Orange Rocketverb 50 schematic request!

[Cliff Schecht]

Got an Orange Rocketverb 50 MkI on the bench with symptoms of "don't fucking work", caused by the owner getting water spilled in it somehow. Supposedly the amp won't get out of standby without blowing HV winding fuses (it has EIGHT fuses inside!) but I'm yet to turn it on myself and dig in. TBH it sounds like a bad PT but that doesn't make sense because this thing is fused six (actually 8) ways from Sunday.

Anywho I found out quickly that Orange is very protective of their schematics. They will only send them out to verified techs or something and apparently the average Joe can't easily obtain a copy. This offends me just on the premise that I probably know more about tube amps than most "certified techs" know about electronics in general. I'm more likely to get this amp working quickly with a schematic and I'd like to do so for the customers benefit (whether or not it's to Orange's chagrin). In my few years of doing tech work I'm yet to find an amp that I can't find a schematic for. This is pretty ridiculous and IMO is bad juju since they sell their amps in places that people can't get them repaired.

Has anybody else had luck obtaining Orange schematics from the source? How about not-so-legal routes? Does anybody happen to have a copy of the schematic for this amp?

[Cliff Schecht]

The fix turned out to be quite easy, just needed new diodes in the bridge for the B+ lines. In lieu of the 1N5408's that were in there I used two 1N4007's in series which fit just fine. I'm sure the customer will be happy to hear that the fix was a $0.40 one (not including my time ), not a $120 one (for a new PT). Easy money for me too, took about 30 minutes to track down the problem and fix it.

I'd still like to see a schematic but now just for curiosity. I definitely don't like the use of 1/4W resistors throughout 98% of this amp and I hate the crimped wires on push terminals that connect everything. But it sounds neat and has a nice versatile tonestack. Also 4x6V6 amps are relatively rare and a nice change (I think the MKII of these amps changed to EL84's though).

[surfsup]

Did you see AC after the rectifier? Did you use the diode check setting on your DMM? Just curious your thought process and what you did to verify the diode failure. Would you also mind tracing the schematic on the tone control area and sharing? Man i ask a lot of questions...

[Prairie Dawg]

cancel that. it was a bad link. I did find this:

"orange rockerverb 50 schematic" - Walmart.com
www.walmart.com/.../search-ng.do?...Ora ... rb+50+Sche...
Items 1 - 16 of 116 – Shop for orange rockerverb 50 schematic at Walmart.com and save.

[M Fowler]

http://www.orangefieldguide.com/

Is this the correct schematic?

[Cliff Schecht]

Nice that's it Mark. It's got the 6V6's and everything.

Here was my logic flow for figuring out the rectifiers were bad. First I pulled the HV winding fuses and checked the PT with a function generator. All was good. I put in the fuses which puts the rectifier-->filter cap in the line but the choke was out of the circuit so the rectifier/cap was all that the HV winding was seeing. I then again used a function generator (set for 10V P-P, 60 Hz sine wave) and checked for DC after the rectifier. I was seeing about a Volt instead of the 30V or so I was expecting to see. Since IME caps can take a lot of abuse before failing, the only other suspect part was the bridge. I swapped out the diodes, checked for DC with the function generator again and got what I wanted to see. After this the amp worked from the first fire-on.

[surfsup]

Thanks for sharing...