Building the Tiny Giant amp

[jakobmagnusson]

You don't do anything with those holes. The board is double sided, meaning it has traces connecting components on both sides of the board. Those holes are called vias and join traces on the front to traces on the back.

Thanks! I'll continue solering

[jogina111]

I think the problem with sputters is when the lm338 heats up. Ive fixed mine by getting a larger heatsink for the 338.

[Supakas]

Hello,  I have a little question , maybe its stupid, but her it is.
Im waiting my kit for a long now, beacause i live in small country estonia, im realy waiting it:) So thanks taylor for the great amp!
So i wana add tonestack, if this one is going to work?
http://amps.zugster.net/articles/tone-stacks#18Watt
...

[PRR]

> i wana add tonestack

Try it without. A good clean flat amp is a different experience from an over-complicated amp, and you may like it for some work.

> if this one is going to work?



No. Or not real well.

The "18 Watt" is a tube amp. This tone network goes between a tube of medium output impedance (~~40K) and a tube of high input impedance (1Meg?). Even if I did not know that (or are too lazy to look it up), I could guess that from the high pot values, 500K, and the way the tone pot puts a capacitor right-across the source.

The same area in a Tiny Giant has a super-low output impedance (op-amp, ~~1 ohm) and a low input impedance (10K pot and ~~20K chip input). Will suck all the sound out.

There is a TG-adapted classic tone control on page 5 of this thread:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89687.msg768743#msg768743

For 2-knob, make the "Middle" pot a 680 ohm (470 to 1K) fixed resistor.

For 1-knob, also make the "Bass" pot a 2K to 5K fixed resistor.

[PRR]

If you are in love with the 18W's one-knob, try this:



All values scaled by a factor of 50 to suit the chip-amp's lower impedances.

Values not critical. +/-20% is no difference (so use 0.47uFd and 2.2K). Tweak to taste, which may mean going 4 times higher or lower than what I've suggested.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Are there any sound clips of this?

I tried searching youtube, and this thread just searching for sound clip, no luck.

Also Would there be any reason you couldn't replace the pre-amp section with a stomp version of a fender amp, say like the wampler tweed 57 or black 65?

[garcho]

Also Would there be any reason you couldn't replace the pre-amp section with a stomp version of a fender amp, say like the wampler tweed 57 or black 65?

Buy the kit from Taylor and build it in 5 minutes. Then breadboard a bunch of RunOffGroove projects and decide what you like then box it up and have it for whatever amp you might be playing out of. Why remove the TG's input buffer? Leave the TG alone (perfect for what it is: clean, loud, easy, cheap) and build two different sounding ROG projects in the same enclosure, say, Fender style and Marshall style.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Also Would there be any reason you couldn't replace the pre-amp section with a stomp version of a fender amp, say like the wampler tweed 57 or black 65?

Buy the kit from Taylor and build it in 5 minutes. Then breadboard a bunch of RunOffGroove projects and decide what you like then box it up and have it for whatever amp you might be playing out of. Why remove the TG's input buffer? Leave the TG alone (perfect for what it is: clean, loud, easy, cheap) and build two different sounding ROG projects in the same enclosure, say, Fender style and Marshall style.

I just figured it would be nice to have a fender style preamp, that would have some sort of 3 knob eq and have separate gain and volume knobs that would respond similar to an actual fender.

Are you saying just run those directly into the current pre-amp of the TG?

[garcho]

Yeah, just don't think of it as a tube amp that sounds good when you drive the pre. You just need dirt and EQ, might as well do that with a pedal and get more usefulness and variety than hard wiring it into the TG. If you do alter the TG, remember you're not necessarily using 9V.

[StarGeezers]

  Yes, the TG is so pedal friendly , no use mucking about with the amp itself ... it WORKS !!!!  Anything(pedal)  up front sounds Great through it !!! 

[jakobmagnusson]

Hi,
I tried my TG combo first time today, some issues:
- I got some hum/noise, but I assume it's the power supply or lack of shielding (it's quite close to the speaker magnet..)
- Whats worse: it giving quite a distorted sound when I increase the volume... If I was a rocker it might not be a problem, but I'm into jazz, so I'm after a clean sound...

Any comments on above is appreciated..

Regards,
Jakob

[Taylor]

When you say increase the volume, where on the dial do you have it when it starts distorting? What kind of instrument and effect chain are you using?

[psychedelicfish]

Sorry if this has been asked already (did a quick check and didnt see anything), but what size is the pcb?

[garcho]

it's 1.5" by 1.125" or about 4cm by 3cm

[Pierre]

Hi !
I ordered the TG amp kit and I was wondering if I can use this speakers...



This are 5 inches 6 ohm speakers that i have collecting dirt for a while...  Should i wire them in series or paralel?

[Pierre]

me again...
one more question...I intend to build this kit as a little practice amp, use it for test my pedals...What if I put a circuit like runoffgroove's english chanel..?

[garcho]

I intend to build this kit as a little practice amp, use it for test my pedals...

Then by all means, DO NOT hard-wire a ROG project into the TG. I love ROG, I've made a lot of their projects, but if you want to test your pedals on the workbench, nothing will be better than the clean and loud TG (until it's time to tweak the details - then use your 'real' amp). By all means, build a ROG project into a stompbox and use it in front of the TG for some color/dirt.

Series vs. parallel. If both speakers are 6Ω, wiring them in parallel would give you 3Ω. You can burn out your amp that way. Wire them in series, and you get 12Ω, which is probably higher impedance than you need. Try using only one of your speakers.
I bought a cheap Jensen for my TG; it sounds fine. I suggest using a guitar speaker if you can get your hands on one, or at least an instrument speaker (accordion, bass, etc.).

[Pierre]

thank's for the advice !!! my intention was to make it sound like an AC-something, but i think i'll keep the way it was meant to be...
as for the speakers, 3 ohmm willl burn my amp..? (this is maybe a stupid question). In the future i'll put a 12" guitar speaker, but for now i guess  i'm going to do it  with those  6 ohms...

[Jdansti]

^ Speaker coils are long pieces of wire. The more you place in parallel, the lower the resistance, just like resistors. The lower the resistance, the closer you are to a short circuit. Amps don't like you to short their outputs 

[garcho]

as for the speakers, 3 ohmm willl burn my amp..?

roughly, in Chicago dialect:
more ohmage = less wattage
less ohmage = more wattage