Voltron

Deer Tick -- Born on Flag Day

Now: Bat For Lashes -- Pearl's Dream (remixes) Before: Tift Merritt -- Buckingham Solo Regina Spektor -- Far

I most often ran 4 gas tubes, so 300 volts. Is there any way that only one wire should be attached to one of the umbilicals? I will check again, but I am pretty sure that there was only one wire on one side. I would be more than happy to start over with a new PS in that box if what is in there is really compromised. I also would never expect somebody who helped me out to own the repairs for life.

The top would only unsolder with all 8 tube sockets and those four bundled caps unsoldered. The only components on the top are those four caps that I can recall/see so far. I will work on it tonight, but who knows how to get this thing apart without fucking it up more. The back has two Neutrik connectors for the umbilicals. It would seem that one of them has a single blue wire connected to it. I don't recall how many wires go to the other neutrik. There are at least three wires twisted together coming out of the power transformer that have some heatshrink on the end, and there is one other wire with some crimped heatshrink on the end. Who the hell knows what is going on in there....

I wanted to respond to the bolded text because only one regulator tube popped on Sunday and that was the first and last time. The amp turned on and the first two regulators ignited and then I switched to four. The glow was much brighter in the front two than when the front four ignited, and the filament or whatever that you can see on the top of the rectifiers was much less bright on the rectifier in the middle of the amp (don't know which channel that is). The sound was not good upon startup, which is why I let it sit and turned on the speakers. While sitting there, I heard the pop and then turned everything off. If I recall correctly, I turned it all off and unplugged the headphones. I think I tried to turn it back on with everything the same, and the rectifiers lit, the amp lit, and then the regulators wouldn't do anything. There was no music playing either. If memory serves, if the switch was on but the tubes did not ignite, you could still hear music but I am not certain of that. Then I replaced the rectifiers with 5R4GYBs and replaced the front 4 regulators because the back ones had never been on. I tried starting up and I had K701s plugged in (more expendable) and there was no ignition and no sound. It did not pop the regulator at all, but there was a spark/arc in the rectifier so I shut it down. None of those tubes were popper, but the LED did light so power should have gone to them. One question I have is what are the four capacitors strapped to the top plate? They are in the last pic above. OK, all of that said, Kevin, are you willing to work on this thing? Do you want to build a new one in that box for me? If not, do you think you could readily direct someone how to do it, including the ignition circuit you added in? I appreciate your thoughts on this already, but I am thinking that the best solution is to rebuild it but I still don't know how to find the problem. I would love some advice, as I said above, regarding opening this thing up better. The tube sockets are wired to the top, in addition to the bundle of capacitors so you can only pull that up so far. The bottom has all the trafos and stuff connected to it, so it is unclear to me how to separate that.

That is a total drag, JP, and I hope you can fix it. I do want to note for the record that JP's Mini was at no time in the Sprinter and this failure cannot be blamed on VanJam.

First of all, thanks Kevin for diving into this and trying to help figure it out. More than two of the regulators regularly failed to fire without assistance (from a flash camera usually), and there was no way to get six to ignite without a major halogen light source. Mikhail always said he could build a separate PS just to fire all six. Also, he said he "forgot" to put in a drain (or similar term) so the light on the plates switch would stay on after shutdown for 30 minutes or more. I would be happy to try the bottom plate, but was not sure on the method. The transformers and other stuff are all bolted to it and I cannot tell how much play there is in the wires. I'd be happy for some advice on how to do this because I could not see much of the PMOD board on the side wall. Not sure what to do from here, but maybe tonight I will have a camera and will try the bottom plate.

I heard one at Macworld and was amazed at the amount of amplification and the decent sound it produced. Great little item.

These pics aren't going to help much but here is what I could do with an iPhone and a partially opened PSU. One end piece was removed because the top has 4 capacitors strapped to it and all the tube socket wiring and I couldn't get much of an angle. The insides contain the following, although I have not seen any FETs or any chips of any type that I can recognize: 1. small transformer at the IEC input. Hammond 266N12 2. two larger transformers. Hammond 278X 3. one small PCB labeled "ES1HTRSPLY Rev. A Aug 2006" on the bottom left rear 4. one larger PCB on the right side wall labeled "PMOD Rev. A 2006" and I cannot get much of any shots of it

Our GE Arctica fridge recently went kaput but it was a really simple and inexpensive fix when they came out to service it. Good luck.

Yeah, but how could he not buy them for $149 each?!

I left Nick a message this morning. Thanks. RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

That's the idea, Gene, lemons into Lynchburg lemonade! Sounds like a plan and Claire's trip is the first two weeks of August so . . .

Thanks for the detective work guys. I will be tracking leads this week.

I am definitely looking locally. Nice of those helpful people to fuck up your HE90s for you.

Hard to say what killed the amp, but I don't really know why the meet would have anything to do with it. Maybe the tree falling into the power lines yesterday did something. I might try to open it up, but damn there are lots of hex screws top and bottom. Need some advice on that front. BTW, Grahame, I hate cats but that kitteh looks cute.

Beer companies shouldn't buy hops from Proctor & Gamble.

I would do that in a heartbeat, all expenses paid. When are you free to visit Mayberry Nate?

I am really going to work on this because there have to be people here. I am thinking that ironbut and amphead and others gotta know somebody from the pro world or the DIY crowd that can troubleshoot and work on amps. The gin has a nice bite to accompany my pain. It's hot here and whisky really didn't sound good at the moment. Who knows what 30 minutes from now will bring...

That's punny given the way that tube blew. Thanks for the condolences. Definitely my favorite amp ever. Not sure exactly what to do now, other than drink this glass of chilled gin I poured after writing that up.

Well, the Curse of the CanJam has claimed another victim. After being banned from the meet, Mikhail seems to have jinxed the SinglePower amps in attendance. First Neil's, now my SDS-XLR is dead. I really hope that Andy's amps are not next. Have you checked the amps? I set it up yesterday for the first time since CanJam and had a very strange incident where the left channel did not seem to be working on the K1K and then I switched in my K701 with Black Dragon and the left channel was still out. I swapped the driver tubes and still no left channel. Even though the left channel had been out on two cans, I decided to double check and swapped left and right and the left channel worked with the right side of the cans plugged into it. I then tried the K1K again and both channels were working. Eventually I tried the origninal 2c51s in the driver position and they worked too. Weird that I would find out the damn K701 lost the left channel -- again I might add -- at the same time, but I carried on because the left side was out when I tried it on the TTVJ FET-A. The amp sounded good but not great but I was doing lots of things and listening to speakers and didn't pay super close attention. Tonight, I wanted to settle in for some listening and the SDS-XLR started up just fine. I had HD800s plugged in and it sounded kinda lame so I thought I should warm it up with the volume down. I had the Moth playing on the Cicadas and all of the sudden there was a pop in the regulator tubes and all four went out. I quickly turned everything off and swore profusely but quietly because the kids are around. I felt the regulators and they seemed cold. I don't know how hot they run usually but they seemed damn cold for tubes. I gave it a few minutes then pulled the regulator tubes. One of them rattled so I thought maybe it was a bad tube situation. I replaced them with new ones to see if it was the tube(s). Rectifiers switched on fine, although one of them seemed less bright than the other, which was true yesterday too. Heaters came on and the amp powered up fine. Switched on the plates and no ignition even with just two regulators, which always works. No sound was coming out of the amp and in about a minute or less there was a spark inside one of the rectifiers so everything was turned off again. Now unplugged and presumably dead. Happy Fucking Father's Day to me.

Sounds like it was a great hike Peter, and the pic is awesome. They ended up taking down the rest of the oak, which is sad, but apparently the remaining half (it was two major trunks) hung right over the road.

Cowboy Junkies -- Whites Off Earth Now (MFSL)

Spent the day mostly in Mayberry. It was quite windy all day and on the way home from some errands I was driving down our small street when a large oak tree split at the trunk and crashed into the road about one house in front of me. At first, the high branches were swaying like the Iron Giant was about to walk through them or some large person was up in them. Then the whole thing was falling into power lines and the phone line. The power lines were sparking and smoking while bouncing all around after the main branches fell past them. The tree blocked half the road right in front of me, although a fair amount of it was still stuck on the thick telephone line that was the lowest running along the street. I went around in case the lines snapped and after pulling over I went back to the tree and the smell of the cracked open trunk was incredible. The fire dept. and PG&E showed up and started cutting up the fallen part, and the rumor one the street is that they had to take down the other trunk because it really hangs right over the road and is far less stable now. Weird stuff, but glad I wasn't going any faster.

Charles Lloyd -- Charles Lloyd in Europe With Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette