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  1. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Bent on keeping that opamp, well check out Verne's posts over at HC, "Supercharging a V8." http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?1519445-Supercharging-a-V8 The V8 is the V5's big brother. First thing Verne did was put in a high quality chip! Replaced the TL072, check it out...
  2. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    HELLO and welcome. Jim P. had posted very early some fixes if you want to keep the opamp, I think most of use just removed it and modded from there... It is hard to get much headroom, at any volume, out of a single EL84. You can get good overdrive and it will get loud when the EL84 is being...
  3. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I was talking with Rock Mumbles this evening and he reminded me of the power tube fixes for this amp. First, the screen resistor needs moved to the correct position, then the EL84 bias needs corrected, depending on the size of the cathode bypass cap, 240-270R cathode resistor. I also added a...
  4. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Since the stock tone pot has the wiper to ground, I converted it to a Marshall normal channel tone control. I can post a partial schematic for this mod when I return home after the 4th... http://mhuss.com/18watt/schematics/18wattLite.gif OK, maybe this will help.
  5. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Sold So finally just sold the v5. Fun experience, it was sounding real good, took it to Marshall territory, with a similar Celestion G10-30 speaker, dual inputs, opamp removed, normal channel marshall tone control, and master volume, $160. I feel fair price to both parties...
  6. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    So does the volume pot actually work? Crate pots have a high failure rate, my master volume on my v18 broke near the ground, so there was no signal sent to ground, just a variable resistor in line, it was loud, ugly, and noisy. Use your vom to test make sure the pot has continuity to ground...
  7. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Missed this earlier, but many say that you should not use the 12at7 in preamp gain stage (designed for 12ax7), even more important in v1 position and with only one preamp tube. The 12ax7 may be too much gain, I would recommend going with 5751 if you want a lower gain tube (or reduce gain with...
  8. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    For the preamp v1a and v1b cathode bypass caps are C1 and C8, so I run both of these at 1uF on the v5. I have dark HBs (DiMarzio) and really need to keep a tight bottom end and use the coupling cap (C2) and tone stack to limit the bass/gain in the preamp. The tone stack reduces significant...
  9. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I mic mine in church but only run the preamp gain on about 3 or 4. I spend a lot of time on SEWATT valve junior forum, most of the technical discussions are relavent to the v5 or any single ended amp. Here is a quote from cGil in regards to the EL84 (discussion is about vj, C5 = C9 on v5)...
  10. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I wonder if you haven't cut some volume by too low of bypass cap value on the EL84. I know lifting the cathode bypass cap is like a 1/2 power switch, I think this is what JimP was getting at with his post. I actually went higher value on the EL84 bypass cap, you can get low voltage 220 or 470...
  11. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    So what else did you do? I put R11 (1M) across the input jack, removed R10 and everything between it and R1 (including R2), so R1 is the input grid resistor which should be in the range of 68K - 10K in most peoples opinion. A 1 M should reduce signal. I removed C3 but also moved the grid...
  12. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Right here: http://www.thefret.net/showpost.php?p=120172&postcount=28
  13. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I have found that the v1a cathode bypass cap and/or first coupling cap control the flabby bass. For HBs I have used either 0.68 or 1 uF cathode bypass caps, you can go a little higher with single coils, ~2uF. Or use a real small coupling cap, like the vj fender/voxy mod value, 0.0022uF, my v5...
  14. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    That is correct. The other mods are for other reasons...
  15. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I posted this earlier: http://www.thefret.net/showpost.php?p=140280&postcount=261 Maybe a litttle more conventional SE master volume and it worked great. I know Jim has had the discussion earlier about the grid resistor before or after the pot (or grid load), but after the pot is a little...
  16. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Jumpers on the pcb, I just use small wire, 22-24 gauge is fine. If it is a single component or very close, I just use the cut off wire leg of a resistor or capacitor. Sometimes I will put the jumper on the bottom if things are packed real tight on top. If I am running to a pot or switch...
  17. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    opamp jumper options, many... I think it is more of personal preferrence. There are probably a hundred ways to jumper the opamp, Jim's is likely one of the simplest. I started doing just the opamp mods Jim mentioned, and added the volume pot in the "on indicator light" location. This worked...
  18. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    I did my master volume a little different with a 250K pot but really like the results. I tried Jim's NFB with the pot, and conventional NFB, but prefer the control and tone with the master volume. My v5 combo now sounds better than my valve jr combo, I am going to have to mod it more now...
  19. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    So maybe the jumper from the volume pot to R27 is not on the ground side of the removed resistor, then it would work as a variable resistor???
  20. S

    Crate V5 mods... anyone?

    Jim, I think you really have something here! So I hooked up to my 2-12 cab, 2 - 16 ohm speakers in parallel. Put one on a switch so I could go from 2-12 at 8 ohms to 1-12 at 16 ohms (Jensen mod 12-70). Sounds much, much better with the single 16 ohm speaker, clearer, fuller (bottom end), and...
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