Stuart, I have never seen one of these. Thanks for sharing such a unique piece of equipment. It is always a help to hear you discuss the process of determining the issues of the amps on your bench. Thanks again, Mike
Hey Stuart, nice little relic and clever fix..! WEM was reasonable brand back in the day, I used to have a copicat made by them...Great fun..Great video..Ed..uk..😄😄
I have watched both you and Terry for years and I can tell you he has nothing on you. You are extremely knowledgeable! And in my opinion much more intuitive than Terry could ever be. Moxie is the term that best discribes you IMHO! Love your vids! Thank you Stuart! Steve, 30yr amp tech in California
Used to use WEM Westminster 30 watts in the studio back in the 80's. Two mic'd up & then panned left & right, the right side delayed by about 25 to 30 milliseconds through an AMS delay. Absolutely glorious amplifiers.
A quick and sweet episode today. I imagine that had the repair been recorded, this episode would have been a two-parter. In the end, it was sussed in your usual manner. I've seen the WEM, but never heard one. I too watch D-Lab. Terry is very knowledgeable. I go cross-eyed while he's fixing one of those ham radios. Well done as always, Stuart. Cheers!
I've been caught more than once thinking myself into a circle. I've learned to check the grounds as diligently as the power circuits. Mainly grounds were a problem on the railroad machines I worked on rather than power supply problems, especially with anything using a PLC operating system.
Watkins guitars (Rapiers) amps such as the Westminster, Dominator and their PAs and Copicat tape delays were one the main manufacturers of equipment, especially for bands and players starting out. Good to see this one being kept working.
Nice little practice amps, I’ve had a few over the years in fact I think I’ve still got one somewhere. I’m pretty sure that the inclusion of a decent 12 inch speaker made for a decent tone.
That's a very interesting little amplifier. I've never seen a power tube/phase inverter set up like that. Had not heard of an ECL82 tube until I saw your video.
ECL82 equals 6BM8, used in a few low-power 60's Gibson amps and for hifi audio in table radios, record-player consoles, portable tape recorders etc. NOS examples are still around, not hugely expensive, and I think there's a Russian version available. There's also a 6GW8/ECL86 that is conceptually similar but scarcer and more expensive, with different pinout and more power, used in a few old Magnatone guitar amps.
Hello Stuart. Snap!!! I am just rendering a video for one of these amps I have restored it. I discovered the tubes were biased at 12 watts from the factory. The ECL82s should be biased at 7 watts. I decided to investigate further on why they have biased these amps so hot. Biased at 7 watts the tubes don't match up to the primary on the output transformer. How did the tubes stand it for 50 years. It still had the original tubes in it. The amp couldn't have been used very much. D Lab is a good channel. I think you are a great tech. I have seen you mend some very difficult faults, especially the solid state stuff. Your channel shows all sides of amp repair. Not every channel does that. Take care Stuart.
In many amps the triodes of ECL82 are used in a way that the first triode is s normal gain stage (with a 100k plate resistor etc.) and the second triode is connected as a cathodyne PI. Perhaps because the gain factor of those triodes is a bit low to make a long tail PI out of them.
Another British tech I'm subscribed to just posted a WEM Westminster Mk9 repair video literally minutes ago. It's a long Part One, so no playing demo just yet. He's a phenomenal player so part 2 should be even better. See the Vintage Guitar Amp Repair and Online Guitar Teacher channel.
Great sounding little amps .. Well done of finding that very unusual fault.. Besides Terry at D-Lab, Chris at Rift Amps also uses a Boss looper to test his amps.. It gives the listener/viewer complete consistency which is a more scientific way to test stuff in my view. Terry also knows his California red wines as well 😅🍷
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 Likewise Stuart.. I had to give up because of kidney issues. I don't miss it either as the Columbian marching powder is a great replacement 😅🤣..
@@gingercat777, not in series any more than any other dual-triode phase inverters can be seen to be "in series". The signal at the cathode of the top triode is out of phase (opposite polarity) with the signal leaving the plate to go to the grid of the top pentode; that opposite-polarity cathode output signal is fed to the grid of the bottom triode and outputed from the plate to the grid of the bottom pentode. It's drawn kinda funny (European-style schematics are harder for me to understand intuitively) but it looks more or less like a classic "longtail pair".
the triode sections of both ECL82 valves is used as the phase splitter. The pentode sections of both ECL is the push pull output section. You don't use ECL82 triode sections as power output valves!
O you got it wrong ecl82 is a triode pentode output is push pull with two pentode one from each valve the two triode phase Inverter😊Ps Ecl 86 more powerful than EL84
Hi Stuart, Can I ask a question as I'm a little confused and please excuse my lack of knowledge , and if it's a silly question I apologise. But, when you were talking about the power supply , the AC comes in get rectified to + /- 220 v DC , then goes through the 3 x 50 micro farad capacitors. I thought that capacitors blocked DC and only let AC through, this is where I'm confused. I wonder if you'd be so kind as to tall me through this, please. I have obviously got my metaphorical wires crossed at some stage and have bamboozled myself. Love your videos, and always look forward to seeing the new ones. Best regards.
Hi there are no silly questions, we all have to learn! You are correct, in general capacitors pass AC and block DC. But you'll notice the smoothing caps are not IN SERIES with the AC signal. The output from the recitfier is 'sort of' DC but it's a bit lumpy as there is still some of that AC hanging around. These big caps get charged up by these AC 'pulses' and smooth them out to make proper DC with no hum on it. This is whay they're called 'smoothing caps'. Does that help?
Yes it does Stuart, thank you for that explanation. There is certainly a lot to learn, I admire your knowledge and really enjoy your repair videos and following your fault finding path. Thank you once again.