my hammond M-3 has 2 tube amps in it

jibberish · November 03, 2011, 01:39:06 PM

it turns out there is a second reverb amp with its own speaker that gets input from the output of the main amp, connected right at the speaker terminals. manual says a resistive network and incandescent lights bring the signal down..heh caveman... organ was made from 1951-1964

are there any time degradation issues with trannies? these look perfect from the outside, but obviously cant tell the whole story. all 4 look mint. the two amps are right on the bottom in the back = ez2 remove, the whole thing.
this organ has sat all but a few hours in the heh 30 yrs ive had it. it was gigged in a band at one time, but worked perfectly when i got it.

all the tubes are hammond brand labelled. i saw 12au7's..i know what those are heh.

i saw the number "18watts" somewhere along the way..maybe the main amp idk yet. bigger single tube in main amp. i also see why modders get a pegboard and just go with the premounted tube/chassis/tranny crap. fast rebuild.\ just shuffling caps and resistors and some re-wiring.

was someone saying that they still get hammond trannies?

edit: we need that little now playing sig thing srcom used to have so i can type in "the zoo" scorps..im digging it

Hemisaurus · November 03, 2011, 02:21:09 PM

When you say trannies, do you mean transformers or transistors? (Hammond used both in their organs), transformers can get a little rusty, but unless they look real yech a transformer doesn't really degrade with time, it can degrade with misuse, or extreme heat, but not time.

When someone else talks about Hammond transformers, they are referring to Hammond Mfg. a company that makes transformers (in Canada) and not Hammond Organ

Chovie D · November 03, 2011, 03:48:49 PM

My buddy made an 18watt from organ parts. It may have been an m3.
I hvae a little expreince with the m3 as i once had looked into rigging up a direct output box for one, but never got around to it before teh oragm playue came ot his senses and got a sim keyboard. He hauled that m3 to two shows in the rain before he gave up.

If you gut that thing, there are supposedly nice caps in there for the taking too. black beauties i think?

justinhedrick · November 03, 2011, 04:00:02 PM

Quote from: Chovie D on November 03, 2011, 03:48:49 PM
My buddy made an 18watt from organ parts. It may have been an m3.
I hvae a little expreince with the m3 as i once had looked into rigging up a direct output box for one, but never got around to it before teh oragm playue came ot his senses and got a sim keyboard. He hauled that m3 to two shows in the rain before he gave up.

If you gut that thing, there are supposedly nice caps in there for the taking too. black beauties i think?

a buddy of mine makes them too:
http://analogoutfitters.com/amplifier/organicamps

jibberish · November 03, 2011, 04:04:11 PM

is this the origins of your 18watt chovie? i think i will gut it. i have been wanting a MIDI foot controller since forever, and guess what? heh. there is a mod for a hammond pedalboard too.

there is a whole row of identical axial lead caps along the back top, keys or drawbars are all up there. some kludgy motorized looking shit heh. this thing is nuts. you are supposed to oil it in a bunch of places.
i'm trying to think of which caps generally dry out. i know electrolytic cans screw up eventually, often they even leak..nasty...and who knows what pcb agent orange shit they merrily used in mfg in 1953 8D..

ya sry, i meant transformers.
thx for sorting the "hammond" mfr thing out. seeing hammond tubes messed me up there.

^*^*^*^*^^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
"now playing" "siglette" that should go here so i can say "aqualung"

Hemisaurus · November 03, 2011, 04:15:36 PM

I'd have thought it was worth more as an organ, than for parts. I picked up a MIDI footcontroller for $35. Unless it's broken and needs a lot of mechanical fixinating.

Chovie D · November 03, 2011, 04:53:40 PM

The M3 is for the most part not worth much and hard to sell. Its far less desireable than the infamous B3. I do not think theres profit in tearing them up, but there is no real monetary loss in doing so either. Mostly people inherit these from their parents or grandparents and want them oot of the house asap.

the mechanical shit is the tone wheel. They ARE crazy beasts.
If the organ still works, Id keep it just as an organ instead of gutting it for the amp. but it all depends on if you just want the thing gone or not. Onething you could do is CHOP the organ. You basically remove the amp, build a direct output box, and remove the lower half of the wood body. I imagine it would be a bitch of a project. Loads of info on the web aboot it tho.

My 18 watt was a mojo kit. It was thier insane deal of the day or something so I got it at half price.
I DO NOT RECOMEND BUILDING THIS KIT. The amp sounds fantastic right now, but it took me 6 months of total asspain troubleshooting to find out they had made an error on the wiring layout ON THE BOTTOM OF THE FUCKING BOARD!!. In additoon to that they made some retarded changes to the original circuit, adding a two speed switch for the tremolo section. Worst of all, they used the chassis for a jcm800 instead of the original 18 watt chassis and the output jack for that trem footswitch is in the wrong fucking place right next to a tube.

There was an 18watt forum if your interested in these amps but it looks like its down for months now.
http://www.18watt.com/

There alot of quality kits out there for them.
http://gdsamps.com/
http://ceriatone.com/productSubPages/BS18w/BS18w.htm

dunwhich and hemi prolly know more aboot em than I.

jibberish · November 04, 2011, 08:17:06 AM

ok, i see, your 18w amp was coincidentally 18watts..and i will not try one of those kits heh.

yes the M-3 is in working order, but you know what. i dont want to use it and i dont want to dick around with selling it at this point either. there is a nice roland midi foot controller i would rather have so the pedalboard may not happen. maybe i'll borrow the amps out and leave the rest intact just in case..will meditate a bit further...

im looking at those 4 transformers and the 2 clean chassis' that would just unbolt. i can buy it a crown 200w/ch for $200 some day heh. would be nice just to place a quick order now with some tube emporium, fight through digi-key's website for some passive crap and hardware and go find me a 1x12 or 4x12 and get started.

im contemplating how to scrap out or disassemble an upright grand piano also.

i wonder if anyone makes USB scope probes that go with the little oscilloscope program that someone must have cooked up by now.

Chovie D · November 04, 2011, 09:27:40 AM

Chovie D · November 04, 2011, 09:29:10 AM

Hemisaurus · November 04, 2011, 09:25:01 PM

Quote from: jibberish on November 04, 2011, 08:17:06 AM

im looking at those 4 transformers and the 2 clean chassis' that would just unbolt. i can buy it a crown 200w/ch for $200 some day heh. would be nice just to place a quick order now with some tube emporium, fight through digi-key's website for some passive crap and hardware and go find me a 1x12 or 4x12 and get started.

im contemplating how to scrap out or disassemble an upright grand piano also.

You do know the amp is rated at 11W, if what I'm reading online is correct? And that you'll have to design a preamp of some kind to make it work with a guitar?

Just checking

jibberish · November 05, 2011, 09:36:31 AM

thanks chief, i know you guys will keep me on the straight and narrow. I really do move slow. talking time is when all craziness should be talked out and all ideas thrown around. cash in on "talk is cheap" since it is cheap, heh.

also, i will go through those amps in detail and see just what all is in them. mostly online research at first before i remove screw #1.

i still want to play with that ant circuit (.2watt or .4watt -ish or w/e), so i am going to start with the hammond reverb amp chassis IF i do. seems smaller

the reason the ant circuit intruigues me, is that i found a mod where he replaces the output tube with a eccxxx and another tube..he has to recalculate the load lines and reset the Vg for each example. then he delves into the gain/vs crunch/vs sounds of the other tubes. there is discussion regarding running the tubes into the no-no redplate zone, and great example of how/where the tone stack and master gain would go, or could be replaced. This just seems like a great place to experience certain base things i need to know move on. so just a great building block example for some of the things i want to hear and toy with..

i sorted my SS power supplies. heh. i have an entire box full of lab supplies, PC supplies(excelent 12/5v sources cheap since uber mass produced), a couple power blocks from where i used to work and a boatload of wall warts.
so i can compensate for a complez power transformer with the SS grid power

Hemisaurus · November 05, 2011, 11:02:40 AM

If you are talking low power amps, you can bypass the complex transformer route if you have a pair of suitable wall-warts.

The purpose of a power transformer is two-fold. One it gets you a suitable voltage for running your circuit, but two it isolates the amp from the mains supply. You may have read of the old suicide box amp circuits, where there is no power transformer, all the tube heaters are connected in series, and if you connect the amp plug the wrong way round, and stand on a concrete floor, zap

If you ever read Fred Nachbaur's site on tube amps, he does a clever thing with a pair of 12V wall-warts, he connects the first one to the mains, so he has 12V ac, which is great for running any 12XXX tubes (not for any 6V6, without adding a resistor to swallow the extra 6V), but then, and this to me is the clever bit, he connects the 12V ac to the secondary of his second wall-wart (the low-voltage side), this means that he gets the line voltage on the primary of the second transformer (in Fred's case 240V in yours 120V) but it is now isolated from the mains.

Now the US has a piddly little line voltage of 120V, which will give you about 170V DC when rectified, but don't be deterred, if you need a higher voltage you have two choices.

1. Make a voltage doubler circuit, it's only a couple of capacitors and a couple of diodes.

2. Change the value of the wall-warts, if you use a 6V wall wart for the second one, putting 12V on the 6V winding gives you double the line voltage, using a 9V gives you 150% of the line, and so on.

Actually looking again, Fred's original schematic is designed for 120V and uses a voltage doubler.

jibberish · November 05, 2011, 08:23:00 PM

^ hell yeah 8D. i like the way that guy thinks. i see how he has the step down, step up from the handy identical wall warts. awesome. i would maybe try the

in->120vprim//sec12v->6v sec/prim240v-> option to see if i cant do it in the windings vs an extra doubler circuit.
i bet you could get any ac voltage you wanted with the right combo of wall warts using this idea.

uber-low power stuff has some serious advantages when it comes to borrowing components doesn't it .