spi
Well-known member
I built a cigar box amp based on the Runoffgroove Ruby circuit, and the other one was built by our neighbor.
How these came to be: My neighbor's daughter took a class on guitar building at Purdue last year, so has an electric guitar but no amp. My neighbor knows I build pedals and kept hinting that I should help build an amp for his daughter. My first instinct was that she should get a Champ kit, but those run over $700 these days and I didn't see them splurging this much for a project.
Then one day, out of the blue I remembered that there are lm386 based amps, and this would be a perfect project: easy to do and not expensive. So I sourced the parts and made a vero layout. I found some nice cigar boxes on fb market.
She did the artwork on the front of the boxes with acrylic paint (using the design from the label inside the cigar box as inspiration). I should ask her to do some more artwork for me on my pedals.
To make this educational, I guided her though the build process alongside me, so she cut her own vero, did her own soldering and offboard wiring. Mine fired up right away but hers had some issues (first low volume, then no sound)--there were some misplaced components, so she also learned how to reflow, unsolder, and use an audio probe. We were able to fix it so now they both work.
They sound pretty ok, good enough for practicing and just making some noise.
How these came to be: My neighbor's daughter took a class on guitar building at Purdue last year, so has an electric guitar but no amp. My neighbor knows I build pedals and kept hinting that I should help build an amp for his daughter. My first instinct was that she should get a Champ kit, but those run over $700 these days and I didn't see them splurging this much for a project.
Then one day, out of the blue I remembered that there are lm386 based amps, and this would be a perfect project: easy to do and not expensive. So I sourced the parts and made a vero layout. I found some nice cigar boxes on fb market.
She did the artwork on the front of the boxes with acrylic paint (using the design from the label inside the cigar box as inspiration). I should ask her to do some more artwork for me on my pedals.
To make this educational, I guided her though the build process alongside me, so she cut her own vero, did her own soldering and offboard wiring. Mine fired up right away but hers had some issues (first low volume, then no sound)--there were some misplaced components, so she also learned how to reflow, unsolder, and use an audio probe. We were able to fix it so now they both work.
They sound pretty ok, good enough for practicing and just making some noise.
