SSS002, some observations

[rootz]

Let me start by saying I probably haven't read every last bit of info there is about 002. I've seen most of the amazing work by Ryan and Erwin and many more contributions by others.

Now, I've been working on a layout of Overdrive Reverb #60 for some time and have been working on other versions of Overdrive reverb amplifiers as well. Many are not documented well and only some pictures are available. However, there is much information to be found in those pictures! To me it is obvious that Overdrive Reverbs #13, 58, 59 and 60, and SSS001 and 002 have a lot in common. The placement of tubes, transformers, RCA jacks for reverb, can caps, pots, switches and jacks: they all are in the same place when I lay gut shots of those amps over one another in Photoshop and Illustrator. Mind you, I'm an architecture photographer, so I correct perspective for all images before stacking them in Photoshop/Illustrator. In another post I'll add some pictures of those overlays from Illustrator.

Other things in common between the amps I looked at: Piher, {Mepco} Electra and carbon comp (AB?) resistors, Sprague made in Mexico silver mica caps, Sprague TVA 1203 and 1205 cathode bypass caps, Sprague 6PS coupling caps. There is probably al lot more, but this is getting a lengthy post already!

ODR #60 has 6 preamp tubes in a row, with a can cap and reverb transformer between them. Much like a Deluxe reverb. If I overlay the known gut shots of 001 and 002 on a gut shot of ODR#60 the tubes line up perfectly. The difference being, there a 2x3 preamp tubes in the ODR, but 2x2 in 002. It looks like Dumble simply left 2 preamp tube holes in his chassis unused and drilled 3 new ones near the front of the chassis. In 001 one of the holes is covered, which can be seen next to the PI tube.

So with the hypothesis that known ODR's and SSS's were built in the same chassis, I turned my attention to Fusion360 and Eagle. I designed a chassis based on the #60 design I already had and made some boards to fit the gut shot of 002. This meant scaling the gut shot to size, correcting for lens parallax and measuring the parts and their location. This is of course not 100% accurate, but is much more than an educated guess. I then exported the boards to Fusion360. The result can be seen in the attachment.

One first observation: I cannot fit a board with 7 big electrolytic caps! This is in the hand drawn schematic, but just does not fit the layout. This means the chassis is either much bigger than 23 3/4", or the hand drawn schematic is wrong, or the caps are mounted on the side. So I looked at all pictures I have of ODR's and most of them have a smaller board with 3 TVA 1906 and 2 TVA 1620 caps. So 5 instead of 7. This means anodes of the power tubes have 50uF of filtering in a 100 Watt amp. The caps in my digital gut shot have the correct width for the Sprague caps, they are just a bit shorter. The placement of the PSU board can be seen in the 002 gut shot.

Oh well, it might be nothing or something I missed, but we might have gotten a bit closer to complete accuracy on the 002.

[Colossal]

That's a very nice drawing Rootz! I may have to build one of these before all is said and done. I still need to build my 102 and Wonderland....

[rootz]

Haha yeah, the list of to build amps get longer and longer.

I think I've found the post again that triggered me. It was Max saying

So the opinion SSS #001 might have been built by Alexander Dumble with the same power supply as SSS #002 (or whatever else SSS 100W) is IMO a rather bold assumption anyway

.

I hope to make that assumption a little less bold. So here are the overlays. The top layer with all the black circles is also in every gut shot. Please do note that even the solder points on the reverb boards of 001 and 002 line up with the location of the RCA jacks. Also note that #60 has those jacks in a different location, but the old unused holes can be seen. ODR #13 does use those holes.

Also, if you look closely, you can see the top reverb transformer mounting bolt in 002. Yes, it is pixelated, but the darker and silver pixels next to the mounting bolt of the reverb board are there for a reason.

Another one. The location of the XLR jack is just to the right side of the 4th preamp tube hole (from left).

All seem to have the same press fit nuts too.

Alone these indicators might seem like a stretch, but together they form something like a body of clues, which in my opinion goes beyond educated guessing. Or maybe I'm just too excited or found something already known. Who knows.

[ViperDoc]

Digital gut shot... WOW. Nice job!

[rootz]

Trying to match the original as close as possible without having the amp in front of me. Ever noticed the 'O' in 'volume' is different from the one in 'low'? Me neither haha. The screen print on the original amp doesn't line out perfectly either. Around the mid switch the dots are closer to one side of the switch than to the other. I mean, it's just visual, but funny to see this chassis was a bit sloppy, or should I say one of a kind hand made? The text below the knobs? Not exactly in the centre of the knobs. I'm 'stealing' some of this wonky line out from to original. I like that touch. What do you think? You can say I'm nuts, I'm used to that.