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I bought a Ceriatone kit as part of a group purchase awhile back, thought I'd mess with it a little this weekend while I wait for MTS parts to come in for Randall modules (that I modify here and there for people.) Anyways...
This is pretty much what you get. Pluses include the fact that the parts are bagged seperately for different parts (all the parts for the power board are together, all parts for main board together, all offboard parts, all pots, etc.) This is nice. Parts quality is ok, but there are some things they don't include that you should use like rubber grommets for the wires that go through holes in the chassis, shrink wrap tubing, glue (more about glue later) and others. All in all, it's not bad. One bummer is that they color code the layout nicely, but don't give you some of the colors of wiring.
Here I got a little pissed off. The chassis had a protective covering, but it didn't come off easily and was actually partly melted/torn off. It almost looked like maybe someone at Ceriatone was going to use this to build a customer's amp, noticed how it was 'sticking' to hole edges and such, so they decided to use it for a kit. This added an hour to my time as I had to use goo gone to get residue off the chassis. It sucked.
Look closely - I had to use two resistors in parallel to equal what was on the layout. This wasn't mentioned to me anywhere, and wasn't that big a deal because I know what I'm doing. However, if this was my first kit, I'd be stumped. I also didn't find my pot for setting the bias with these parts, I'll have to see if it's included with the front panel parts. If not, it's not a deal breaker for me, I probably have one laying around. However, for the first time builder, stuff like this could be a major problem. Also, the power board doesn't match up exactly with the diagram I downloaded from Ceriatone. Again, it works, but could confuse a neophyte builder.
Here's a shot of the main board. I wanted Orange Drops, so they sent those instead of mallories. I also replaced plate resistors with carbon comps because I like how they sound.
A pic of the main board with all wires, sockets installed, placed the power board so I can solder wires and cut to length. Next is to install the transformers before I mount the power board.
More to come, this is about 3 hours worth of work so far.
Pete
This is pretty much what you get. Pluses include the fact that the parts are bagged seperately for different parts (all the parts for the power board are together, all parts for main board together, all offboard parts, all pots, etc.) This is nice. Parts quality is ok, but there are some things they don't include that you should use like rubber grommets for the wires that go through holes in the chassis, shrink wrap tubing, glue (more about glue later) and others. All in all, it's not bad. One bummer is that they color code the layout nicely, but don't give you some of the colors of wiring.
Here I got a little pissed off. The chassis had a protective covering, but it didn't come off easily and was actually partly melted/torn off. It almost looked like maybe someone at Ceriatone was going to use this to build a customer's amp, noticed how it was 'sticking' to hole edges and such, so they decided to use it for a kit. This added an hour to my time as I had to use goo gone to get residue off the chassis. It sucked.
Look closely - I had to use two resistors in parallel to equal what was on the layout. This wasn't mentioned to me anywhere, and wasn't that big a deal because I know what I'm doing. However, if this was my first kit, I'd be stumped. I also didn't find my pot for setting the bias with these parts, I'll have to see if it's included with the front panel parts. If not, it's not a deal breaker for me, I probably have one laying around. However, for the first time builder, stuff like this could be a major problem. Also, the power board doesn't match up exactly with the diagram I downloaded from Ceriatone. Again, it works, but could confuse a neophyte builder.
Here's a shot of the main board. I wanted Orange Drops, so they sent those instead of mallories. I also replaced plate resistors with carbon comps because I like how they sound.
A pic of the main board with all wires, sockets installed, placed the power board so I can solder wires and cut to length. Next is to install the transformers before I mount the power board.
More to come, this is about 3 hours worth of work so far.
Pete
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