Schematic and Handle Needed for this old timer

Tube and solidstate amplifiers made by Rickenbacker

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jflimbach
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Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:19 pm

Schematic and Handle Needed for this old timer

Post by jflimbach »

Got this amp as part of a deal for a 1932 A22 Frypan. It is absolutely pristine. Nice on the outside and clean as a whistle inside. Not much info floating around on these "Speaker" boxes from 1933-34. Will probably have to trace the circuit and draw my own schematic unless someone knows where to find it. Shouldn't be too hard as there aren't many parts to this beast. No volume control or on/off switch and a big old "house" fuse. Just plug it in and start pickin'.

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jflimbach
New member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:19 pm

Re: Schematic and Handle Needed for this old timer

Post by jflimbach »

Pleased to report that I found a workable handle and got the amp working.

The original tubes (2x47; 53; and 5Z3) all tested very strong. So I simply replaced the three electrolytic (left the cans in) and two coupling caps and it took off and plays just fine. Very quiet with clean output. Pretty much flat response so it is very bright, particularly with the 1934 Frypan steel guitar it was designed for. There is no tone control on the guitar, so it's pretty bright but its interesting to hear how this guitar actually sounded in 1934.

The only change I made to the circuit, besides replacing the power word with a three-wire type, was to insert a 15 ohm, 20-watt resistor in series with the hot lead of the AC line just before the power transformer primary. This drops the line voltage that the transformer sees down to approximately the 110VAC 1930's value from the 120VAC in my house. Doesn't sound like much but that extra 10 volts was making the power transformer heat up a bit and the higher plate voltages had all the tubes working harder thereby shortening their expected life. This for me is a "player" and not a collectible so I would like it to last another 80 years even if I won't be here to listen to it.
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