Is it going to blow?<----IT'S BACK!!!

[Superfuzz]

Hi some time ago I had some problems with my HRDLX, it just crakled a lot  just after I leave it from standby...it was boring but everything seemed fine after this crazy initial minutes...then I've gigged with it, no crakle , no anything, just fine..
Today I picked it, it has rested under is cover from the last gig, I flick the standby switch and..here we are again, crakle , horrible crakles everywhere, it even fuzzed out for a little while..then..well it stopped making this awful noises but now there's more! first, the power led is someway intermittent, not in a sensed way, it goes away when I stomp on pedals, or for example when I strum a chords with more power, in some way it seems sensible to the signal coming from the guitar..some buzz is there too and the headroom seems reduced a lot, consder that I've swapped some different preamp tubes almost a year ago for increasing the headroom too! I was using at 2 on the clean channell tonight and it sounds like it was on 3-4..I've take a look at the tubes when I was playing, they seems fine as usually, I mean no evident sign appeared, the two preamp are fine, the pahse inverter is a lot less bright as usually and the two power tubes seems to glow equally, well one seems a bit brighter but nothing to say it's going to blow I think....
Any help/suggestion?

Thanks, Emanuele.

[RumorsOFsurF]

I don't know if it's going to blow, but the jewel light flickered in mine intermittently for a while also....

Here's an article on a common problem with plate loads....I guess it's a cause of crackle for many.  Article Here


Unofficial Hot Rod Page



Thankfully, I've never had a problem with mine...I've used the hell out of it, too.

[Superfuzz]

I don't know if it's going to blow, but the jewel light flickered in mine intermittently for a while also....

Here's an article on a common problem with plate loads....I guess it's a cause of crackle for many.  Article Here


Unofficial Hot Rod Page



Thankfully, I've never had a problem with mine...I've used the hell out of it, too.

Thanks  a lot Nolan! I've read the whole artichle, it seems an easy thing for a tech, it will be so even for me but I'm to scared by the filter caps drain thing..I've already taken 220V once I don't want to take it anymore!!
Now the boring part is that I've to make 40km of city traffic for just four resistor..  :-\

[RumorsOFsurF]

Filter caps scare me too!  I don't really work on my amps, aside from preamp tube changes.

[Superfuzz]

resurrection time!
My amp is completely unserviceable, it's on the route for the tech BUT, now How I can do for my upcoming gigs?
The recent news:
A friend of mine has given me this for free:

The point:
This amp is really nice, I know its SS but the tube simulation works really nice..so, soundwise it's quite good..but on the power side it's only 30W, so what I'm going to do is searching someone for a 4X12 (it has the ext speaker out)..
For the future..can I convert it to head size using only the ext speaker out as main spkr. out?

[Superfuzz]

Ok the tech called today, it says that the problem is not in these 4 resistor that Nolan said, it's something more bigger..Thanks to new fender soldering techniques (Silver+Cadmium or something like that) I have some cold solder joints on my board, just like on the power section, the pwr tubes get 220V instead of 50v , they go as infinite gain and finally they do all these horrible noise all with the risk of blowing the trannyes..SO now I have to spend 100 euros on fender original valves + the whole work...thanks Fender you're great! :-\

[Superfuzz]

change!
I re called the tech, I asked how much it goes for having it modded with el-34, new eq section (pseudo jmp-45) and with a switchable power brake..he says it went 180€..so I'd go in that direction, if I have to spend 100€ on something that don't convince me I prefer to spend 180 in something that's way better...

[Jay]

They're using lead free solder I take it...  that stuff is going the way of the dinosaur.  I just bought a .lb of 36/62/2 for projects but I would venture a guess that by the time I use that up I won't be able to get it anymore.

[Superfuzz]

The amp is back!!
I've tried a bit in the tech's lab, it sounded great! still fenderish but the EL-34 give it a rounder tone, the built in attenuator works very good and it can attenuate of 9db wich are a lot less!

Tomorrow I'll be very busy, but on monday I'll take some techinical pictures for sure!!!