Generic answer to "blew a fuse" questions

[Enzo]

The last 40 years I lived on a farm out in rural AMerica. next to my 20 acres was about 20 acres of swamp. Swamp is lovely, the sandhill cranes nest there along with geese and ducks and other things that make noises. But swamp land also means the water table is close to the surface. We pulled our water from the ground, and put it back in the ground when we were done with it. other than what I drank and peed in town, a net zero for the earth at my house.

My sister lives in suburban Washington DC, and in dry summer months they can have water shortages. So while lo-flo makes no sense in my case, down there, it adds up house by house. They passed out bricks, you were supposed to put a brick in your flush tank to reduce the volume of water in it.

And yes, I have seen the poorly adjusted or poorly designed ones that need two shots to clear.

Bugged me the showers that just sent tiny stinging sprays of water to rinse the soap of instead of real flow.

Now in my senior apartment, I recently picked up my sink sprayer, and the lever broke off. Told the manager, and the next day a new sprayer had showed up on my sink. The guy forgot to put the flow restricter into it, because the new one REALLY sprays stuff off my dishes.

[rjb]

How many times have we heard from someone who plugs and amp into it, the bulb stays dim, but all his voltages are way off, and he spends a lot of time trying to "fix" the voltage issues. The whole problem was the bulb limiter causing the voltage drops.

My bad. I was assuming anyone who had use for a LBL would know Ohm's Law.

[big_teee]

I like the LBL for initial unknowns.
After changing filter caps, or major work.
I plug it in the LBL, and watch the Caps charge.
Once I've established the amp is ok, then plug the amp into the wall!
T

[52 Bill]

The limiter is just another tool, some need and or like them, some don't. I've recommended them to people on the board because sometimes, I have no idea if they know or understand Ohm's Law. It helps the many inexperienced people here get past the constant blown fuse and blown parts stage.

[rjb]

Any way to wire 60W bulbs in series and/or parallel to allow the LBL to handle higher powered amps?

If you can only find 60W bulbs, wire them in parallel for equivalent resistances of 120W, 180W, etc. bulbs. I think.

[g1]

You can buy "Y" bulb adapters so you can plug 2 bulbs into a single socket.
Or even 4 into 1 (This may help for Richard's post #8 also)

[Enzo]

Oh wow, I haven't seen one of those in years, I used to have one in my shop in the overhead light. One side of the Y was the bulb, and the other side was a threaded in outlet adaptor, and my extension cord plugged into it - that powered my shop then.

[Tom Phillips]

You can buy "Y" bulb adapters so you can plug 2 bulbs into a single socket.
Or even 4 into 1...

Or More!

[drewl]

Bulb limiters weren't allowed in your shop? Wtf?

Anyway, it has helped me with intermittent problems and saved me alot of time rebuilding things that would have blown up.

Especially with alot of newer smps stuff that will fry instantly.

[Chuck H]

GUYS! guys...

Everyone knows that if the fuse blows it's probably the output transformer.

[The Dude]

GUYS! guys...

Everyone knows that if the fuse blows it's probably the output transformer.

Damn things are constantly failing!

[Chuck H]

Right?!?

Always replace that first! Then, if that doesn't work, replace the power tubes that have gone bad. If that doesn't work you buy all new power tubes and replace all the capacitors. All the big filter caps and all the film caps in the preamp. But don't bother with the cathode bypass or bias supply caps. They're confusing circuits and the caps are probably fine. Then, after you've blown up the new power tubes you replace the rest of the electrolytic caps. Now that the fuse doesn't blow anymore and the tubes aren't melting you can troubleshoot why you don't have any signal through the preamp. Once you find the wiring error or cold solder joint from all the work you've done the amp will be great

[olddawg]

Bulb limiters weren't allowed in your shop? Wtf?

Anyway, it has helped me with intermittent problems and saved me alot of time rebuilding things that would have blown up.

Especially with alot of newer smps stuff that will fry instantly.

Yeah.. I haven't been a pro tech in over 10 years, but in the 80s and 90s major manufactures (like Yamaha and JVC I remember especially) would pull your authorization if they saw one in a shop. Some of the old TV guys would hide one to work on quirky fly back circuits on CRT TVs. The powers that be considered it a rock and hammer approach. Especially on SMPS stuff. Better to bring the AC up slowly and watch the current. You can still cause a lot of damage with a LBL. And like Enzo said, chase your tail, confuse sensor/protection circuits, etc. But these are the same people that required you to have a very expensive distortion analyzer that you might use every 5 years maybe, lol.

[Justin Thomas]

You forgot replacing all the CC resistors with 3W metal film jobbies for low noise, moving the standby to a different location, adding goop to keep your questionable (at best) soldering in place, ripping out all those cheap ribbon cables and replacing them with silver Teflon-coated wire, and tossing the PCB in favor of a (personally) hand-made turret board... what else? Oh - replaced your pickups, just in case the old ones were overwriting the amp at the front end and overloading it with so much signal that the amp was forced to pass too much current for its feeble little 12AX7 preamp tube to handle.

Justin

[Richard]

The last 40 years I lived on a farm out in rural AMerica. next to my 20 acres was about 20 acres of swamp. Swamp is lovely, the sandhill cranes nest there along with geese and ducks and other things that make noises. But swamp land also means the water table is close to the surface. We pulled our water from the ground, and put it back in the ground when we were done with it. other than what I drank and peed in town, a net zero for the earth at my house.

My sister lives in suburban Washington DC, and in dry summer months they can have water shortages. So while lo-flo makes no sense in my case, down there, it adds up house by house. They passed out bricks, you were supposed to put a brick in your flush tank to reduce the volume of water in it.

And yes, I have seen the poorly adjusted or poorly designed ones that need two shots to clear.

Bugged me the showers that just sent tiny stinging sprays of water to rinse the soap of instead of real flow.

Now in my senior apartment, I recently picked up my sink sprayer, and the lever broke off. Told the manager, and the next day a new sprayer had showed up on my sink. The guy forgot to put the flow restricter into it, because the new one REALLY sprays stuff off my dishes.

I've heard some bricks can break down when they are constantly submerged so a brick is not the best idea. Glad your sink sprayer doesn't have the restrictor, how much water could you waste with one of those anyway.