I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

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t0rg31r
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:37 pm
Location: Norway

I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

Post by t0rg31r »

Hi!
I recently returned home from a very long trip abroad. I was stoked to play my guitar after a long break and turned on my ENGL Thunder 50 combo. I let the tubes warm up for about an hour while changing strings. When i turned on the speaker for the amp, the whole thing just flashed white and lost power completely. It doesnt get any power whatsoever now and just seems dead. I think its a short-circuit but i was hoping that someone with more skills could point me in the right direction :)

ps: I actually turned the speaker on while changing the strings just to see if it was ok. I touched the jack cable and the typical "touching audio sound" came out. it wasnt before i turned the speaker on the second time to actually play it "exploded"

Excuse my english and noob amp talk. im not so experienced with tubes, but i hope you'll understand

Thanks!
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Structo
Posts: 15446
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:01 am
Location: Oregon

Re: I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

Post by Structo »

Hey t0rg31r,

Welcome to the Amp Garage.

This is an international group of tube amp enthusiasts devoted to better guitar tones.
There are several members here from Norway.

Don't worry about the language barrier.
I can assure you that you write better English then I could ever hope to write in Norwegian.

OK, so you were away for a while.

How long were you gone?

When you turned the Standby off to play, was there any noise, smoke, etc.?
You say that "the whole thing just flashed white"

What do you mean by that. Did the tubes flash brightly?

Actually the worst thing for any tube amp is not turning it on frequently.

It has to do with the electrolytic capacitors used in the power supply.

They tend to dry out and do weird things when not used.

So I take it from your post, that you are not experienced in working on tube amps?

If that is the case, what I would suggest is to check the fuses.
It might have been a fluke, that one is blown.

If you are not experienced, don't poke around inside the amp, because there are lethal (deadly dødlignende) voltages inside.

Not for the inexperienced.

My best advice at this point is to take it to a reputable amp tech and have it trouble shooted and repaired.
Tom

Don't let that smoke out!
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xtian
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Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:15 pm
Location: Chico, CA
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Re: I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

Post by xtian »

Great reply, Tom. Can you turn your script into an automated, machine intelligence, tube amp diagnostic tool? Kind of like Eliza, the psychoanalyst software from the 80s? We'll all chip in for development costs.

"Why do you think your tube amp should sound 'less fizzy'?"
"Let's talk about your father."
I build and repair tube amps. http://amps.monkeymatic.com
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Reeltarded
Posts: 10189
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:38 am
Location: GA USA

Re: I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

Post by Reeltarded »

haha!
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
Smokebreak
Posts: 1391
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:53 pm
Location: Texas

Re: I think i broke my ENGL amp.. Help with diagnosis?

Post by Smokebreak »

xtian wrote:
"Why do you think your tube amp should sound 'less fizzy'?"
I'll take this one on auto-loop, please
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