Folks:
Does anyone know of a source for Aikido Noval pcbs aside from Glassware? Glassware has been out of those boards for months, and my many emails to Mr. Broskie (all with some variation of “Tube” in the subject line) have all gone unanswered. I have the Gerbers for the Octal variant but would prefer to build a Noval Aikido. If the Gerbers are available, I would happily have boards made.
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Scott
Does anyone know of a source for Aikido Noval pcbs aside from Glassware? Glassware has been out of those boards for months, and my many emails to Mr. Broskie (all with some variation of “Tube” in the subject line) have all gone unanswered. I have the Gerbers for the Octal variant but would prefer to build a Noval Aikido. If the Gerbers are available, I would happily have boards made.
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Scott
Maybe you use some 9 pin PC board mount socket and bend/stretch the terminals out far enough to fit an octal layout. You'd have to give up the pin 9 filament connection.
Sadface:
I am not. I tried playing with KiCAD once but didn't get very far before realizing I was over my head. Perhaps I should explore tutorials for it, but I'm uninformed about "all things pcb design".
Regards,
Scott
I am not. I tried playing with KiCAD once but didn't get very far before realizing I was over my head. Perhaps I should explore tutorials for it, but I'm uninformed about "all things pcb design".
Regards,
Scott
Fair enough.
If you don't mind waiting a few days I can convert my octal pcb to novel.
It would be untested of course so you would be the guinea pig.
The hardest but will be figuring out the jumper situation for heater voltages. Much faster if you just want 6v or 12v
If you don't mind waiting a few days I can convert my octal pcb to novel.
It would be untested of course so you would be the guinea pig.
The hardest but will be figuring out the jumper situation for heater voltages. Much faster if you just want 6v or 12v
Sadface:
That's a very kind offer -- if you're sincere and don't mind, I'd like to take you up on it! I've got a good pair each of 6NP6, 6CG7, 6N1P-EB, 12AU7, JRP-5687WA and 6H30/6N30, any combination of which I'd be happy to use. The transformers on hand are a Hammond 369 JX (50VA, 500V C.T. @ 69 ma and 6.3V C.T. @ 2.5A) and a Hammond 166L6 (12.6VA, 6.3V C.T. @ 2.0A). I'd like to use as much of what I already have as possible, in case that affects your design efforts; that said, your recommendations would be appreciated!
Regards,
Scott
That's a very kind offer -- if you're sincere and don't mind, I'd like to take you up on it! I've got a good pair each of 6NP6, 6CG7, 6N1P-EB, 12AU7, JRP-5687WA and 6H30/6N30, any combination of which I'd be happy to use. The transformers on hand are a Hammond 369 JX (50VA, 500V C.T. @ 69 ma and 6.3V C.T. @ 2.5A) and a Hammond 166L6 (12.6VA, 6.3V C.T. @ 2.0A). I'd like to use as much of what I already have as possible, in case that affects your design efforts; that said, your recommendations would be appreciated!
Regards,
Scott
I think that would be a great service to us all, since Broskie's boards are so hard to get now. Your octal board is swell. I think 6V filaments would be best, since most of the popular 12XXX series tubes can run on 6V, but some of the popular 6 volts tubes like 6922 and 6CG7 are limited to 6V. Yes, the filament configuration will surely be tricky. And I assume that some tubes, like the 5687, will require require adapters, but those are easy to source. I'd be interested to see your results.
Well. First things first is heaters then.
Ideally one would keep the flexibility of having multiple heater options if there isn't too much trickery involved.
If we assume a 6.3V heater supply and then allow jumpers for use with 12XXX tubes this is probably the best way forward.
I think I have done it:
The first 2 are just me working out the connections.
The 3rd would be how I propose to do it.
J1 and J3 for use with 6v tubes. I am assuming all noval 6v tubes have pin 9 connected to ground.
J2 and J4 for 12v tubes.
Ideally one would keep the flexibility of having multiple heater options if there isn't too much trickery involved.
If we assume a 6.3V heater supply and then allow jumpers for use with 12XXX tubes this is probably the best way forward.
I think I have done it:
The first 2 are just me working out the connections.
The 3rd would be how I propose to do it.
J1 and J3 for use with 6v tubes. I am assuming all noval 6v tubes have pin 9 connected to ground.
J2 and J4 for 12v tubes.
Here's the first draft of the ammended layout.
Some minor movement of parts compared to the octal version. A bit of trace rerouting.
Obviously the heaters and pin 9 have not been dealt with here. There is also some scope for tidying and shrinking things a bit around the smaller sockets.
Some minor movement of parts compared to the octal version. A bit of trace rerouting.
Obviously the heaters and pin 9 have not been dealt with here. There is also some scope for tidying and shrinking things a bit around the smaller sockets.
One detail to check would be the pin spacing on the sockets.
The footprint I have used here is 18mm from pin to opposing pin.
The footprint I have used here is 18mm from pin to opposing pin.
I thought I was the only one being ignored by Mr. Broskie... been sending at least 4 emails asking about his boards but still never got any reply.
The guy has been doing this for like, 20 years? He can't make much money off of this and last I saw he was moving and looking for a new job. He probably gets several hundred emails a day. It seems to me like the thing has gotten away from him.
That may be, but there is a large community of people who are inclined to support Mr. Broskie. By going radio silent he antagonizes that community. I think he'd be far better off posting a note on his website announcing that his business is on hiatus for the time being. It would cost him nothing to keep that community of supporters minimally informed. Doing so might even spark greater interest in his boards, which would be financially advantageous should he ever want to start supplying customers again.
Sadface, I think the tube socket holes are too small that you won't be able to push the pins down for solder, The pins would be be end up on top of the pcb. This is the problem when I have encountered. You may look for the one that has the same hole as audio Input/Output
The filament jumpers seem right, but I am horrible at logic puzzles. :-( One thing that would be useful to add is guide holes in the center of the socket mounts so you can mark the chassis or top plate with the socket locations. I drilled two small holes in your octal boards so I could do this.
Right.
I have fixed the footprint for the sockets it is now a 20mm diameter. Although I need to check the hole size still. Later...
I have added 3mm holes under the sockets as requested.
Moved a thing or 2 around to make things neater.
I have also added an extra jumper J5 to the jumper maze.
J5 would disconnect the two pin 9s.
Thus J1 for 12v heater supply into 12xxxx tubes with pin 9 floating
J1 for 6v heater into 6v tubes pin 9 floating
J1 + J3 +J5 for 6v heater into 6v tubes with a grounded screen
J2 + J4 + J5 for 6v heater into 12xxx tubes.
I have fixed the footprint for the sockets it is now a 20mm diameter. Although I need to check the hole size still. Later...
I have added 3mm holes under the sockets as requested.
Moved a thing or 2 around to make things neater.
I have also added an extra jumper J5 to the jumper maze.
J5 would disconnect the two pin 9s.
Thus J1 for 12v heater supply into 12xxxx tubes with pin 9 floating
J1 for 6v heater into 6v tubes pin 9 floating
J1 + J3 +J5 for 6v heater into 6v tubes with a grounded screen
J2 + J4 + J5 for 6v heater into 12xxx tubes.
Ok, I managed to get the heaters sort of in place.
Somewhat messy but 'functional' now.
I am cooking up an idea for some additional jumpers around pin 9 to tidy things up further.
More on this in a couple of days.
Somewhat messy but 'functional' now.
I am cooking up an idea for some additional jumpers around pin 9 to tidy things up further.
More on this in a couple of days.
