Hello all!
I just started working on another Bogan CHB-20A last week. I got 2 of them from the same guy...
The rebuild of the first one was pretty normal, and it ended up working quite well, I wrote about that amp a few weeks ago.
When I opened up this latest amp project, it was obvious that someone had been inside this amp and had done some funky things with the power supply. The standard voltage doubler was no where in sight, and the rectifier diodes each were paralleled with three 470 Kohm resistors in series. I still have no idea what that was about. After looking at the amp, I realized that it has a replacement power transformer and a replacement power supply 3 section filter cap. I removed all the stuff in the power supply circuit when I removed the parts in the preamp and tone control section. I'm rebuilding this one to the Ampeg preamp/tone stack, same as the last one.
My main question this time around is about the high voltage of the new power transformer. I measured the AC voltage from each side of the secondary to the center tap, and it comes out at 333 volts. Once through the rectifier diodes, that's going to be in excess of 400 volts. I'm guessing that when loaded with the tubes it will be somewhere around 410-420 volts.
The original Bogan schematic shows 400 volts going to the primary winding of the output transformer, so I don't know how much of a problem it will actually be for the 6GW8 power tubes, but I think 400 volts is above the max rating for that tube. So, that makes me wonder if that will be a problem...
Another thing, the replacement PT looks like it may be a Bogan part. It fits in the mounting area without modification, and it has numbers stamped in the bottom bell that look the same as the way other Bogan PTs are stamped. It's a different number than the one on the other CHB-20 with an original transformer, as would probably be expected.