production amps!

I removed one of the mods that I originally did as I found that I preferred the amp with less saturation than what the mod produced.

First up we have a few shots of the preamp that's populated with Mallory 150 Caps, Sprague & F&T Electrolytics and Vishay & Panasonic Resistors.

Here we have the spot where there would usually be a Faux Centre Tap but I got the transformer built with an actual center tap so this is just a handy spot to bridge the heaters.

This is the wire that comes from the heater tap and goes to V5 pins 4,5 & 9

This photo shows the input jack wiring and also the Clean/Crunch & Bright switch.

Here we have the power valves and also the rear panel bias test points and adjustment pot.

Here's the amp before installing the preamp.

This is the same as above but with the preamp PCB bolted in before wiring. I call this one the "Angry Porcupine" stage.

Here we have the cab outputs and the impedance selector. You can also see a 47k coming from the 8ohm tap this goes to the Slave Out circuit which is an amazing addition to any amp as it allows for wet/dry setups and also direct out recording that includes the entire power amp that you can use with cabinet implses for a very clear and punchy sound.

Here is the above mentioned Slave Out pot & Jack.

Here is the power amp! I carefully selected these capacitors for their ripple rating to keep the amp really tight and precise.

Here is the effects loop. There isn't really much to say about it really.

And here is a close up of the V1 & V2 wiring.

And here is the entire amp fully wired up. Now that it is confirmed and working as intended I will go back and shorten some wires and tie wrap some of them to make it generally neater.

And the finished amp!

Here is a quick audio clip.Enjoy!