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Carl Built
- Thread starter Staybolt
- Start date
Lol
Joe
Joe was a ass plain and simple, I tried to have a discussion with him one time and he hung up the phone on me and would not answer my calls again.
I do have to say the last amp I have seen from the Dave camp was very well put together and even had bias, something I never thought I would see years ago.
Carl
You must be having a lucky streak, my amp has been running with the same transistors for 22+ years.
You can hear my brother talking on it on 27.285 AM daily when the band is open to CA.
Listen for WR 0223
73
Jeff
Last really good amp I purchased was a Tinman 2.0 biased from Tinman amps. @codeman has that amp now and last I heard it was still talking to the world. Too bad Mike Todd got out of the game because he built some good stuff. Imo
Builders are using cheap fans that's for sure. The thing is the cheap fans they are using are supposed to be mounted vertical only...not horizontal.
The builder at Davemade.com did use a cheap fan on one of my amps. Fan was making tons of noise on my receive. Sent an email, and three days later I had a high quality ADDA fan that I installed myself. Receive fan noise gone.
Don't know if Crusher is still around but I bet he'd know..... great amp builder
If it's eating transistors, something is very wrong. I have a 4 pill and 8 pill Carl Built and when I'm talking skip they spend more time transmitting than listening, neither has ever smoked a pill. *Probably just jinxed myself*
I had a nice surprise arrive in today's mail.
I do need to extend the power and ground wires before I can hook it up to my PSU though. It looks like the existing wire is 8 AWG. I already have a bunch of 6 AWG THHN lying around from other projects so I may just use it. I think it should be fine. I just need to determine the best way to splice them since I know I don't have any appropriate connectors/terminals on hand. Of course I'd have the same decision if I pick up some 8 AWG too.
Do any of you folks splice in an inline fuse holder when connecting your amp to your PSU? A 50 amp one right by the PSU might be a good insurance policy.
I just hope the SSB is as clear as folks say it will be when running an appropriate amount of drive and modulation.
I do need to extend the power and ground wires before I can hook it up to my PSU though. It looks like the existing wire is 8 AWG. I already have a bunch of 6 AWG THHN lying around from other projects so I may just use it. I think it should be fine. I just need to determine the best way to splice them since I know I don't have any appropriate connectors/terminals on hand. Of course I'd have the same decision if I pick up some 8 AWG too.
Do any of you folks splice in an inline fuse holder when connecting your amp to your PSU? A 50 amp one right by the PSU might be a good insurance policy.
I just hope the SSB is as clear as folks say it will be when running an appropriate amount of drive and modulation.
splicing wires, especially on high current draw devices is a bad idea. remove the short unwanted power wires from the amp and install the new ones, do it right.
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The only proper way, other than a wire replacement, is terminal blocks. As far as the 6 to 8 awg connection, in your situation it's not an issue. The line side is 99% of the time larger than the load side so using the 6 for the line side (connected to the battery) and stepping down to the 8 for the load side (connected to the device) is perfectly acceptable. No wire nuts or butt splices though, that's begging, not asking, but begging for a non-desirable situation.
Splice was the wrong word for me to use. I don't have anything spliced. I should have said extended and any extension would have been 6 gauge using a terminal block. Turns out I don't have to do that either right now at least.
I have a 120 amp PSU and 2 gauge wire running from it to a 150 amp distribution panel. All of the radio stuff is connected to this panel and draws 10 amps max. If I ever get close to the limit of what 2 gauge wire will handle I will change it to 0 gauge.
I was able to move a few things around so I can connect the 200HD directly to the distribution panel as well using just the wire that came on it. Supposedly this 200HD draws a max of 40 amps so I should have plenty of headroom. If not, I will get a smaller PSU for move everything except the amp to it... but if I have to that, the 120 amp PSU must be exceedingly lame. I do have a clamp-on meter for measuring the current flow so I will make sure to keep an eye on it for real-world numbers.
I am going to pass on breaking open the amp on day 1 and start screwing around with it. It has a warranty seal for the 30 day coverage (except transistors/mosfets, fair enough). Fingers are crossed it never has to be opened.
I am still not quite sure what I should do about an inline fuse for the amp as a precaution.
I have a 120 amp PSU and 2 gauge wire running from it to a 150 amp distribution panel. All of the radio stuff is connected to this panel and draws 10 amps max. If I ever get close to the limit of what 2 gauge wire will handle I will change it to 0 gauge.
I was able to move a few things around so I can connect the 200HD directly to the distribution panel as well using just the wire that came on it. Supposedly this 200HD draws a max of 40 amps so I should have plenty of headroom. If not, I will get a smaller PSU for move everything except the amp to it... but if I have to that, the 120 amp PSU must be exceedingly lame. I do have a clamp-on meter for measuring the current flow so I will make sure to keep an eye on it for real-world numbers.
I am going to pass on breaking open the amp on day 1 and start screwing around with it. It has a warranty seal for the 30 day coverage (except transistors/mosfets, fair enough). Fingers are crossed it never has to be opened.
I am still not quite sure what I should do about an inline fuse for the amp as a precaution.
Shadetree Mechanic
Delaware Base Station 808
If you need to extend the power wires, I would use an Anderson Powerpole connector rated for 175A. Really handy for running different amps, I have 3 different amps I use with my Powermax PM3-100.
Amazon product ASIN B085HV3RWD
Amazon product ASIN B085HV3RWD
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Shadetree Mechanic
Delaware Base Station 808
If you really want to fuse it, something like this breaker would work.
Amazon product ASIN B08V8JVHBV
Amazon product ASIN B08V8JVHBV
Well, based on what I hear on my secondary radio the audio is clean.
From the directions below I think 7 watt max input carrier means 7 watts dead key max but I'm staying more like at 4 for now.
I need to spend some time working out where to set the RF power and mic gain on the Lincoln II+ to safely work with this amp. The Lincoln has a measured 30 watts PEP SSB maximum so that's below the amp's 40 watt max. The Lincoln also has about 8 watts AM max but it can be turned down as low as 1 watt.
And now that I have a decent PEP meter I may be able to safely run the Anytone 5555N II with the amp as long as I obey the amp's rules. We'll see since the Anytone has just over 60 watts PEP SSB which is about 20 more than the amp ever wants to see as its max. I'm going to be quite conservative with this one.
I also discovered that the amp's fan is quite loud so I will definitely need to move to a few feet further down the bench and maybe on a shelf below. Either that or I could try using a set of noise-canceling headphones and see how they work with the fan noise. The radio room is in a cool finished basement that stays at about 66 degrees so cooling should not be a big issue.
From the directions below I think 7 watt max input carrier means 7 watts dead key max but I'm staying more like at 4 for now.
I need to spend some time working out where to set the RF power and mic gain on the Lincoln II+ to safely work with this amp. The Lincoln has a measured 30 watts PEP SSB maximum so that's below the amp's 40 watt max. The Lincoln also has about 8 watts AM max but it can be turned down as low as 1 watt.
And now that I have a decent PEP meter I may be able to safely run the Anytone 5555N II with the amp as long as I obey the amp's rules. We'll see since the Anytone has just over 60 watts PEP SSB which is about 20 more than the amp ever wants to see as its max. I'm going to be quite conservative with this one.
I also discovered that the amp's fan is quite loud so I will definitely need to move to a few feet further down the bench and maybe on a shelf below. Either that or I could try using a set of noise-canceling headphones and see how they work with the fan noise. The radio room is in a cool finished basement that stays at about 66 degrees so cooling should not be a big issue.
By looking at the numbers, the president is a perfect match for that box but you'll have to be disciplined with input levels.
The q5n2 could play well with it too but there's risk involved if one forgets to turn down the powa.
Good looking amp by the way!