After Speedball install, left channel cracking/popping

[Neil]

Just did the Speedball upgrade.

Left channel is cracking and popping a lot.

All voltages are within the manual specs and the right channel is crystal clear. Didn't have any cracking/popping sounds before.

I've reheated and re-soldered twice now.

I only have two irons - one that gets way too crazy hot and one that has a very fine tip but is low wattage and doesnt get that hot. Not the most ideal setup but again didn't have any issues with the soldering until the Speedball upgrade.

Which wires/components should I be paying most attention to for left channel issues?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Way too crazy hot isn't a bad thing, I do all my soldering with my iron set to 899 degrees.

Did you listen to the amp after you installed the small board but still had the 3K resistors?

I would suspect that your issue will come down to a solder joint, and more likely one in the original build and not the Speedball.  Installing the Speedball may have bothered it enough to make it audible. 

As always, feel free to post some photos and we can look things over to see if we can spot anything.

 

[Neil]

Hey Paul - thanks so much for your quick reply.

That's great to hear as per soldering iron temp - a lot of my joints look a bit burnt 

Here are some photos:
https://imgur.com/a/hwalYjO
Wow this thing looks way worse in photos than it does on my desk hahah

I should mention - i unplugged the headphones and the RCA - just left it powered on to heat up - plugged phones in - dead silent - way quieter than it has ever been (there was that hum I always had before - gone now). Connected RCA and played some music - extremely clean and taking in the new experience - still dead silent if I pause the music or mute the audio. But, the popping came back, without turning the Crack off.

Also, when I installed those plastic risers for the PCBs for the Speadball, I did have to remove the two 100uf 160v caps and the two black wires from I think 3U to make everything fit better - not sure if that could be causing issues?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Hopefully you put the black wires back before continuing. 

If you have an inexpensive pair of headphones sitting around, plug them into the Crack while it's flipped over, then turn the Crack on.  Poke around with a wooden chopstick until you find an area that creates the noise you're hearing when poked, then address any connections in this area (both ends of any wires or components, poking one end can disturb a connection at the other end).

 

[Neil]

this is tricky - ive poked and prodded and resoldered literally everything. still popping left channel with intermittent bouts of supreme clarity. i might just need to send it in, which is a bummer since there weren't any popping issues before the speedball upgrade :/

 

[adydula]

I would check to see if the leds on the smaller 12AU7 are going on and off when the popping occurs....maybe one of those is fried or mechanically abused after the heating and reheating??

I had some popping awhile back and in my case it was the leds that had cracked while inserting and removing this tube....had to replace and leave a little stress relief in the leads to accomodate the pin movement while removing tubes etc..

Just a thought
Alex

 

[Neil]

I would check to see if the leds on the smaller 12AU7 are going on and off when the popping occurs....maybe one of those is fried or mechanically abused after the heating and reheating??

I had some popping awhile back and in my case it was the leds that had cracked while inserting and removing this tube....had to replace and leave a little stress relief in the leads to accomodate the pin movement while removing tubes etc..

Just a thought
Alex

thank you for sharing that! i'll definitely check this out. i got the LEDs toasty while soldering... didnt realize just how teeny tiny they were until i started soldering them down.

the interesting thing is after the Crack heats up, the popping goes away, but comes back again...

 

[Neil]

Hopefully you put the black wires back before continuing. 

If you have an inexpensive pair of headphones sitting around, plug them into the Crack while it's flipped over, then turn the Crack on.  Poke around with a wooden chopstick until you find an area that creates the noise you're hearing when poked, then address any connections in this area (both ends of any wires or components, poking one end can disturb a connection at the other end).

Fixed, thank you Paul! Happy New Year!

 

[adydula]

Neil....what was the solution?

Alex

 

[Neil]

Neil....what was the solution?

Alex

Hey there Alex.

I reheated/re-soldered nearly all of the joints on the Speedball parts.
I re-soldered the 3U and 3L - couple other lower joints - between 2L and 7L i think.
I had to remove the two capacitors and flip them over to make the long board for the Speedball fit - so I also re-soldered those, a few times, and the lower joints since they got pretty hot as well.
I removed both tubes and reinserted probably 6 times and gave each one a very minor twist in each socket - i think this did nothing, but was really trying to find the source of the cracking/popping.
I flipped the system guts-up and powered it on with "crappy" headphones plugged in and poked around with a chopstick. It was very hard to tell what was normal popping/cracking and what might have been chop-stick-poke induced - but it did seem like it was coming from any one of those silver caps - the ones that were like 2920 or 2202 or whatever - so i made sure to add fresh solder and really get them done with better joints.

I actually still had popping, loud sharp aggressive popping, even after all this.... so, I left the Crack turned on but with no audio input and no headphones plugged in - just let it sit turned on for a good 8 hours. I came back, plugged audio and headphones in, sounded amazing - crystal clear, no weird sounds at all. I unplugged the headphones and turned the volume pot from 0-100% 5 or 6 times, put headphones in and very slowly did the same thing - sounded great. The Speedball upgrade made the Crack completely dead silent up till about 95% volume on the pot - really impressive - also made the crack louder, by quite a good and noticeable amount.

Wishing I did this mod YEARS ago! Can't wait to try some different tubes out. I wish I could order them straight from Bottlehead!