So, my co-worker Ziggy was helping some guys with a tube amplifier they bought for $8000 yesterday. He was laughing at it because one of the tube’s was being used as a relay, the ground wire was just an exposed piece of copper hanging / hot glued… he reverse engineered it and was laughing at how poorly conceived the schematic was. Anyhoo, he was suggesting we build some tube amps and sell them to these people willing to pay $8000 for an amplifier. WHAT A GREAT IDEA! I can design beautiful looking PCB boards. I can tap into Zig’s expertise and together we can engineer amps that’ll sound great and will likely have better circuitry than a Marshall!

So I figure the name “Eirhead” would be a great brand name for tube amplifiers. I just need to revamp it a little, make a logo that I can stamp my products with, and put a little bit of work here and there on the weekends… For $1000 worth of parts, sell an amp for $9,999? That’s a helluva profit… And obviously ours is going to be way better than that crappy $8,000 amp, so obviously we have to charge more so that the consumer knows they’re getting a better product

Anyhoo, I’m not sure if too many people read my posts on the site, but hey! If you got any opinions on this business idea, reply on the facebook post. I’d like some input on this. Will getting my product certified be an issue (liabilities, whatever)? To 1000% mark-up or not? Would sure make life easier to sell a half dozen and get ahead financially.

Got my 300 amp power supply in today! Let the crazy experimentation begin!

So I got a few different geeky interests, and I’m not sure which one I should invest in. The romantic dreamer in me who wants stay out all night gazing at stars would love to purchase a telescope!

2 problems here: I don’t have an adequate camera to attach on to a telescope; and I worry that I won’t end up using it as much as I intend to. I do absolutely love star-gazing, but much of the love for it is found in the relaxation and dreaming portion, not so much memorizing constellations; referencing coordinates; and precisely aiming a highly tuned piece of glass.

That being said, I’d sure love to get closer to the stars.

ANYHOO, option 2 for my purchasing power is an even more geeky interest. I want to purchase a high powered, 5 volt power supply. Yes 5 volts… But good for 300 amps.

Let me explain… a filament in a tube takes 5 volts to power but at 15 amps, it can draw a significant amount of power. I have some neato circuits in my head for some really interesting low voltage / high current designs. By flip-flopping the tubes I can design some extremely high-current high-frequency circuits. Furthermore I want to invest in some ultra-caps that can store upwards 5000 farads of energy at 2.5V. Think of it this way… it’s safe voltage for humans, but if I shorted it with a wrench, the wrench will likely melt.

Unfortunately, I’m still spending over a grand to really get everything what I want with either option. I could get a cheap starter telescope at Canadian Tire from $99 – $299. Or a cheap 5V 300A power supply to get me running costs about the same at $289. Personally, I think my creative talents would be better realized experimenting with EM wave guns, and high powered EM fields.

Hmmmmm… I wonder where I can buy some liquid helium?

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STATUS UPDATE: Placed an order for the 5V 300A power supply. I suppose I’ll need to wire 3-phase to my garage now :-/

No schematics

2 hours of effort

1  $0.83 dual rectifying diode

And that’s a fixed Tektronix TDS320 (MRSP $1395.00)

And how did I figure it out? I don’t know, it’s what I do.