Bogner ecsstacy help please, tubes red plating

[The Dude]

Sounds like I'm a bit late to this party, but I've seen several of these with intermittently leaky coupling caps to the output tube grids (from the phase inverter). At least 3 different Bogners in only a few months. If it comes back, check the voltage on either side of those caps to see if anything is leaking. They will check good on a cap tester/out of circuit, but once you put some juice to them they start to fail. I think they may have gotten a bad batch of caps, but like you, I could get no assistance from them.

[Stratjeep2]

Sounds like I'm a bit late to this party, but I've seen several of these with intermittently leaky coupling caps to the output tube grids (from the phase inverter). At least 3 different Bogners in only a few months. If it comes back, check the voltage on either side of those caps to see if anything is leaking. They will check good on a cap tester/out of circuit, but once you put some juice to them they start to fail. I think they may have gotten a bad batch of caps, but like you, I could get no assistance from them.

Thanks Dude! I will keep this in mind for sure, I'm certainly hoping to not see it back, but if it does at least this gives me another avenue to address.

Cheers,

David

[wizard333]

Bogner is a pain in the arse to deal with, their construction is the same as a Rivera at 3x the cost, and the feel is over-filtered solid-state-ish. Are you paying the extra 2/3 for the arrogance? I have to say, I don't get it.

[Stratjeep2]

It's back :-(

Well after me running it for several hours, and one full night with my band cranked I returned the amp to the store. Got a call from the owner ( who seems to be a very nice guy ), and he said it didn't last more than a few minutes.

Anyway I won't get it back for a few weeks because he lives out of town, but I will post my findings, and I'm more determined than ever to find the issue, my rep is at stake, and it's not like it's a complicated area of the amp :-)

Cheers guys, and thanks for the ideas so far!

David

[Jazz P Bass]

There are three separate power settings on the amp.
Which one where you on?
http://www.blueguitar.org/new/schem/bogner/xtc_pw.gif

[Tone Meister]

I agree with Wizard333, Bogner is very difficult to deal with and supremely arrogant. I can tell you from experience what I had to do with my Shiva combo when the tubes were redplating to the point the HT fuse would blow. We pinpointed the problem as a large upward drift in bias when the chassis was reinstalled back in the cabinet after basic retube and service.

The earlier version(s) of the Shiva came from the factory with internal chassis fans, but this version (trafficgreen2+ chassis) did not. Even though Bogner adamantly denied the need for a fan in this particular model, I installed a fan anyway and pointed it directly at the power tubes, which in turn stabilized the bias. Problem solved and that was 18 months and 50 gigs ago.

Does your amp have a fan? Something to consider.