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New 32 pill is a dog :(
- Thread starter groundwire
- Start date
I also forgot to mention that the input reflect shot way up as wellWell it died again! Keyed it down and the relay chattered like it had not enough drive, it started drawing tons of current, and the fans and power led practically turned off when keyed. Now im really pissed. I am now completely convinced that hopper built is not knowledgeable enough to build anything over a 16pill that works. If he truly knows electronics and circuit design he would have fixed it right the first time. Not be stumped, cant figure it out, wrong diagnosis etc. I believe now he is like most of these guys, they are putting cb amps together from plans/memory and truly dont have any electronics knowledge, how a circuit works and why it does what it does. Now i have a $4,000 doorstop that i am probably going to just throw away and call it a loss. Nate has ignored me at this point probably thinking its my fault (very unprofessional). He built a lemmon, it happens, make it right. Guess not. Anyway im not going to pay $200 to ship it again. I am truly very upset. My 2, 4, 6, 8, 16pill amps from nate are great. 32 pill? He blew it! Back to being a 16 pill mudduck
Sorry to hear about you 32 pill issues. I had a Noname 32 pill for years and years. Great box and but I could never get enough amps or batteries to ever really put it to the test for any amount of time. Even with (2) 320 for the box and a (1) 240 for drive. Go to a break sell it and find a new box builder..or just go tube.
I put in 3cx3000a7 and never looked back.
I put in 3cx3000a7 and never looked back.
sorry to hear about the amp groundwire.
sounds like it's oscillating.
just guessing here, but i wonder if the amp works just fine on a dummy load.
LC
sounds like it's oscillating.
just guessing here, but i wonder if the amp works just fine on a dummy load.
LC
I will try that this weekend. I only have a 2500w liad so i can only hit it lightly. It seems like the same symptoms again like the first time just no burnt combiner resistor. Sooo much money wasted.
Here is the inside of it now. Nothing burnt or anything, weird.
Attachments
there actually are a few things shown in the pic that could be an issue.
strong emphasis on the 'could be'.
look at the output inductors going to the relay from the combiners.
you'll notice one of them looks very evenly spaced, (the lower one in the pic) and the other looks like it's been bent back and forth a bit. (the upper one)
to me this tells the story of trying to balance the amp. Why did one side need the additional adjustments, and why couldn't that adjustment be made with the trombone tuning cap?
just guessing.
another thing i see is that one of the trombone caps is right next to one of the combiners.
there is a SERIOUS amount of RF on that combiner and i wonder if there is some interaction going on. like some stray RF could be coupled on to that trombone cap.
I also don't like that there is a relay so close to that combiner.
that relay has a coil, which has a magnetic field and it is right next to a major source of RF.
these are the types of things that aren't in those old amp plans everyone still seems to use when building amps.
placement matters, and that is why you'll hear about how if two inductors are too close to eachother, one of them should be turned 90* off of the other just as one example.
i know you are just so frustrated right now that you want to send it back to the maker using a catapult, but there is still a chance this amp can be made to work properly.
i think the work is all going to be near the output section.
maybe you should put that amp away where you can't see it for a while, and then come back to it if you feel like it's worth sending to someone else.
LC
strong emphasis on the 'could be'.
look at the output inductors going to the relay from the combiners.
you'll notice one of them looks very evenly spaced, (the lower one in the pic) and the other looks like it's been bent back and forth a bit. (the upper one)
to me this tells the story of trying to balance the amp. Why did one side need the additional adjustments, and why couldn't that adjustment be made with the trombone tuning cap?
just guessing.
another thing i see is that one of the trombone caps is right next to one of the combiners.
there is a SERIOUS amount of RF on that combiner and i wonder if there is some interaction going on. like some stray RF could be coupled on to that trombone cap.
I also don't like that there is a relay so close to that combiner.
that relay has a coil, which has a magnetic field and it is right next to a major source of RF.
these are the types of things that aren't in those old amp plans everyone still seems to use when building amps.
placement matters, and that is why you'll hear about how if two inductors are too close to eachother, one of them should be turned 90* off of the other just as one example.
i know you are just so frustrated right now that you want to send it back to the maker using a catapult, but there is still a chance this amp can be made to work properly.
i think the work is all going to be near the output section.
maybe you should put that amp away where you can't see it for a while, and then come back to it if you feel like it's worth sending to someone else.
LC
I dont know anyone that fixes amps except the well known typical ones, bbi etc. Also im in it for $4,000 now and i really dont wanna spend another $250 to ship it plus repair cost and wait a year to get it back hoping it works right. I will but it would have to be someone who knows how to fix it right in not to long of time. Im at the point now i just wanna throw it away and call it an expensive loss. I know how to repair and solder etc but i dont know amplifiers, radios is my thing
Well i said forget it and just ordered another one, omg $$$$$$! And what really sucks is whatever happened to the 32 pill, it took out something in the 4 pill driver i was using. On a hunch i checked it out this morning and sure enough, it has a really high output reflect now and swings only 3/4 of what it was doing pep. Huh? I dont know, i guess that goes in the garbage to with the 32 and i gotta buy another one.
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Nope, trying a new guy. In the end i dont know why, they are all the same for the most part, just minute differences which doesn't mean much really.
Who are you going with? I was going to go with Hopper for a 1X2 with SSB delay. Definitely not as complex as a 32 pill.
123 out of Chicago.
Baring damage in shipping the builder did not do his job. Every single part should have been checked and sorted. That does not mean none of them are bad but it greatly reduces the chances of a bad part that tests ok but fails under load.
If you see any compromise parts so NO NAME or tier 3 brand Chinese made jelly bean parts, cheap wires, off brand transformers and the like than the quality control has likely been compromised as well.
The most expensive part of a build is the quality control which has to happen before the build is started, during the build and testing after the build is done. It continues with the packaging and shipping.
Quality control is expensive because it actually cuts into productivity and efficiency of build time. It actual eats into profit margin in a way because the customer can not see, feel or taste quality control and it is hard to sell quality control of the technical aspects of a design compared to a competitors. People mostly buy on emotions and with their eye's. So if it looks the parts and has the right buzz words and the numbers are good it is gravy for a long long time. It is not until word get's out that your design or build quality or what ever is junk that people back off. If your market is not that intelligent and you have plenty of representation in the form of lots of retail locations or lots of private distributors even the negativity can be over come.
In fact especially in the CB world of illegal amplifiers we often see really poor designs soldier on for decades while far better designs and manufactures hardly penitrate the market and quietly go out of business!
The squeaky wheel gets all the grease sort of situation!
So now that we see there is a problem what is the customer service after the sale like?
If you see any compromise parts so NO NAME or tier 3 brand Chinese made jelly bean parts, cheap wires, off brand transformers and the like than the quality control has likely been compromised as well.
The most expensive part of a build is the quality control which has to happen before the build is started, during the build and testing after the build is done. It continues with the packaging and shipping.
Quality control is expensive because it actually cuts into productivity and efficiency of build time. It actual eats into profit margin in a way because the customer can not see, feel or taste quality control and it is hard to sell quality control of the technical aspects of a design compared to a competitors. People mostly buy on emotions and with their eye's. So if it looks the parts and has the right buzz words and the numbers are good it is gravy for a long long time. It is not until word get's out that your design or build quality or what ever is junk that people back off. If your market is not that intelligent and you have plenty of representation in the form of lots of retail locations or lots of private distributors even the negativity can be over come.
In fact especially in the CB world of illegal amplifiers we often see really poor designs soldier on for decades while far better designs and manufactures hardly penitrate the market and quietly go out of business!
The squeaky wheel gets all the grease sort of situation!
So now that we see there is a problem what is the customer service after the sale like?
Yep! For that sort of money it should have been built with quality parts all checked before the build even started. Should have been checked during the build so each 2 transistor section tested as it was built each step of the way.
When you build a 3 transistor amp you build, tune, test the first stage before you do the second stage. You build test, tune the second stage before you combine the sections and tune and test the entire box as a unit. To skip any of this is just taking short cuts and doing slip-shod work.
If all you are doing is pre-fab'ing parts and then plug-n-chug like you do a math formula you are only doing 1/2 of the job of production. One hit at the end of the line to make sure it is making power is not good enough!
How did they not spot the bad tune on the box? I can tell you how! They never checked it. They slapped all the parts on the board and made it look pretty according to the design they use. They grabbed parts out of bag counted them out and slapped them in place. They might have down a single power on test maybe not and shipped it out.
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