HEATER WIRES

[Jana]

Gaz,

Are you calling me an ignorant s***? (cue Jane Curtin / Dan Aykroyd SNL skit)

[Gaz]

Lol, no you are a TAG veteran in my mind - I would never. But I don't think Soldano used DC, but maybe in the Decatone???

[cbass]

I like sluts

[Jana]

Well, you are one of the few that hasn't called me that.

I was sure that Soldano used DC on the heaters. Maybe I am dreaming (note, I did check the schematic of a SLO and you are right).

[Heywood_ja]

I did the drill twist version for my hw, but instead of using two differet colors to keep polarity, i ran a sharpie down one of the green wires before i twisted them.

High wires, haven't ben able to test for noise as i am awaiting a few backordered parts from mojotone.

[sixstringer]

Wait, use the sharpie BEFORE you twist them? This is going to save hours!
Thx

[ampdoc1]

I'm lazy, and also kinda picky about symmetry. I've used this method on several amps. NO NOISE

[Heywood_ja]

I did use a sharpie to stripe the wire to verify polarity after I twisted them.

I hope it doesn't mess with the electrons.

[FUCHSAUDIO]

Keep in mind that Soldano uses DC on the heaters.

Part of the problem with a number of Soldano models is the parallel heater wires WITH AC filaments....I've added DC supplies to many (including Jet City amps) where PC mounted heater wiring or parallel wires caused hum.

[samsarod]

Necro-response, I know...but, are your filaments AC or DC? Very curious about that point.

Excellent looking either way!

I'm lazy, and also kinda picky about symmetry. I've used this method on several amps. NO NOISE

[R.G.]

Routing heater wires for low noise is a well plowed field. The answer the instrumentation and radio guys came to nearly a century ago is tightly twisted pairs. I started to type in the reasoning for why this is so, but just didn't feel like that much typing this morning. For voltage radiation prevention, you can make twisted pair better by putting a grounded shield around it. For best magnetic field containment, twisted pair also keeps the M-field contained inside the twisting better.

So if this is true, how come the wide variation in high and tight, low and loose, parallel, trapeze bars, etc?

That's because the treatment of the heater wires themselves isn't the end of it. The whole rest of the amp will have different sensitivities to picking up residual E-field and M-field from the heater wires AND because the heaters are not the only place the amp can pick up hum. An amp can hum with pure DC heater current - no hum from heaters here. That's important because heater wiring hum can actually cancel some of the other hum and make for lower total hum than zero-hum heaters.

Net result? Every hand-wiring job on an amp will have different hum. An experimenter rewiring and testing one amp will probably produce an end result of low hum... for that one amp.

[TUBEDUDE]

I like sluts

Especially with skills! (engineering skills that is)