left my ac30 at new bandmates house, get it home and zap!

[noirengineer]

ok, so i'm somewhat naive and guilty, but the other day I
left my 2004 AC30-CC-2X RI at my 'new' bandmates house, 
I finally get it home after a few days, plug in.. flip power,
and while still in standby mode i watch as from the top ventilator
a giant "ZAP" then a flash of light!  Then I turn off and try flipping power
switch up/on again.. no red lights -- no juice even..  wtf? 

Do I deserve this for being so careless? 
what do you think happened?  Is it a blown tube?
I bought used off ebay, not sure about previous owner,
but haven't yet needed to replace any tubes myself, and
i've had for about 6 months or so.  but now i'm scared cause
it was like a surge -- also if it were the tubes, then why is rest
of it completely dead?

[cestlamort]

I've had this happen with fenders, switch the fuse if you haven't yet... 

[øøøøøøø]

ok, so i'm somewhat naive and guilty, but the other day I
left my 2004 AC30-CC-2X RI at my 'new' bandmates house, 
I finally get it home after a few days, plug in.. flip power,
and while still in standby mode i watch as from the top ventilator
a giant "ZAP" then a flash of light!  Then I turn off and try flipping power
switch up/on again.. no red lights -- no juice even..  wtf? 

Do I deserve this for being so careless? 
what do you think happened?  Is it a blown tube?
I bought used off ebay, not sure about previous owner,
but haven't yet needed to replace any tubes myself, and
i've had for about 6 months or so.  but now i'm scared cause
it was like a surge -- also if it were the tubes, then why is rest
of it completely dead?

This may be a trifle obvious, but... have you tried replacing the fuse?

In case that hadn't occurred to you yet, remove the EL84/6BQ5 power and 5AR4/GZ34 rectifier tubes before powering up with the new fuse, and see if the fuse holds with no tubes in (leaving the preamp tubes in is inconsequential).

If the fuse holds, then you're good.  It's a tube problem.  Now it's time to find out which tube is blowing it.  Put the amp on standby and install the rectifier tube.  Turn the amp back to 'play' mode, and see if the fuse holds.  If the fuse holds, your rectifier tube is good and you may have a shorted power tube.  You can either buy a new set of power tubes, and you're off to the races, OR you can try installing the old ones again (with the amp on standby of course).  If the fuse holds when applying mains power, it may have just been a fluke and/or a line voltage spike, but watch it carefully in the coming weeks to be on the safe side.  If the fuse blows, it confirms the shorted power tube theory.  

The fact that you say it happened while in standby mode is curious though.  If that is the case, it's probably something very simple.  Maybe the line cord became disconnected and arced against something and then became all the way disconnected, etc.  If the fuse is not blown it's definitely something simple like that.  If the fuse blows immediately upon flipping the standby switch on without applying mains power, you've likely got either big problems (i.e. bad filament winding on power transformer) or maybe small problems (something twisted around and shorting to something it's not supposed to, which would also explain the arcing).

If you feel confident enough to open the amp up without touching anything inside (insides of amps are dangerous) and snapping several hi res up close digital photos of the power supply side of the chassis (the side with the transformers and power and rectifier tubes) I or someone else might be able to spot something in the pics.

[concrete life]

mine died recently as well and it never left my house. it was indeed a blown fuse, and when the guy at my local shop swapped it out it blew another one right away. a few days later they had it fixed and its as good as ever.

[k o y l]

mine died recently as well and it never left my house. it was indeed a blown fuse, and when the guy at my local shop swapped it out it blew another one right away. a few days later they had it fixed and its as good as ever.

I've read about a bad serie of new AC30s that keep on blowing fuses after fuses... I even remember a guy on French eBay selling his AC30 and explaining it had this issue (He relisted it several, I wonder if he end up selling it..).
If it's the case for yours (maybe you should try googling about this an,d you'll see with the s/n of yours if it belongs to the bad serie), I don't know what you can do... maybe return it to Vox.. ? 

[noirengineer]

mine died recently as well and it never left my house. it was indeed a blown fuse, and when the guy at my local shop swapped it out it blew another one right away. a few days later they had it fixed and its as good as ever.

I've read about a bad serie of new AC30s that keep on blowing fuses after fuses... I even remember a guy on French eBay selling his AC30 and explaining it had this issue (He relisted it several, I wonder if he end up selling it..).
If it's the case for yours (maybe you should try googling about this an,d you'll see with the s/n of yours if it belongs to the bad serie), I don't know what you can do... maybe return it to Vox.. ? 

thanks Loic.. i will def do a search!  btw, if you happen to come across a link to the site,
can you save it and PM it me or post it.  i'd be interested to know.