# Possible tube socket failure?



## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

Hi folks,

I have a problem with my BFDR clone. Last night it started sounding terrible - ugly distortion at low volumes. I thought maybe a power tube had failed so I had a look and one of the 6V6's was glowing brightly and there was a bit of a burning smell. I shut the amp down & for a lark I swapped the tubes. It also happened with the other tube in the same socket.

Is it possible the tube socket or a component has failed? I haven't had a chance to check the individual pin sockets yet. Could a loose one cause this? 

Note that I may have knocked something when I was installing the chassis into my new custom cabinet last night. The amp was working perfectly up to this point.

Thanks,
Darrin


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

Emohawk said:


> Hi folks,
> 
> I have a problem with my BFDR clone. Last night it started sounding terrible - ugly distortion at low volumes. I thought maybe a power tube had failed so I had a look and one of the 6V6's was glowing brightly and there was a bit of a burning smell. I shut the amp down & for a lark I swapped the tubes. It also happened with the other tube in the same socket.
> 
> ...


Not likely just the socket, Darrin. More likely to be a component failure. Or perhaps, when you installed the chassis you bent one of the capacitors feeding the grid of the 6V6 and shorted the grid pin to the screen grid pin. This would put high voltage on the signal grid, totally swamp out the negative control bias voltage and jam the tube full on, so that it would try to burn up.

Anyhow, I'd inspect the connections at the socket and take some voltage measurements to see if the right voltages are not present or the wrong voltages are where they should not be...

WB


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

Thanks Bill. I'll be taking a closer look when I have a moment - maybe tonight if luck holds. I suspect your analysis is probably on the money as it was fine before installing it in the cab. I did have a quick look last night & didn't see anything out of whack, but I didn't have time to dig into it.


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

Got it licked. Something definitely got bent & was shorting in there. Moved things around & all is well.


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