Hot Rod Deluxe freaking out.

[Reeltarded]

Victim of a garage spray paint incident. Lots of fine overspray dust and nasty switch. That's fixedish. Screen grids were toasty. One was open. Replaced them.

Amp powers on and a little flicker is obvious on the indicator lamp. Very little. Mostly bright as expected.

Mains switch was very nasty. (Still a little)

Standby to on. HOLY POOH! WREHHHHHHHHHHH! Wide open nasty noise. Isn't squeal. Much wider and lower.

Any ideas? Tried inserting open jacks in loop to break the normal but it seems to be going on after that somewhere. Ugly.

Love you!

[Reeltarded]

New clue. Checked everything forward from output. Pulled PI tube and yahaaa! No unreal zombie howl from hell. It sputters and crackles though.

Resistance on that part of the circuit checks out though. All the joints look good. Nothing loose, nothing burned..

Still don't trust the plate but I don't want to heat anything I don't have to on any of these partially reliable pieces of wonderful engineering marvels.

Ideas?

*kisses!* lol

[Zippy]

I'd start looking a lil' more closely at the resistors to see if any are cracked.

Tube sockets all good? Maybe a lil' cleaning is in order?

[Reeltarded]

You are close. I cleaned them very well. I swapped in V2 and not a peep. Placed one of my known tubes in and BINGO!!

Still frittering noise when you nail a chord. The indicator is doing flicker madly when playing. I can't decide if the power switch is bad in microsecond bursts or something else downline.

But hey!! I GOT IT MAKING SHITTY NOISES WHEN PLAYED!! PROGRESS!

[Zippy]

Power supply gremlins - I'd consider plugging it in to a switchable power strip and bypassing the power switch for a quick check.

Hmm, have you checked the contacts in the fuse holder?

[JazzGuitarGimp]

If the power switch doesn't have insulated quick connects, you can just take an alligator clip lead and jumper the power switch out of the circuit.

[Zippy]

If the power switch doesn't have insulated quick connects, you can just take an alligator clip lead and jumper the power switch out of the circuit.

Watch out for the arc!

[JazzGuitarGimp]

If the power switch doesn't have insulated quick connects, you can just take an alligator clip lead and jumper the power switch out of the circuit.

Watch out for the arc!

Yes, especially if the spray paint is still wet!

[Reeltarded]

I think it's a ruse. I bet the flicker is the lamp socket. The khhhhhhhcgk noise is on the main board somewhere. It sounds like a full powered loose component instead of flicking an off switch a thousand times a second. The frequency is more like a tiny thing barely moving.

Time for a lil freezy spray und der chopschtizkenoniklanzerseit.

[Zippy]

<grrrrrrrrrr> Not fair. Does the light still flicker if you take it out?

Is this the version with the ribbon cables? I don't trust those things.

Keep us posted - inquiring minds gots to know!

[Reeltarded]

Yeah ribbons.

Are you kidsing? I tell you guys everything that happens to me. Look at my post count.

Embarrassing.

[Zippy]

The ribbons sound better with blue goop.

Trust me.

Hmm, no, don't. I wouldn't.

[Reeltarded]

hahaha

That was what everyone else told me, so you make it unanimous. Obviously you are the only person I can trust now.

The input jack is a little loose. These amps really suck. I am taking a day off to work on something less stressful. I am whacked on lacquer. Feeling groovy.

Woowooowwoooooeeeeoo.

[Reeltarded]

Back to this. Tried to recoup the little I can from the hours I have spent chasing the demon I can't find.

I am not removing the boards again. No way.

Starting to wonder if it's not the standby switch. I know how to find out but the jumpers are 100 yards from here.

When in standby the pilot light is bright now and no flicker at all. When set to ON the lamp dims slightly and flickers oddly along with the shitty noise that follows lower notes telling me it's vibrational amplitude and something is loose. Can't be on the boards. I reflowed that whole hellish mess that Fender calls an amp.

Fed up. Love you. Not worth the time spent, but rarely will his kind pf repair ever pay for itself in satisfaction. It's like sharpening a hammer, and for what?

[DonMoose]

For reasons I can't fathom, I'm gonna suggest something's up with one or more of the bigger filters - not the solder, but the welds, or the DC feed just before the PI. In particular, I'm thinking the bias filter or recto ... or a gunky bias pot?

You haven't reported anything like redplating, so slightly more likely to be the GND contact on that pot and it stutters cold as something vibrates.

Then maybe the speaker jacks need a squint?

/hope this helps