Category: DIY
PC water cooling: Maintenance
When watercooling a computer the goal is lower temperature and/or better noise to performance ratio, while also allowing for much smaller footprint with quite high end parts. However, maintenance and special care is a must when housing electronics and water […]
Guitar rebuild: 1 onboard preamps & hardware
From 70’s hard rock, to a credible metal guitar this one started its life 1982 in Japan, built in the great Matsumoku shop. Known for making some of the world’s best mass produced guitars at the end of the 70’s […]
Pedal Progression: 1 Range Master
In this series I revisit and re-build some of my favorite guitar pedals. Here a treble booster is given some of the best vintage parts possible, protection circuitry, power supply filtering, a negative voltage supply, some indication circuitry, and a, […]
TrainWreck Rockette: 1 Redesigned
The trainwreck rocket is a highly coveted and copied guitar amp, however it, in part, is a copy itself. It is the core of a vox ac30 and where made by Ken Fischer. Here I design my interpretation. Ken started […]
Homelab: 4 Family & apartment friendly server cabinet
Finding ways to live with an interest in computers can be a challenge. That is having half a dozen computers running 24/7 is not something easily manageable, even though being tiny and near silent, the space required and mess is […]
Homelab: 3 Turning laptops into mini-servers
One of the most common e-waste sources out there is laptops, slower than other computers and often not upgradable, lacking ability to change peripherals, like screens. A sad fact as the vast majority of people do rarely use the full […]
Dumble Overdrive Special: 2 Headshell
Head, strange word for this but is what it’s called, a head being the amplifier, presumably sitting on the ‘body’ represented by the stacks of speaker cabs. Using a schematic from the ampgarage.com forum as a base I set out […]
Dumble Overdrive Special: 1 Head & circuit
The Dumble amplifiers are clearly the highest priced guitar amplifiers ever to exist, and with good, or at least understandable, reason. These amplifiers fetch more than 50.000$/€ a piece, a staggering sum. Why this is understandable can be gleaned by […]
Saving monitors: leaky capacitors
A common issue with electronics are when small insignificant components fail. Fixes then usually only depend on 1) Knowledge/problem solving and 2) 1-2 $/€/£ in replacements. In this case a very common issue, leaky electrolytic capacitors. While most parts […]
Dumble Overdrive Special: 3 Mods
Doing a copy of an amp can be a good learning experience, modifying it to suit your needs and taste, however, can be the really rewarding bit. Here I detail added FX loop, footswitchable; dual HRM, with bypass, FETboost, moved […]