Hi,
I was playing a gig last night and my glass of coke which I stupidly put on top of the amp fell and the coke splashed onto the back. The amps power cut out after a few seconds and that was it.
I replaced the fuse in the bottom panel but when I switched it on the power came up for a few seconds then went.
I'm obviously not an expert on these things so could anyone tell me if this can be fixed without taking it to a repair shop??
Thanks.
Unplug the amp, take the back panel off and see if you can drain the coke out. If you have a wet vac, you could try that too. DO NOT REACH IN THERE WITH YOUR HAND as you could get quite a bad schook (yes even unplugged).
Put the back on and fire it up. YOu may get lucky but if it continues to blow fuses, take it to an amp tech.
Doug
Thanks for the reply. I have taken the back off but it all seems very dry. There is a little bit of coke on the tubes so maybe they are causing the problem?
The coke could be a real problem if it gets in the tube socket. A good Idea would be to remove all tubes, and clean everything very good, including the pins and base of the tubes and tube sockets. Look for other areas that may have been splashed by the coke.
Inside the amp, the power transformer is not sealed and there is an opening to where the wires are.
Does it look like there was Coke around the areas where the wires come out from the power transformer? Where was the majority of the Coke spill on the inside?
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
Back in the Dark Ages, when I was a radar operator in the Air Force, the bane of all maintenance guys were operators who would place coke bottles or cans on the consoles and then indavertantly spill the soda into the control panels.
The problem with Coke, Pepsi, etc., is the syrupy, gooey gunk left after a spill. It gets into the electronics and is hard to get out. It really gums up the works.
It will probably take quite a cleaning to get all the contacts and stuff clean again. I would take it to a tech who probably has had to do this kind of clean up more than once.
Hindsight is 20/20 so I won't say what you already learned from this lesson.
Years ago I had a cat that whizzed in the back of my Carvin VT2800 head. I didn't notice it had happened and took the amp to a show. As soon as I turned it on, POP & a flash from the back. Turned one of my power tubes into a firecracker. I had to borrow an amp that night. I also never let my amps sit anywhere that a cat could get at again.
I'm more of a dog person anyway. ;)
You might get lucky and nothing is porked up, or you could have a real snotty mess inside there that will take a lot of work to clean up and still have something fried form the spill. Hope it's not your transformer, "they ain't cheap".
Good luck!
"I bet your Momma was a tent-show Queen ..."
Yes transformers are not cheap, but the HRD's aren't too bad comparatively.
If this isn't fixed, or you don't want to pay to fix it, I know people interested in dead amps (namely me).
Let us know what the verdict is on this guy!
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
After cleaning it out the best you can, Take a hair dryer to it, Let that thing blow for about 10 minutes all around the electronics. I bet this works. I dropped my cell phone in the toilet the other day, I cleaned it best I could and did the hair dryer thing and BAM it fired right up. Try it . It can't hurt. Peace
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