Any Suggestions welcome

[vince20]

I have an Ashdown Pacemake 60 Tube Amp which I am frustrated with.

When working properly it is a fantastic Amp, although it is far too powerful and heavy for my current needs. It has had little use and recently it stopped working.  I replaced the main valves but this was not the problem so I took it a repairer.

The repairer charged me some 400 AUD, for what I am uncertain, and when I went to pick it up I was notified that>
1) the reverb was not working ??, and
2) The Amp was producing a loud popping noise intermyently which was not a prior problem, nor do I think was the reverb problem.
I was told that he could spend more time to sus the problems at additional chargeand as I was discusted with his charges and lack of credability I opted not to have him proceed as the end charges would have been more than what the Amp is worth.

I would like to have it working as it should and then I will pass it on to a younger generation guitar player starting out with a band and purchasing a smaller unit for myself.

Has anyone experienced similar problems with their Amp, where they get loud intermittent popping noises, and can anyone shed light on possible reasons that the Reverb is not worling.

vince20

This is the Amp and its schematics.

[sumgai]

Vince,


Sorry, but even though you used the word "schematics", as in plural, there is only one schematic shown, and it's only half of the entirety. Until I can see all of the circuitry, I can't even do a triage, let alone a diagnosis.

But I will say that when it comes to loud extemporaneous popping sounds, the usual culprit is either a poor soldering job on the power supply filter capacitors, or those caps themselves showing a very short remaining life expectancy.

Let me not comment any further until the remaining diagram shows up.

HTH







sumgai

[Yogi B]

I don't know from where you were supplied that diagram, but despite the one reference to the Peacemaker it predominantly seems to be for Ashdown's Fallen Angel amp instead. That being said, one reason why it still might be relevant is if your amp supports the 'fancy' 4-way RF footswitching, as the Peacemaker 60 schematics I could find don't include that feature. (Looking around online I couldn't find an example of a Peacemaker that did have the 4-way switching, but maybe yours is a more recent version?)

[thetragichero]

yes i would highly suspect a bad solder joint causing the intermittent popping. are the tube sockets mounted to the pcb? that could be a place to start as most combos have the tubes hanging below the sockets and it's a great recipe for heat to damage solder joints (if not more. blues jr seems to be designed to specifically torch the tube board)

testing reverb: connect the reverb send and return together. does your reverb control act like a very brittle, very loud treble booster? you've got a bad tank
plug guitar into reverb return. get any guitar sound out of the amp (might have to adjust reverb control)? likely bad send stage (especially if you've done the previous test). no sound out of the amp? return stage likely bad. ic2 (just a standard 4558) is used for both reverb send and return. taking voltage readings of that op amp could also help confirm but i prefer simple safe tests

[vince20]

I'll do a search and get schematics together and submit.

regarding the replies from Yogi B and Thetragichero, I will need to digest.

vince20

[vince20]

Hey Sumgai

Here are the schematics that I ought to have posted in my original post. Please ignore the first posted scematic.

[sumgai]

Vince,


Sorry, I was out of town for a couple of days, I'm just now seeing these for the first time. Kinda dense. I'll need to go through them section by section before I can make any further suggestions.

By now you know the drill - I'm here, and them I'm not, and then again....




sumgai