# Customer wanted to return amp I fixed. Funny story.



## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

So got a call from a very good customer of mine, he says hey the lights on the amp are on tubes are glowing but I have very little sound!!! The amp is a blues deville. Taken into my shop about three weeks ago. Typical hot rod series issues bad solder joints throughout, needed new tubes biased with change of fixed resistor. Main power tubes sockets re tensioned. And tube pcb resoldered for power tubes. Amp was done chop sticked it thoroughly after all the soldering was done, amp was stable and good to go. 


Customer calls me again says the amp is now working fine! it seems hydro told him he had a brown out for a day and we figured he must have been experiencing a brownout only in one leg of his incoming power into the building because all or most of his other appliances worked fine. Hydro got fixed amp got fixed at the same time! Never in a million years would I have figured that out over the phone. I was ready to say we must have got some bad tubes or maybe I made a mistake? It's not like I have not worked on 40,000 of these Amps. You never know what can happen when it comes to electronics and what can cause an issue. That's what keeps things interesting.


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## jb welder (Sep 14, 2010)

Ah! The other kind of "brown sound" that even EVH fans don't like.:smile-new:
Must have been a relief to find out it was fine!


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## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

It was because no tech wants an amp to come back.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

I had a similar incident last year with a Marshall 1987X with a fried power transformer. The guy opted for a Mercury Magnetics which I got and installed. Tested flawlessly on the bench and got it back to the customer. About 3 days later, he calls and tells me that there's all kind of 60 cycle blasting out of the amp....soooo, I take a look again.....absolutely whisper quiet. He gets it back and let's me know that it's still there. This is where I start asking the obvious questions like where is it plugged into, hasn't tried it in different outlets in his apartment. I suggest do just that and presto! His problem solved....turns out he has an old apartment and VERY bad wiring on some outlets. I suggested he contact the landlord to have that rectified ASAP! Just never know what you'll see next :smile-new:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

A lot of folks simply don't understand very much about what comes out of their wall sockets.


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## epis (Feb 25, 2012)

mhammer said:


> A lot of folks simply don't understand very much about what comes out of their wall sockets.


Yes, and that's why in every home should be one of these : 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receptacle_tester


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## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

yes, I have one of those in my bag, I don't even plug in anywhere without testing with it!!

I think they are less than $10


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## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

I was doing sound for a band in the 1990s at a bar in Hamilton, called the (xxxxxx) can't name the bar sorry....We had just finished sound check everything was going great. I was asked to do sound for the band. The house sound guy Ken was hanging out with me behind the sound board as the band stated the show. Al the guitar player stepped up to the mic to sing some backups all I saw was a blue light and he dropped like a stone. In the front if his stage monitor was a direct box for his acoustic guitar. He was wearing leather boots with metal chains on them. He got electrocuted on stage and had a full cardiac arrest. Luckily the house sound guy got to the main power disconnect befor Al's brother got to him as current was still flowing through his body. From what we could figure out the power outlet was wired incorrectly and not grounded. Making his guitar hot with respect to ground. He touched the mic ( grounded ) into the sound system and the di box also grounded into the sound system making him grounded from head to feet with the voltage flowing through his heart from his guitar. The bar did not pay the band because they did not finish the show!!! Al was taken away by ambulance a doctor and a emg nurse was in the audience and started cpr and saved his life. There is no doubt he would have been dead otherwise. I assumed there would be an investigation but by the time monday rolled around the bar owner had someone come in and fix the problems. So there was no fault found..... We had his gear looked over by McMaster electrical engineering department look it over and it was fine. All his gear was new with moulded plugs that were wired correctly. The 1/4 jack going into the di box was melted from the current, he had burns on his feet from the incident and the last time I heard permanent memory loss from this incident. There was never a law suit. Long story short if your playing gigs don't go anywhere with out a simple outlet tester!


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Bars are notoriously bad for do-it-yourself electrical. There's a bar here in town that for a while anyway, kept me busy....particularly with solid state amps. The suspicion was that there was a commercial freezer or something wired on the same circuit as the stage. Every time this thing fired up, there was a big spike on the line that occasionally poofed amps.


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## dodgechargerfan (Mar 22, 2006)

Amprepair said:


> I was doing sound for a band in the 1990s at a bar in Hamilton, called the (xxxxxx) can't name the bar sorry....We had just finished sound check everything was going great. I was asked to do sound for the band. The house sound guy Ken was hanging out with me behind the sound board as the band stated the show. Al the guitar player stepped up to the mic to sing some backups all I saw was a blue light and he dropped like a stone. In the front if his stage monitor was a direct box for his acoustic guitar. He was wearing leather boots with metal chains on them. He got electrocuted on stage and had a full cardiac arrest. Luckily the house sound guy got to the main power disconnect befor Al's brother got to him as current was still flowing through his body. From what we could figure out the power outlet was wired incorrectly and not grounded. Making his guitar hot with respect to ground. He touched the mic ( grounded ) into the sound system and the di box also grounded into the sound system making him grounded from head to feet with the voltage flowing through his heart from his guitar. The bar did not pay the band because they did not finish the show!!! Al was taken away by ambulance a doctor and a emg nurse was in the audience and started cpr and saved his life. There is no doubt he would have been dead otherwise. I assumed there would be an investigation but by the time monday rolled around the bar owner had someone come in and fix the problems. So there was no fault found..... We had his gear looked over by McMaster electrical engineering department look it over and it was fine. All his gear was new with moulded plugs that were wired correctly. The 1/4 jack going into the di box was melted from the current, he had burns on his feet from the incident and the last time I heard permanent memory loss from this incident. There was never a law suit. Long story short if your playing gigs don't go anywhere with out a simple outlet tester!


I just read this last week:

http://m.ecmweb.com/contractor/failures-outlet-testing-exposed

Scary stuff.


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## epis (Feb 25, 2012)

dodgechargerfan said:


> I just read this last week:
> 
> http://m.ecmweb.com/contractor/failures-outlet-testing-exposed
> 
> Scary stuff.


This tool, non - contact voltage detector is even better than what I suggested previously. :sSig_goodjob2:


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## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

Great article, when it comes to safety take no chances. I even use an isolation transformer on my test gear and the amps I work on.


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## dodgechargerfan (Mar 22, 2006)

Amprepair said:


> Great article, when it comes to safety take no chances. I even use an isolation transformer on my test gear and the amps I work on.


Me too. I'm not in your league in terms of repairs by any stretch but I was glad I bought one when I did my amp build. I've used it so many times since then.


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## toby2 (Dec 2, 2006)

One "leg" ,guess that means volts were low . Tubes and pilot lamp lit up ...lights were on but amp was quiet .


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## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

One leg means he had ac coming in at the service entrance on one side 120v the other side was very low say 50 to 60v enough to light the amp up in a dark room but not enough to be able to make any output in the amp. The fact that one side of his ac coming into the house was still good would have fooled him into thinking that it was not a house power issue because most of his lights could have been on the good leg or good side of the ac coming into the house. Only after ontario hydro knocked on his door and told him they fixed the problem ( one that he did not even know he had) did he think about trying the amp again and discovering that the problem was not his amp, but his AC service in his house. Problem solved. The term "leg" is an old electricians term, the first place I worked at fixing amps when I was 17 ( the guitar clinic ) in Hamilton Lou Furlanetto used that term he was an electrician by trade I just picked it up.


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## toby2 (Dec 2, 2006)

Nice to hear Hydro knocked at his door . They never knocked on my door last December when power was out for 8 days straight . Never experienced your "leg" trouble . Hope no more of your customers suffer


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## Rodavision (Feb 26, 2010)

dodgechargerfan said:


> I just read this last week:
> 
> http://m.ecmweb.com/contractor/failures-outlet-testing-exposed
> 
> Scary stuff.


This is a great article. I didn't think of this wiring situation and it's potential to test correctly but still have reverse polarity as well as a hot ground. 

What makes these problems even more prevalent is, especially in Hamilton, many clubs are over 50 years old and back that far they often had electric systems that did not use polarized plugs. So updating a two wire system that often has hot and neutral reversed in one box and correct in another while not having a ground to confirm correct polarity is tricky and tedious at best. Add in cheap club owners getting their brother to do the work ensures that the work will not be done correctly. It's the musicians that then get shocked, then complain to the club owner who tells them it must be their guitar and if they want to get their $50 they better stop complaining.

The club scene has a great system (sarcasm). Makes you wonder sometimes.


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## Church-Audio (Sep 27, 2014)

In this case is was more like $3000 probably. It sickens me to see some club owners put such a low value on safety. The band still paid me funny enough although I said no thanks. Goes to show you musicians have more honor than club owners do. I think its slowly changing but its only because more and more sound production is totally self sufficient with its own power distribution and safe plugs for musicians to use. But thats mostly in larger venues small clubs musicians still just plug into the wall. If you are a gigging musician at the very least have an outlet tester!

Make sure when you get your gear serviced that the guy is checking the safety ground on your gear to make sure its intact. don't get plugs put on cables get the f'ing cable replaced. Thats what I do when I have an amp that has an issue with the ac plug. I replace the whole cable they are $12.00 for quality VOLTEX 8 foot soj cables. With molded ends. I don't trust the ones you put on your self because over time they loosen up and things get ungrounded or worse yet things short out inside the plug. Safety first! Dont be a fing cheapskate when it comes to service or your safety!! These are tools of your trade you rely on them to work day in and day out under sometimes extreme conditions. You dont want a tool working on your gear. You want someone that takes pride in there work and treats your gear like it was his own........


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

jb welder said:


> Ah! The other kind of "brown sound" that even EVH fans don't like.:smile-new:
> Must have been a relief to find out it was fine!


That's better than the opposite. Imagine if he got the perfect, waited-his-whole-life guitar tone, but just for those couple of hours. Then Hydro fixes it and the sound is gone. And he never knew what it was or how to recreate it. THAT would be frustrating.

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mhammer said:


> A lot of folks simply don't understand very much about what comes out of their wall sockets.


Not just that, but the actual physics involved.

Read an article decades ago about a young starlet who fell into a pool with a wireless mic. Everyone was so relieved she didn't get electrocuted. Yeah, you gotta be VERY careful around 9V batteries. Like if you touch one to your tongue - instant death. LOL.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I guess im buying some testers before tour...


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