Banana Jack Amps: No-Solder, All-Tube Guitar Amp Kits

[pickdropper]

Well, I certainly don't have the veteran knowledge of R.G. but I have dealt with product certifications a bit.  I've dealt with CE and FCC certifications in the past with products (most of which didn't even use line voltage).

Paying a consultant for a couple hours of time is cheap; in the grand scheme of things $500-600 isn't a lot of money if you are planning on mass producing the product.  In addition to unbiased advice on your liabilities, it can help you prove due diligence should a regulatory entity decide you aren't in compliance with the rules.  If you can show you did your research and made informed decisions with the advice of an expert versed in the regulations, you are more likely to get by with warnings than massive fines.  It can also help you protect yourself from potential lawsuits in a product that has very high DC voltages.

If I were you, I wouldn't drop a product I had spent a lot of time developing just based on feedback from an internet forum, either.  I would, however, talk to somebody who knows what the standards require and what your potential exposure is.

[joegagan]

kickstarter is so 2013.

a lot of people poo-pood my poo-pooing of the ill-advised devi ever fx module boondoggle. i went on record from around day 2 that i thought the whole thing was for the birds and outlined concise reasons why it was not good for a kickstarter type campaign ( or as a platform for FX). my opinion of kickstarter has gone down several notches since then.

in case anyone needs an update. in round numbers, last i heard, devi raised 40k or thereabouts, canned the project, refunded approx 15 to 20k , the rest went into the ether ( supposedly a lot of the R&D is all ready for the next person to just 'pick it up and run with it'  - yeah , right).

what does this have to do with the topic? not much. kickstarter.

[Blitz Krieg]

soldering isn't so terrible

[bool]

peel the power!

[tombaker]

I imagine the intent was to gain support for your Kickstarter campaign by placing the project here.

[Jack White]

This amp is Jack White approved and made completely out of Circuit Boxes with Burst Button Switches, this Gerry guy is actually FooFighters123.

As proof of how bananas/Burst Boxy this thread is... here's ScarJo with a banana bag.

[slacker]

Well played Sir, well played.

[italianguy63]

That's just bananas.

[vigilante397]

This amp is Jack White approved and made completely out of Circuit Boxes with Burst Button Switches

I love this forum.

[J0K3RX]

Didn't really read what market this is aimed at... DIY or the average player? The average DIY'r is probably gonna want to do more of a DIY thing and the average player is most likely not gonna want to mess with this. So, it looks like a novelty item to me... But it's a cool little toy.                                                                                        Maybe put some LED's in the modules so it lights up.. Make deal with LEGO and get a Mindstorm kit... Make choo choo train out of it etc..

[wavley]

Didn't really read what market this is aimed at... DIY or the average player? The average DIY'r is probably gonna want to do more of a DIY thing and the average player is most likely not gonna want to mess with this. So, it looks like a novelty item to me... But it's a cool little toy.                                                                                        Maybe put some LED's in the modules so it lights up.. Make deal with LEGO and get a Mindstorm kit... Make choo choo train out of it etc..

Maybe Little Bits wants to get in on this and make it safe... http://littlebits.cc/kits/synth-kit

Quote from: Gerry Rzeppa on Yesterday at 04:11:11 PM

It's primarily for educational purposes. Somebody's first tube amp kit. Something that will give him or her enough confidence and courage to take up soldering, and later build more difficult (and less safe) amp kits.

Honestly, if you don't have the confidence to take up soldering, you shouldn't be messing with hot glass and 450 volts.  There are some hobbies that you need to do the actually learning and hard work to truly understand the danger of that hobby... this is one of them.  I actually think that a weber kit is way safer than yours.  I actually own the K-502 kit you reference and it is also way safer than yours given that the only real place you can touch any kind of high voltage easily/accidentally is the fuse, anything else and you REALLY would have to shove a finger in there and that takes a special kind of stupidity, not exactly the same as leaving a nanner jack unplugged accidentally and energizing your whole bench (yes, I've seen many a metal workbenches, not a good idea for electronics, but it happens)

If you just want to teach folks what the different gain circuits, tone circuits, and whatnot then you should probably write an amp emulation program where they can switch out building blocks and hear the difference, maybe you should team up with Line 6.

Before you go off on me, you should probably know that I'm a pretty accomplished electronics R&D technician who's former career was Pro Audio repair technician who specialized in tube amps, plus I'm no spring chicken and I've been learning about amps and electronics since I was a teen.

[Jack White]

Hey!  Lay off Gerry and check out the new tube circuit box with a burst button switch that he let me wire up all by myself!

[Gerry Rzeppa]

I imagine the intent was to gain support for your Kickstarter campaign by placing the project here.

Not really: I didn't start this thread. Somebody with the moniker FUZZZZzzzz did. I'm just responding to the Google Alerts I get.

[Gerry Rzeppa]

The average DIY'r is probably gonna want to do more of a DIY thing and the average player is most likely not gonna want to mess with this. So, it looks like a novelty item to me...

I'm afraid you may be right, as it stands. It appears we're going to need to include a speaker and cabinet to attract the average player, and provide various "solder your own modules" kits for the DIY guys. That's one of the great things about Kickstarter -- it lets you scope out the market without spending a lot of time and money to do so.

But it's a cool little toy. Maybe put some LED's in the modules so it lights up.. Make deal with LEGO and get a Mindstorm kit...

We do think of it as a LEGO Mindstorm Valve Amp kit since it's at that same level of abstraction/difficulty. Very insightful. But we'll have to use neon lights rather than LED's with the voltages we're running inside those little plastic boxes! 

[Gerry Rzeppa]

If you just want to teach folks what the different gain circuits, tone circuits, and whatnot then you should probably write an amp emulation program where they can switch out building blocks and hear the difference

Frankly, one of the reasons I dreamed up this project was to help kids get away from the virtual world and into the real. Moving blocks around with the mouse and actually unplugging and plugging and really playing through physical modules is just not the same thing. But surely you know that.

Before you go off on me, you should probably know that I'm a pretty accomplished electronics R&D technician who's former career was Pro Audio repair technician who specialized in tube amps, plus I'm no spring chicken and I've been learning about amps and electronics since I was a teen.

So think back: What would you have thought of our Banana Jack Amp kit if you had come across it, perhaps in an article in Popular Electronics, as a teen?

[tombaker]

I imagine the intent was to gain support for your Kickstarter campaign by placing the project here.

Not really: I didn't start this thread. Somebody with the moniker FUZZZZzzzz did. I'm just responding to the Google Alerts I get.

My bad.

[R.G.]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.

[tubegeek]

I've enjoyed the most recent activity in this thread, what with the ScarJo picture and the reference to that old insane thread with Jack White and whatnot. I am pleased to say that this represents progress, and I have been proven wrong. I hereby renounce my prediction, above, to wit:

Prediction: this thread will not progress.

Also, I'd like to add this photo of B1, B2, and their gnome-in-the-box patients as a token of my sincere esteem:

[J0K3RX]

The average DIY'r is probably gonna want to do more of a DIY thing and the average player is most likely not gonna want to mess with this. So, it looks like a novelty item to me...

I'm afraid you may be right, as it stands. It appears we're going to need to include a speaker and cabinet to attract the average player, and provide various "solder your own modules" kits for the DIY guys. That's one of the great things about Kickstarter -- it lets you scope out the market without spending a lot of time and money to do so.

But it's a cool little toy. Maybe put some LED's in the modules so it lights up.. Make deal with LEGO and get a Mindstorm kit...

We do think of it as a LEGO Mindstorm Valve Amp kit since it's at that same level of abstraction/difficulty. Very insightful. But we'll have to use neon lights rather than LED's with the voltages we're running inside those little plastic boxes!  

Didn't mean for my post to come off like I was putting down your creation. I read back over it when I got home and I believe I was a bit of a douche, although you took it as constructive criticism, which was cool!  It's very hard to come up with new innovative ideas in regards to this kind of stuff! Rather than bash, it would be more productive to try and offer up ideas on how to get something like this off the ground.

I know there are a million reason/ideas on why this would not do well... Any ideas on what would give this a bump? Maybe refine it a little more and push it towards a development kit of some sort? Maybe integrate the modules with various analytics to be able to dial in frequencies, tones etc... Built in probes, meters running in some kind of parallel circuit to gather data on the fly.  Maybe integrate the possibility for some sort of common microcontroller (AVR, Arduino, PIC) based controls of various parts, variable resistors, pots, rotaries anything that can be tweaked.. Maybe a modern chassis so the user has ability to finalize their amp and take it off the floor and out the door... A lot of the extra stuff could be added by the user with really no limits - "open source" forum kinda thing. You sell the base module/s and they build on it however they like... Sounds like a lot, and it would be! You could leave the burden of the higher level development on the end users and I am sure there would be some wacky @ss ideas! People seem to really be into high tech stuff and I am sure some would jump on something besides the same old useless stuff that I see over and over again like flashing LED's, servo controllers, intelligent bug zapper, atomic clocks, beer brewers, rain detectors, drones, poop and pee detectors and yes... I said poop and pee detectors!? The list is literally endless! Most "ALL" of the stuff I mentioned has already been created, it may just be a matter giving it a base platform and making it all come together in some shape or form....    

[Gerry Rzeppa]

I know there are a million reason/ideas on why this would not do well... Any ideas on what would give this a bump? Maybe refine it a little more and push it towards a development kit of some sort? Maybe integrate the modules with various analytics to be able to dial in frequencies, tones etc... Built in probes, meters running in some kind of parallel circuit to gather data on the fly.  Maybe integrate the possibility for some sort of common microcontroller (AVR, Arduino, PIC) based controls of various parts, variable resistors, pots, rotaries anything that can be tweaked.. Maybe a modern chassis so the user has ability to finalize their amp and take it off the floor and out the door... A lot of the extra stuff could be added by the user with really no limits - "open source" forum kinda thing. You sell the base module/s and they build on it however they like... Sounds like a lot, and it would be! You could leave the burden of the higher level development on the end users and I am sure there would be some wacky @ss ideas! People seem to really be into high tech stuff and I am sure some would jump on something besides the same old useless stuff that I see over and over again like flashing LED's, servo controllers, intelligent bug zapper, atomic clocks, beer brewers, rain detectors, drones, poop and pee detectors and yes... I said poop and pee detectors!? The list is literally endless! Most "ALL" of the stuff I mentioned has already been created, it may just be a matter giving it a base platform and making it all come together in some shape or form....    

It was a combination of three ideas that led to the making of the Banana Jack Amp kit. I wanted to make something that was: (1) educational, especially at a beginner level; (2) useful, ie, more than a toy; and (3) made with nothing but basic or fundamental electronic components (like resistors and capacitors rather than integrated circuits and microprocessors). A no-solder tube amp -- electronically comparable to real amps like the early Fenders and Gibsons -- seemed to fit the bill. (In fact, it seems that a tube amp is one of the few useful and interesting things one can still make using only basic electronic components.)

In other words, I wanted the student/builder of a Banana Jack Amp to be in a position to learn electronics from the ground up. To learn about current and voltage and resistors and capacitors and coils and switches and fuses while building something interesting and useful using exactly those, and just those, components. Quickly and painlessly. With no "stumbling blocks" -- like learning how to solder, or going back to high school to learn algebra -- placed in his way. Hence, Kenn Amdahl's book + our see-through, easy-to-open modules.

So I think you and I are brainstorming along the same lines when you suggest we might add "...built in probes, meters running in some kind of parallel circuit to gather data on the fly." But most likely simple analog volt and ammeter modules that could be connected (temporarily or more permanently, depending on the student's preference) to the other modules with additional banana cables -- rather than "some sort of common microcontroller (AVR, Arduino, PIC) based controls of various parts, variable resistors, pots, rotaries anything that can be tweaked", which would be contrary to principle (3) above, and well beyond the "basic electronics" scope of this particular project.

Though speaking of scopes (pun intended), I have to admit it would probably be good for the student if we bent rule (3) just enough to allow for mini-oscilloscope modules that could be connected (temporarily or more permanently) to the other modules with additional banana cables so the student could actually see the various waveforms at various points in the circuit.

We've also considered providing copper panels to assist the student in mounting the modules in a more road-worthy case. Something like those seen here on one of my earlier "Coppertone" amps: