work check and grounding advice

[telentubes]

Here's a Rocket Reverb combo in progress. It's a Watts Tube Audio chassis, with parts collected from the Rocket BOM and from the "add a reverb" post. If anyone is up for checking my work, I'd appreciate it (I'm pretty new at amp building). Especially the reverb section, as it will get buried when the board gets installed, making it hard to fix.
I have isolated the input jack, the reverb "in" and "out", as well as the speaker jack. I'm not sure where to send the Ground Wires. Any advice?
Lastly... for now, I want to run a ground buss, left to right, between the pots and the board (typical layout) and wonder which end of the bus should get bolted to the chassis. I've seen it either attached as a "star ground" near the trannys, or bolted to the chassis at the input jack end? Is either way preferred?
I'll have some questions about the E-cap hook-up when I get that far. Is there a schematic for that? I can't quite figure it out with confidence from the layout drawings that I've seen.
Here are some pics.
Thanks,
TNT

[M Fowler]

Nice looking build so far, interesting laydown PT.

Are you going to use the traditional cap stack or a cap board or can caps?

I will take a good look for you, fun stuff building these amps.

Mark

[M Fowler]

Your RCA jacks are insulated so your running those blue wires over to a ground point, right?

It looks good to my eyes, again nice build.

[telentubes]

Thank you Mark for having a look, and Yup, those wires will be grounded somewhere, although I haven't decided where that point will be yet.
Just got home from work. Later this eve I'll take some pics of the E-cap selection I have, and the loaded board. I'd like some help with E-cap lay-out as I've seen examples of several different approaches and don't know what will be best for this amp. It's going slowly, but that's O.K., as I'm learning as I go and it's fun.
TNT

[telentubes]

Unless there's a reason to go for the 80uf/47uf, with 3 X 20uf configuration, I'm going to use two Garolite shelves with 3 X 47uf on the bottom, and 3 X 20uf on the top, as seen in the layout diagrams. Seems pretty straight forward.

I found the 20uf Mallorys for a decent price (around $11 each) but didn't want to spend $75 for three 40uf Mallorys, so I got F & Ts. I also got an 80uf F & T in the event that that was preferred.

I'm still don't know how the caps are hooked up as the diagram has the caps drawn, but no leads to or from. I could use some help with this.

Here are a few pics with the populated board (labeled with hook-up directions) and caps placed in a few different ways. Again, I'm going to lay them out the way it was drawn (unless there's a better way).

TNT

[rawnster]

Hey telentubes, I agree with Mark. Nice build so far. The filtercaps aren't difficult to position and wire up. Ron Worley's layout in the files section is a great source.

http://ampgarage.com/forum/files/rocket ... 09_860.pdf

I've built several rockets. Here are a couple of filtersection pics:
http://ampgarage.com/forum/download/file.php?id=7814
http://ampgarage.com/forum/download/file.php?id=7815

Here's an alternative layout:
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb15 ... oto3-1.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb15 ... oto1-1.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb15 ... umneo7.jpg

[M Fowler]

TNT

I like the last picture with the 80uf, one 40-47uf and three 20-22uf caps.

Ron has some nice examples as well but your board is limited to the one I noted above.

Mark

[rawnster]

TNT

I like the last picture with the 80uf, one 40-47uf and three 20-22uf caps.

Mark

Dang Mark, me too.

[telentubes]

Thank you both for the advice. I'll have a look at the links and figure it out. I'll keep you posted on my progress, although it will be slow, mostly because of a busy work schedule.
TNT

[telentubes]

P.S. I have some bigger sheets of 1/8th inch G-10/FR-4 Garolite left over, so I can make a larger base for the caps. I'll go ahead with that, mount the caps, put it on stand-offs, then see where I'm at. Still need to find a cool piece of wood for the fave plate. Must be something lying around the shop.
telentubes

[M Fowler]

Turn the board sideways from what you have with the three 20uf facing the tone board then it will be nice short wires from the cap board to the tone board similiar to what Rawnster has done. How does that sound?

I have attached some pictures of three different Rockets I have built. I know its different but can steal ideas, right.

Mark

[telentubes]

I'll cut a bigger piece of G-10 so there's a little bigger foot print to work with (and room for chassis bolts), then spin the board 90% (great idea). I have one more layout idea I'd like to run by you tomorrow. I'll take a couple of photos for comparison. Then I think I'll be ready to put it together. Again, thanks for all the help. Hopefully, I'll end up with a rockin' amp.

[Merlinb]

Lastly... for now, I want to run a ground buss, left to right, between the pots and the board (typical layout) and wonder which end of the bus should get bolted to the chassis. I've seen it either attached as a "star ground" near the trannys, or bolted to the chassis at the input jack end? Is either way preferred?

Ideally the bus would be bolted to the chassis at the input end. However, since you have already grounded your PA cathode resistor to the chassis, it would be better to ground the bus wire at the non-input end.

[telentubes]

Would you recommend that I change the ground point for the PA cathode, then bolt the buss at the input end? I'd like to have an amp with low noise if possible.

[Merlinb]

Would you recommend that I change the ground point for the PA cathode, then bolt the buss at the input end? I'd like to have an amp with low noise if possible.

Ideally the bus would be the only thing connected to chassis (except the safety earth), so the PA cathode should go to the appropriate section of the bus. However, you are unlikely to have any problems with the way you have it now. There will probably be more low-level noise due to the heater wiring (really thick wire!:shock: ) than due to any small imperfection in the ground layout. Don't sweat it.