DaveMade,Fatboy or Xforce

[333 Andy]

I'am in the market to get a base amp and a mobile amp.Witch of these builders would give me the best customer service,best product and best bang for the buck?

[Rdm155]

Force

[333 Andy]

You really think the xforce is the better way to go there rdm versus davemade?Hello 333 waving!I have just been keeping my options open and doing alot of research...

[Rooster173]

You really think the xforce is the better way to go there rdm versus davemade?Hello 333 waving!I have just been keeping my options open and doing alot of research...

May the force be with you,XFORCE all the way, At one time i considered dave made but he got pretty rude with me on phone.

[333 Andy]

I have heard alot of people tell me the same thing about him being really rude and I will not give my money to someone who really doesn't give a rats **Censored** about there customers.So that being said and the xforce man responding to every question I have with good responce he will be #1 in my ordering quest!

[maters]

Basically all the same. I have heard, not experienced, fatboys have been having issues. I own all three and all have been quality products.

I have intentionally asked Joe dumb questions to stir him up and he has responded decently. Not rude but short. I would rather have a tech give me a true answer than a sales guy BS.

I sent Xforce a question about a 16 pill b-biased amp and got a response Sunday morning by cell phone with a price.

Anymore, I ask for a quote and by from the lowest bidder.

[Big_Mic]

Will make a difference also, if you wanted B Biasing, than Dave made won't do it either.... he says for the Sissy Amps go to X brand... LOL.

[Crisco]

I dont know bout customer service and all that i have a friend that is kind of an expert on all this stuff so i usually just call him but as far as a box i got a davemade 2x8 for a killer deal and it kicks butt.if that one blows up ill buy another tomorrow.

[Darrin]

I would have to pass on all the names mentioned and continue to do your home work and asking a lot of questions and doing some Google searches and feel comfortable before you buy.

Over the past few years I think the amp builders that are currently building are not really into it anymore and the quality has gone to Sh_t. If I had to make a choice today I would have to go with a Texas Star as you can never go wrong owning one of those Amplifiers, I have owned several over the years and never had any issues and always got great reports back. It all comes down to what you are wanting to do with this box as to whom I would consider the builder to be also.

Peek A Boo would always be my first choice in building me a box but he is a busy guy and hard to get him to build anything these days. You can find him on this Forum as well as others too.

Good Luck,

Cotton Mouth/Darrin

[Lost Ram]

I went with X-force due to the service I got. I am so happy with my base 6 pill. This is the first 6 pill that I can use on SSB, even my so called B bias (other mentioned name) box was garbage on SSB. I have had locals come and look so I could prove to them I was running a comp box on SSB. I do agree Peek A Boo is the way to go if you can round him and the cash up. His biasing is said to be the one of the best out there. I wonder what one of his base 6 pills go for????

[333 Andy]

It will be a X Force, witch one I don't know yet because I don't know if I will be a 98vhp for the drving the 6 pill witch is cheaper but I want to loaf along and not overdrive the box so I might go with the 8 pill witch is like $400 more but should be worth it.

[Lost Ram]

It will be a X Force, witch one I don't know yet because I don't know if I will be a 98vhp for the drving the 6 pill witch is cheaper but I want to loaf along and not overdrive the box so I might go with the 8 pill witch is like $400 more but should be worth it.

Be sure you call and talk to them when you make your order. Let them know what you have and the watts you are hitting it with and whether or not you are using SSB even if its just a little.

[333 Andy]

Sounds good!

[rich33]

Out of Fatboy, davemade, or X Force I would go with Fatboy. Fatboy amps are works of art with excellent soldering and assembly. Davemade and X Force have soldering that looks rough with flux splattered all over the board.
All the amps listed have the same by component makeup, so you have to choose the best assembly and that goes to Fatboy by a country mile.
Davemade charges so much more than X Force and Fatboy for the same amp configuration, it's hysterical.

[Deleted User 14541]

If you don't go bigger than a 4 pill fatboy is fine. His solder jockeys don't know how (or just think close enough is good) to tune the lc network used to combine the stages of larger amps. They are cheaper for a reason. I've fixed a few fatboy short comings. They were all minor things but if you're buying a new amp it should be right.

[Sporty Mike]

Fatboy


Mike

Sent from Sporty Mike's phone.

[tenderfoot]

Mike come on now----------Davemade all the way. No really I guess what ever people run will give their amp a shout out.

[jessejamesdallas]

Fatboy and X Force BOTH got their start by copying Davemade...

Now if it were me.....And I was looking for a Amp for the base, I wouldn't go with either of those three........I went with Tube's...No tearing up the neighbors electronics, no need for a transformer to run one...Just plug-n-go.

Now X Force has started building tube Amps this year, and they maybe a better way to go...Provided you can afford one of them...They are "pricy"...

But for the mobile....It's a Davemade World...

[Deleted User 14541]

I wouldn't run a pill amp on a base if I had neighbors. There's a lot of nasty coming out of a broad banded pill box. A little 2 pill or something would be cool but not much more.

Ceramic toob amps are expensive to build but they sure beat old glass. If you're smart about the toob its built around you can find medical pulls cheap. They seem pricy but if you've ever priced a good size plate transformer you know why. 70-80 lbs of transformer ain't cheap. They usually need a lot less drive (especially a tetrode) than a comparable pill amp...less money spent on a driver and power supply to run it.

Still cheaper for a lot of us to run pills because we might already have the power supply and the driver but if building a big station from scratch you'll get a lot of bang for your buck with steel.

[tenderfoot]

My davemade is a tube amp. It runs 4-- 4cx250b tubes.

[Lost Ram]

Just an update. My X-Force 6 pill did burn up the output combiner so I updated it with 5 watt resistors instead of the 2 watt. I still like it. For a bleed type box its relatively clean by these standards. If I keep the modulation down like one should I dont get into anything at my house/shop or the folks about a football field+ away even hitting full RMS about 700W at 18V.
To this day I dont know why it happened. One day the output dropped out and I smelled it. I only changed the resistors, the station is still the same beside its a bit older now and my Pine Tree Tower has grown LOL. I chalked it up to a faulty component or maybe a power surge but I didnt notice any surge????

[Deleted User 14541]

If a resistor on the output combiner smoked you have an imbalance between stages. The 5 watt resistor is just covering it up. If it is properly balanced 1/2 watt resistors won't even get warm.

The resistors can also burn if you pop a pill....because of the imbalance it creates. Since all of your pills are still good xforce needs to make good on their mess instead of hiding it under the rug. No power surge causes this, lack of quality control is what did.

[Lost Ram]

I had the 5W so I used those because I only had two of the 2W. Two of the pill sets had less then desirable solder points at the power bar and pills, well OK it was awful but, I didn't figure this caused it seeing it still had connection but it was pretty bad so who knows. I took it to the HAM down the road as he it a good fella. He always tells me to drive may car there because it does not have a CB antenna on it LOL. He has a scope and helps me when I cant find a problem with something. He said it all worked as intended and then preached to me about just getting my operators license again as he always does.
This problem happened about three weeks after I got it. The reflect looks good with the amp on, depending where I am at no more then 4-6%, its not perfect but reasonable.

[Deleted User 14541]

Being a Ham operator doesn't make someone qualified to repair anything but he sounds like good people. Your 6 pill is 3 2 pill stages combined. You won't see too many Ham quality amps with enough pills to need an LC network to tune them. Building big pill amps is really a CB thing.

If one of those stages is producing more or less than another stage the balancing resistor on the combiner will warm up. The more of an imbalance there is the more heat will be dissipated by the resistors. Putting a bigger resistor will not solve the root cause but as you've found out, the amp will still function.

It could be something very simple like cap values. Just because it says X value on the cap you will see differences from part to part, this is why its good to find matching pieces for a larger amp. Coax length from each stage to the combiner is another thing. If this is a newer amp with dei pills that may be your problem. Not so much the pills but the builder may have not taken the time to find matching transistors...the gain of each dei can be very different from the next one. The qc on the new pills isn't like the old Toshiba that could be thrown in and rock on.

[Lost Ram]

Its an older one, its got the red dots, about 6-7 years old I guess. I have had it awhile. This HAM builds his own tube amps and transistor amps, he is a bit outlaw with his Mobil stuff. He said for a couple hundred he would bias my 6 pill if I ever wanted to. He said he could clean up the SSB as I sound a bit harsh as he stated.
Maybe I'll drop the 2 watts back in and see what happens, I have a few packs of them now. Seeing I had this issue just about 3 weeks into you would think with the 2 watts it would happen again pretty quickly.

This guy seems pretty sharp, I have learned a lot about antenna stuff from him. This has really helped me understand how the transmission side works. I have cheat sheets to help with the antenna math as its to much to memorize at once or even after a few years. He always tells me to trust the math not the DOSY combination meter LOL!!! The antenna analyzer he told be to buy helps a ton as well. I really like the FMJ.