I'm old enough to feel they ought to have a gaggle of switches and blinking lights And you're not 'really' a 'computer operator' till you've manually keyed in a boot loader and untangled 200 ft of rogue paper tape or, alternately, resorted a dropped box of punch cards back to proper sequence.

If you want to know the core clock then pull up System. Or you could go old school and stick a Dymo label on the case

I suspect that somewhere there is a program that could output data over USB to drive a display.

I'm out of X-1 if anyone is about to order from mouser buy me 10 and I'll reimburse.

Anyone have good parts placement diagrams? first kit building and i want no errors in building... thanks

Anyone have good parts placement diagrams? first kit building and i want no errors in building... thanks
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Good point! We had it on 6LE8 instructrions but not here. I remember Curt Reed saying that parts placement was critical to xmitter layout but I have heard of no such problems on this one.

Certainly, I can put something together, but as we all know, some components don't like to play nice, when in certain proximities to one another.

Yes, I'm hoping that someone answers about it on here for you.

If no one comes up with a good layout just keeps leads short. Layout is more important with transmitters but this one is used on the broadcast band. If you were to build a transmitter for higher frequencies layout would become critical.

Don't crowd L1, C5, & L2 in close proximity to other components, 1/2" to 3/4" should be OK...
Otherwise it's basically as Norm mentioned, keep leads short and ground directly to the chassis if possible or use a piece of #12 0r 14 wire as a ground buss...


Tom

This looks like a fun setup.
Are Kits for this still available?
Thanks
Mel W.

Got my xtal oscillator. I need to see what I have/need to build out the pc board. Gonna take time to do the remaining purchases, plus make time for assembly.

I've seen a lot of good examples, a lot of good ingenuity here.

This looks like a fun setup.
Are Kits for this still available?
Thanks
Mel W.


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yes, just PM me with a mailing address

Got my xtal oscillator. I need to see what I have/need to build out the pc board. Gonna take time to do the remaining purchases, plus make time for assembly.

I've seen a lot of good examples, a lot of good ingenuity here.

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Thanks for posting willikers. Post some pics of the build later for us.

Cap questions:

First, love this design. I'm salvaging ceramic caps from an old JVC video monitor toward building this.

To get a couple of values, I know I can combine caps, or exceed by a bit - e.g. I can sub for a 503 (.05) by combining a 333 and a 183 in parallel, or I can use a 563. For a 502, I can combine two 103s in series. Etc.

So, questions. In transmitter circuits:

Any downside to using two caps, series or parallel, instead of finding one with the right value?

Any parts of this circuit where it creates more of a problem?

Thanks for your insights.

As long as you don't have a wad of parts the size of a walnut, I don't see any problem with series/parallel components... Except for the components in the antenna matching, most can deviate probably 50% or more without issue...

Parts that should be kept in spec are L1, L2, C5, and D3... R8 should be massaged to produce 3v on cathode...

Tom

Thanks, Tom; I have so marked my working schematic on the spec points. I added a note: "subwalnut wads OK elsewhere".

I am puzzling through resistor "wads" - e.g. if I use 2 1w 56 ohms in parallel to achieve 28 ohms, does that safely sub for 1 2w 27 ohm. I'm leaning toward finding the 27s in 2w or higher; I have time as I have to order a few caps, a crystal, etc.

Reminds me of Scoutmaster days, where one scout eschewed learning to tie various knots, and instead piled on layers until he created a "wadknot" of a size he deemed sufficient. Usually worked, at least he didn't kill himself or anyone else.

Tom (another one)

It will if they're spaced far enough apart but in a 'wad' they heat each other so neither sees 'ambient' over all its surface area.

Bad idea. A 'knot' isn't just a 'knot'. For example, in an emergency one might need to tie a knot quickly, so 'extended tying' isn't a good idea, and you need to know it'll do the job. And some types of knots are designed to be easily removed, which a 'wad knot' isn't. Some are designed to slip and tighten under load while others are expressly intended to not slip and tighten like, as another example, around someone's waist as you're rescuing them. It’s not a good idea to squeeze their guts out on the way up.

A component 'wad' is not analogous to your scout's 'wad knot' because you aren't wrapping random components together in a leap of faith that whatever they happen to be will just 'magically' work.

Re the resistors: I thought about spacing, and though I have seen them in place like the Space Shuttle on a 747, I think a space between two resistors equal to the diameter of one would suffice.

Re the Scout: Wadknots were in his Second Class days. He soon outgrew that because he decided that the knots looked "really cool" when tied correctly and would work as he intended - and because he wanted his First Class badge. Though he moved to Florida after two years, I was pleased to learn a year or so later that he joined a troop there and advanced to Eagle.

I don't have a 'rule of thumb' for spacing but 1 dia sounds good as long as there's free airflow.

The only time I did one like that, where power was 'critical', was a B+ dropper in a guitar amp and I actually used closer spacing but they were horizontally mounted directly under a large chassis vent so there was lots of convection straight out of the box. But normally I size for >= twice calculated so each of the two would be able to handle it, 'technically speaking', which kind of begs the question.

It was this puppy I built for nephew. http://flipperhome.dyndns.org/6CW5guitar.htm Four resistors in total in two B+ droppers: the 50 ohm and 200 ohm jobs. They're under that large grill front right. The grill material, btw, both top and rear, was dremeled off a dead AT (yes, AT, not ATX) power supply. That's heavy duty stuff because those 'original' AT power supplies were built like tanks, and weighed like tanks too.

Btw, in case anyone is curious, yes, that center rear, horizontally mounted, transformer is a 'power transformer' being used for the OPT and while some may be shocked to see it the recording studio said it was the best sounding guitar amp they'd ever had in the place.

Except for the chassis and some ancillary parts, like the knobs, it was constructed from junk I had collected over the decades.

For what it's worth, tubesandmore.com has 12cs6 marked down from 2.25 each to 1.35 each, such a deal! and 78 of them in stock.