low output from this 4 pill

[lonestarbandit]

This is fun (at least for those not financially invested) there's a wealth of knowledge with a lot of these guys.
Glad to see you've gone the "screw it lets try to fix" approach. These guys helped me get my box back in line when I popped a pill due to a failed low pass filter. Following.

 

[JimboSlice]

Just pull the center conductor, orange wires and one leg of that cap out of the puddle and solder together.

Yep will do. I might have time when I get home from work today, the guy I bought it from said it was working so like I said, I’m hoping it’s just a bad capacitor on one of the transformers, hoping that I didn’t accidentally arc anything when I was installing it in my truck. I will keep this thread updated with my repairs and results in the hope that somebody in the same boat can find the info helpful,

Again I want to say thank all of you for the help with my situation

 

[JimboSlice]

This is fun (at least for those not financially invested) there's a wealth of knowledge with a lot of these guys.
Glad to see you've gone the "screw it lets try to fix" approach. These guys helped me get my box back in line when I popped a pill due to a failed low pass filter. Following.

I know I can solder the components in and pull out the bad ones, I just keep hitting roadblocks in terminologies. I understand voltage amperage ohms law and resistance as I use them at work when working on CAN BUS networks in big diesel trucks, I have been watching a lot of BBI videos and hear him talking about capacitance, resonance, ect….. Not having an understanding of this my method of attack is going to be somewhat of the “shotgun” method. Throwing components at it hoping I find the bad one. As I stated, I’m going to start with the capacitors as I saw in a bbi video of a Dave made amp only putting out half the wattage it should And it ended up being bad input caps on the transformers

 

[lonestarbandit]

Indeed. As others stated I didn't see any smoked resistors and you said you were putting out "some" unhappy power so pills may all still be living even if flailing wildly. Also sidebar - I think the sellers definition and yours (and ours) may differ on the term "working" lol.

 

[Xracerx13]

Once you float those 3 things you should be fine and thats why the output is low.
How about a better pic of the output side at the giant round ceramic capacitor.

 

[JimboSlice]

Once you float those 3 things you should be fine.
How about a better pic of the output side at the giant round ceramic capacitor.

Currently at work will be home around four and we’ll get some better pictures uploaded, also going to see if I can’t float that circuit real quick and hook everything back up and give her a test run

 

[JimboSlice]

Indeed. As others stated I didn't see any smoked resistors and you said you were putting out "some" unhappy power so pills may all still be living even if flailing wildly. Also sidebar - I think the sellers definition and yours (and ours) may differ on the term "working" lol.

Yea I actually texted him because he is local to me, he said I can bring it back to him and have him hook it up to his bench to show it works, I was told it did 500w on 13.4 volts. Not sure if I’m gonna bring it back to him to look at, want to avoid any arguments

 

[lonestarbandit]

Well let's hope it's a simple fix.
Also wattage is subject to interpretation.
Most will tell you on here they're 100-120 watt pills. In the old days. When they were Toshiba depending on voltage and the rest is saturation and snake oil. And of course everyone's meters vary. All quite subjective really. Some swear Bird meters for example are a religion, others say the only place they're accurate is reading CW lol

 

[Xracerx13]

The only other thing I see that's not right is the feedback resistors as mentioned before by Brandon. They should be 100 Ohms 3 to 5W and not 2K ohms.
Other than that we need to make sure the output side was done correctly and not grounded the same stupid way.

The bearcat 980 radio is not powerful enough to run that amp to full power. It needs about 60-70 watts. Your lucky you didn't blow up your 2 pill which you'll need to run that amp. Just put the 2 pill on low. Maybe post a pic of that too please

 

[JimboSlice]

The only other thing I see that's not right is the feedback resistors as mentioned before by Brandon. They should be 100 Ohms 3 to 5W and not 2K ohms.
Other than that we need to make sure the output side was done correctly and not grounded the same stupid way.

The bearcat 980 radio is not powerful enough to run that amp to full power. It needs about 60-70 watts. Your lucky you didn't blow up your 2 pill which you'll need to run that amp. Just put the 2 pill on low. Maybe post a pic of that too please

Yeah, I know the 980 SSB only does 4w dead key, once I can get this amp working I’ll be in the market Stryker 955, I was driving it with a silver eagle 200 that looks to have been repilled with hg1446s, the little too pill does great I can throttle it at 50 W output if I don’t wire it straight to battery, that’s what I was feeding the 4 pill with 50w and it only bumped it up to around 150w output from the big box, I’ll post detailed pictures tonight of that resistor and the output side of the amp

 

[BC Coyote]

No way will you ever see 500 watts from that thing ! Done properly and driven properly you might see 200 watts output. Always important to keep in mind too is that these CB type amps never seem to have low pass filters installed, which means a percentage of radiated power is going into the harmonics. This is not a good thing as it means less power on the fundamental frequency and more interference to other services (due to the harmonic radiation). Do your neighbors and fellow radio users a big favor and buy a Low Pass Filter to put on the output.

 

[brandon7861]

After seeing cable guys discovery, what appears to be a dead short at the input, I wonder how you didn't blow your 2-pill and how it had output at all. If the input is shorted and you still had 100w out, it must be oscillating. Unless the picture just made it appear that way.. Is it oscillating all the time hot switching the relay when you key the radio???????? Whats the current draw with no RF input?

I think there is a third issue, although again, I am no amp builder. But isn't it common practice to provide a ground strap between the coax connector ground and board ground instead of relying on a few oxidized screws that contain no lock washers? If you add lock washers, use the electrical star kind with the little points that apply enough pressure to keep oxygen out of the contact surface, not regular split lock washers... I would use a machine screw and nut to jump a ground between the ant connector mount hole and board ground.

 

[JimboSlice]

After seeing cable guys discovery, what appears to be a dead short at the input, I wonder how you didn't blow your 2-pill and how it had output at all. If the input is shorted and you still had 100w out, it must be oscillating. Unless the picture just made it appear that way.. Is it oscillating all the time hot switching the relay when you key the radio???????? Whats the current draw with no RF input?

I think there is a third issue, although again, I am no amp builder. But isn't it common practice to provide a ground strap between the coax connector ground and board ground instead of relying on a few oxidized screws that contain no lock washers? If you add lock washers, use the electrical star kind with the little points that apply enough pressure to keep oxygen out of the contact surface, not regular split lock washers... I would use a machine screw and nut to jump a ground between the ant connector mount hole and board ground.

I don’t have the tools to check current draw all I can say is when I was driving it with the 2 pill it would do 120w on my dosy and if I brought the rpm’s up on my truck it would push around 150w with the revs, as far as the relay I’m not sure what you mean? In AM when I key down the relay clicks on, the amp seems to hate ssb when I tried ssb it would click like crazy cutting in and out. Big box deadkeys 40w and swings 100w on my dosy

 

[JimboSlice]

No way will you ever see 500 watts from that thing ! Done properly and driven properly you might see 200 watts output. Always important to keep in mind too is that these CB type amps never seem to have low pass filters installed, which means a percentage of radiated power is going into the harmonics. This is not a good thing as it means less power on the fundamental frequency and more interference to other services (due to the harmonic radiation). Do your neighbors and fellow radio users a big favor and buy a Low Pass Filter to put on the output.

I expectEd at least 200 out of 4 pills, have seen the fat boy amps do 300-400 on roosters channel

 

[SuperLid]

I know I can solder the components in and pull out the bad ones, I just keep hitting roadblocks in terminologies. I understand voltage amperage ohms law and resistance as I use them at work when working on CAN BUS networks in big diesel trucks, I have been watching a lot of BBI videos and hear him talking about capacitance, resonance, ect….. Not having an understanding of this my method of attack is going to be somewhat of the “shotgun” method. Throwing components at it hoping I find the bad one. As I stated, I’m going to start with the capacitors as I saw in a bbi video of a Dave made amp only putting out half the wattage it should And it ended up being bad input caps on the transformers

I would not put much value on what you hear BBI talk about on YT. Word to the wise...