eyelet boards or turret boards.

[boozer]

hey all, i've only built amps with eyelet boards and i am thinking of switching to turret boards to me it looks a little classier.

so for those of you that have an opinion please share it. which style board do you prefer and why?

-boozer

 

[milkshape]

I prefer turret boards
1) Like you said I think they look better

2) Less likely to flake apart

3) Being of neophyte status when it comes to soldering I figured it would be easier to solder a component when the leads were sitting in the hole in the top of the turret.

I got my turret boards from Mouser, it was the best price I found but if you know of another please speak up! I made a mistake and ordered a turret board that was too wide for the leads on my resistors. So make sure you get the right width, I think it's 2.5".

here's the populated turret board I got from Mouser, note the extra wire and globs of solder on the resistors leads to help them span the extra distance.

 

[Dan German]

I used to assemble wiring harnesses and circuit cards on a factory floor, and some of my work was with prototypes and small-run products. Those were built on turret boards, and I began to realize that a nicely laid-out turret board was a thing of beauty, not to mention easier to modify and repair. It wouldn't be the way to go for something really large and complicated, but for a circuit the size and complexity of a guitar amp, I wouldn't use anything else.

 

[muchxs]

Eyelets are for Fenders.

Turrets are for Marshalls.

Eyelets are easier to wire IMO, just poke the parts through the hole, fill it with solder and move on to the next one.

To be done correctly you'll need to carefully wrap each lead around the turret, establish a solid mechanical connection and then flow solder on it.

No matter which you choose it's an opportunity to demonstrate your soldering skills or lack thereof.

 

[TelZilla]

3) Being of neophyte status when it comes to soldering I figured it would be easier to solder a component when the leads were sitting in the hole in the top of the turret.

To be done correctly you'll need to carefully wrap each lead around the turret, establish a solid mechanical connection and then flow solder on it.

So, it seems there is disagreement on which way to connect to a turret- wrap around or through the hole.

Opinions?

 

[sjhusting]

I've used both. Eyelet boards are easier to solder. I use turret boards. I make my own. It's not hard. www.turretboards.com has inexpensive boards for just about all the common amps, but they are 1:1 repros of the original eyelets.

I use the Hoffman-board style, which has a lot of advantages over just making a turret board like an eyelet board.

Hoffman says don't wrap the wire around the post, stick it in the hole, make the hole bigger if you need. I've done both, and he's right - if you have to change something, it's much harder to remove something wrapped around the turret.

There is a complete board-building tutorial on his site - if you want to build turret boards, you should read that. Everything you want to know is in there.

steven

 

[wnorcott]

Turret boards are used on the old hand wired HiWatt amplifiers too. I would go with turret board if I were building one. It just seems a bit more high end.

Bill

 

[wnorcott]

I think the most common method of using turrets is the wire leads go through the hold in the turret, then you solder them.

 

[milkshape]

So, it seems there is disagreement on which way to connect to a turret- wrap around or through the hole.

Opinions?

This was my first build, I just assumed that was what you did. However I just
went to turretboards.com and looked at some pics of their loaded boards and
it seems they do it both ways, through and wrapped around the turrets.

I can imagine that the wrapped connection might be better because you can see the entire solder joint, where as the blob on top might not go down into the hole as well as it should. But again, I've done this once! So paraphrasing JWells' sig what the hell do I know!

 

[sjhusting]

The hole is strong enough, it's not hard to do.

steven

 

[ThermionicScott]

I thought the idea with turrets was that you could do both. Then if you have to change something, you're not messing with *all* of the wire ends at that terminal.

- Scott

 

[sjhusting]

you can do it that way. but if you heat the turret hot enough to remove something wrapped, you've heated it enough to remove what is in the hole too.

I confess I still wrap at some positions.

If you are going to make or load boards, at least look at HOffman's pages:

http://www.el34world.com/boardmaker/BOARD0.htm

steven

 

[muchxs]

I thought the idea with turrets was that you could do both. Then if you have to change something, you're not messing with *all* of the wire ends at that terminal.

- Scott

There are hollow turrets and solid turrets. There's no choice with the solid ones, you have to wrap the leads around the turret. Hollows are cool, wrap parts leads around the turrets and stick your wires in the holes.

The drawback with eyelets is if you're sticking three leads and a wire in one eyelet it's a tight fit. If you load everything dry and then solder it you're usually o.k., if you solder three leads and try to stick a wire in there later it can be a hassle.

 

[sjhusting]

I ground down a jeweler's screwdriver and use that to enlarge the holes when they have to be bigger. The turrets are brass; firm gentle pressure usually gets them open enough.

There are different sizes of turrets. I've been using the ones with the largest holes lately.

steven

 

[shadowfan]

Hi:

When I built my Twin Reverb (from scratch!), I made my own turret board. I used a 1/8" thick G10 epoxy board (same stuff as the green PC boards, but thicker). The eyelets came from a bagful that I had bought from a leathercraft sore (Tandy?). They were ust long enough to barely protrude on the bottom of the board. I hit them all with a philips screwdriver to expand them. It worked great. If you need to add a wire to an already populated and soldered eyelet, pre-tin the new wire (or lead) then re-melt the solder in the eyelet.

 

[fernando]

>I thought the idea with turrets was that you could do both.

It makes sense. You just clip a component and add the new one by wraping and soldering, all this without messing with the rest of the components in the hole


BTW, what's the common method/material to isolate the boards from the chassis?

 

[milkshape]

The turret board or eyelet board material is non conductive. I drilled holes in my chassis at points that matched the holes in the turret board I was using. Then I used nylon spacers from the nuts and bolts aisle of my local hardware store to raise the turret board off of the chassis.

 

[sjhusting]

Standoffs, like these (towards the bottom)

http://www.hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/...spage&thispage=parts12.htm&ORDER_ID=164633025

Use one at each corner for shorter boards, add two in the middle for longer boards

steven

 

[JohnnyCrash]

Either or both.

It doesn't matter to me.

I sorta pick which I stake on a whim, since I have a staking tool and a drill press. I've done Fender-ish clones with turrets and Marshall-ish clones with eyelets and vice versa.

I've also staked a board with both turrets and eyelets on the same board

Eyelets can fit more items into their hole, turrets can be wrapped around (especially double turrets) and slotted turrets have an extra notch on top... so it's all the same to me.

 

[fernando]

thank you milkshape and sjhusting.
That would be the way for hard boards with turrets?

I mean, (if I understood correctly) for eyelets you use soft boards, can they stand a standoff? No bending?