Gauging interest: Deluxe Amplifone rebuild kits.

ArcRevival

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I have thought about this for some time now. It would probably be a one-time thing depending on the amount of hassle it is. I also do not know how far along I could get before my pending move but I would not take money ahead of time. I am not promising anything at this point, just checking to see how many would be interested before I go any further. Realistically, these would probably not ship for another month or so ( probably more like 2) if I do it. I think a good goal for me would be to have it done by the end of the year.

What the kit will be:
The kits would contain caps, some diodes, some potentiometers, some resistors, new fuses, voltage regulators,shoulder washers and hardwire for the deflection board regulators, hardware and wire and the resistors to move the 50ohm resistors to the heatsinks and a few guidelines for bulletproofing your Amp. It will have the parts that I normally use on a rebuild.

What the kit WON'T be :
Every last possible part to populate a board.
It will not contain a HV transformer.
It will not be the end all Amplifone rebuild guide and step by step procedure. You will have to have some clue about what you are doing.
It will not include 24 hour tech support if you mess up.

I am not sure if I would make HV and deflection kits available separately. That could be a possibility but at this time I would say one kit for both boards only. I would guestimate the price to be a lot more than the 6100 deluxe kits. Really hard to say at this point. Could be anywhere from $75 to as much as $125. It's a lot of parts and will be time consuming to assemble them.

If there is enough interest I will move to "stage 2" and start sourcing all the parts I use for a bulk buy BUT KEEP IN MIND THESE KITS WILL NOT BE CHEAP ! So before you throw out the "i will take 4 or 5 kits, you have to realize that could mean $500 bucks !

So let me know what you think and plan on the worst case scenario price-wise and if I can do it cheaper I will. I want the parts to be good quality and do not want to skimp. As soon as I source everything in bulk prices, I can have a cost for the kits. The first time I rebuilt an Amplifone, I spent several hours figuring what I needed and where to get it from. This kit can and will save you a lot of time.
 
I have a dead amp HV board with a missing flyback. My hope is this kit would address the majority of problems (failed parts) of the HV board (yes, I know I would need a flyback too). Was that your intention? Said another way, would it replace the typical transistor that fails (forget the # at the moment) and is attached to the heatsink?

Scott C.
 
I have a dead amp HV board with a missing flyback. My hope is this kit would address the majority of problems (failed parts) of the HV board (yes, I know I would need a flyback too). Was that your intention? Said another way, would it replace the typical transistor that fails (forget the # at the moment) and is attached to the heatsink?

Scott C.

I have rebuilt about 20 deflection boards and 10 or 12 HV boards using what would come in this kit. Out of all of those I think I had 2 deflection boards that needed further troubleshooting and 2 HV boards. One of the HV boards had a problem in the neck socket, the other one had a bad cap ( the one that is between the small transformer and the Bu406D). So in most cases I would say yes, shotgunning with this kit should fix the problems. Obviously you need to re-solder all the fuse holders and harnesses and header pins etc, but aside from cold solder joints, this should cover it. If it doesn't , it won't leave much left to check out. And yes, it would contain every transistor that mounts to a heat sink.
 
Thanks for the clarifications. Would you be including a BU406D or a BU408D? My understanding is the BU408D has some advantages over the BU406D and works the same (it better since my existing amp in my Star Wars has one!!!). :)

Scott C.
 
For gosh sakes include a 555 AND a 250ma fuse for the driver transformer..a couple of cheap parts to proteck that hard to find driver transformer.. This applies to 6100s too.
 
I would have bought something like that in a second a couple months ago when I was troubleshooting mine. Don't need it at the moment but it would sure be good to know that someone had something like that on hand for future reference.
 
For gosh sakes include a 555 AND a 250ma fuse for the driver transformer..a couple of cheap parts to proteck that hard to find driver transformer.. This applies to 6100s too.

I have never seen a 555 go bad yet and you can get those at Radio Shack. I don't think it's worth putting them in the kit.
 
I'd be up for one comprehensive kit for my Quantum. It has the red flyback and it probably needs a total overhaul. On another project, I've mostly rebuilt the deflection board, so wouldn't need a full kit.
 
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