And it begins. soldano SLO (50 watt clone)

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I did use the O'netics.
I even emailed Bud Purvine about the problem I had. He suggested it might be leaking EMI from the PT and gave me a test to do involving a true RMS meter and some coiled wire. It didn't really find anything. He was going to ask Mike Fortin I think if he had any advice.
He did tell me the O'netics are over spec'd enough so that if you melted your output valves both transformers should still work fine.

I think I just had some bad luck with it.

My amp is mostly scr@pped. The chassis now has more bits of powder coat scr@pped off because I worked through the whole noise reduction thread on the sloclone forums, which mostly involves altering the grounding scheme (that isn't on the pcb). The sockets have been used in other things, so have the pots, jacks. All that is left is the choke, and the power and preamp PCB. I could write a book based on all the tests I did to it. I think I just had some bad luck though.

Plus, If I did build another from scratch, I would still have paid less than getting a real SLO, and I wouldn't have had to get it via sound control, who I refuse to do get anything from. Since they are the only soldano importers in the UK that pretty much means I won't be getting another soldano product any time soon. So, I don't feel that bad about it. Great learning curve, and It's led to me building other things (that totally work).

is the chasis missing powdercoating on the outside or just internally?

It is a very hard amp to fault find with though it seems there are numerous threads on various problems.

Did you just do the stock build with the depth & haynes mod? or did you go with elevated heaters?

[Dmoney]

It's mostly scratched off on the inside. Nothing shoulder washers wouldn't fix.
I'll have to check it for scratches on the outside. It might have been knocked or something.

I did use elevated heaters. But i tried it with and without while trying to find the source of the ticking sound. I have used Elevated heaters in another amp to reduce noise and it had a really good effect.

that 6V6 build will have elevated heaters.

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The first of many packages has finally arrived. :D

[Dmoney]

nice.
when I got mine bits they came with the transformers and 3 of the mains filter caps had huge dents in them. glad you've avoided that!

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Yet yeah  noticed that on the blog I got all of this quite cheap from someone on the slo clone forum. The transformers etc should be on there way son hopefully

[Dmoney]

my estimate... a saving of about £2500 at least.

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Of course ill do sound clips and yes it is a huge saving on the price of getting a real SLO.

The most expensive thing in this build is the transformers which you can cheap out on but thats not really advisable.

I'm going with the O'netics oversized ones which are the best ive come across for this application and it comes to around £300 for the Power transformer, oversize choke & Hi def output transformer

[Dmoney]

oh an how much does soldano slo cost new?

About £3K depending on what options you want.
The project can vary in cost quite a lot. depends on what parts you want to use.

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Finally got around to doing some work on this.

I've almost finished populating the boards (just need a couple more components)

and the chassis is here, i originally ordered the black one to be a bit different to a normal SLO but it was out of stock so i changed it to the stock white one to save time on waiting etc.

now im just waiting for the hardware, valve sockets, jacks, pots, switches etc and i can get onto wiring the chassis then finish it off when i get the transformers!

www.sloclone.tk (url for googles sake)

[Dmoney]

its hard to get them caps on the board. the 1uf's are HUGE! looks good though. I hope the gaffer tape and toothpaste are part of your tool kit!

Promise I'll get a pic of that shell to you one day soon.

I have some spare SLO knobs, I'd like to get black tops for them and maybe use them on my Avenger.

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Aye the 1ufs were extremely hard to get seated and it still looks messy as hell.

Did you use the orange drops? I can't remember from your build pics.

I'm tempted by the Xicons as theyre a lot smaller but theres  alot of mixed feelings on the actual quality of them.

I guess the only way to find out is to check them!

i ordered some anyway as i needed to push my mouser order up to £50 to get the free shipping so its no big deal.

The Slo style knobs are far too expensive for my liking. I want some but they cost so damn much.
 
I look forward to seeing those pics as you can probably tell i do like orange stuff :P

The gaffa tape was actually used to fix the Ms. wii fit board as one of her friends stood on it wearing heels and obviously cracked it, only a tiny crack though so its popped back up super glued and gaffa taped so it doesnt scratch any feet!

[Dmoney]

I used the same orange drops. 715 series. the 716 are smaller I think. my avenger has some xicon in it. I used them for my 6v6 build with decent results.

[HTH AMPS]

orange drops are massive, I've had the same batch for over ten years - bought them without ever thinking they'd be THAT big.

I take it you're using polyester ODs ???? - if so, replace them with Ero/Vishay caps.  I use these in everything - they sound great and are physically small.

Farnell stock them, around 60p for a 22nF cap as I recall.

Alternatively, I have some Sozo caps if you want some.

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I didn't expect the orange drops to be so big. Some of the values were quite hard to find too as they have been discontinued for quite some time.

yeah theyre polys.

90% of my resistors are vishay/dale which ive heard great things about.

ive found a source of some NOS phillips caps which were used in the very first SLO's which are tempting and surprisingly cheap.

I'm going to give these a shot first see how they sound and if it causes any issues  and then look at changing them out, So i may get in touch about the sozos as ive heard great things about those