Current Lover – Electric Mistress

[Bio77]

Thought this one came out really nice.  Enclosure is a sanded and polished 125BB with no film decal.

I built a Current Lover a few years ago and learned that R10 needs to be reduced to get it to bias properly.  I, of course, forgot this and had to disassemble everything and swap it out.  Luckily, there's loads of room in the 125BB, so, it wasn't too bad.  I put a 10k in there and the 3007 biases.

[Bret608]

Now that is an absolute beauty! The whole theme really works well. Did you do the sanding and polishing yourself? Is it just using increasingly fine sandpaper grit?

Sorry to hear you had to pull it all out of the box. I did not know that about R10, so will keep that in mind if I build one of these.

[gordo]

Too cool.  Perfect execution on all fronts.

[jimilee]

That's fantastic inside and out.


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[Bio77]

Thanks guys, this one is in my top ten.

Now that is an absolute beauty! The whole theme really works well. Did you do the sanding and polishing yourself? Is it just using increasingly fine sandpaper grit?

Yessir, secret is the first sanding.  I use an orbital sander with 150 then 240 (I think?).  If you work all the imperfections out, the hand sanding goes pretty quick.  After the orbital, I use 400, 1000, 2000, 3000 wet then polishing compounds with a cloth wheel that fits in my drill press.  It's a PITA but I like the results.

[Invertiguy]

Wow, that looks absolutely flawless! Incredible work! I've been slumming it with my cheapo Canon inkjet and waterslide decals, but after seeing the amazing results you've been getting with the no film decals it looks like I just might have to finally upgrade to a color laser printer...

[geekmacdaddy]

Oh man, first off, gorgeous build! inside and out. So grateful you posted this, as I built 2 recently (just posted one) and had trouble with distortion in one, and signal traced it to R10 but didn't know what to do. Popped out the 82k, and replaced it with 10k, and all is well. Thank you!

[Bio77]

Oh man, first off, gorgeous build! inside and out. So grateful you posted this, as I built 2 recently (just posted one) and had trouble with distortion in one, and signal traced it to R10 but didn't know what to do. Popped out the 82k, and replaced it with 10k, and all is well. Thank you!

Thanks!  Glad my mistakes could help you out 

[madbean]

It's strange since I've built the CL several times and didn't really have a problem using the default value for that resistor. But it's worth updating the doc and just swapping it to 10k. Actually there probably doesn't need to be a resistor there at all. The bias trimmer could connect directly to 9v and still achieve proper bias.

[geekmacdaddy]

Thanks!  Glad my mistakes could help you out 

Totally did!

It's strange since I've built the CL several times and didn't really have a problem using the default value for that resistor. But it's worth updating the doc and just swapping it to 10k. Actually there probably doesn't need to be a resistor there at all. The bias trimmer could connect directly to 9v and still achieve proper bias.

Strange indeed, as one of mine biased fine.
Thanks for the help, Bean

[Bio77]

It's strange since I've built the CL several times and didn't really have a problem using the default value for that resistor. But it's worth updating the doc and just swapping it to 10k. Actually there probably doesn't need to be a resistor there at all. The bias trimmer could connect directly to 9v and still achieve proper bias.

That's what Scruffie told me in a post, I was scared to just jump it though (BBD is expensive).  It works with the 82k, but if you bias it with a scope, there isn't enough room on the trim to get it biased right.  According to Scruffie the 82k value is for the SAD, which has a lower bias point.