The things we find in amps

[fredcapo]

I only work on amps part time, but have found some nice vintage picks and an old bar slide...among other various bugs and once a likely electrocuted mouse in an early Electar amp hand-build by Nat Daniels...

[Mick Bailey]

The most interesting thing I came across was in the back of an early Sundown combo. There was a whole sheaf of hand-written notes by Dennis Kager - ideas for amp circuits, diagrams, technical details and ideas, (including the reasoning for a 10k Ohm cathode resistor in the preamp of the amp I was fixing) and tons more. Enough for the basis of a book.

That was an unusual amp - the components were mounted on the copper side of the PCB like early TVs.

[bob p]

mounting on the copper side -- i think early mesas were like that.

[bob p]

found a pic. here's a 1980 Mk IIB:



i've seen pics that show them mounting on the copper side as late as 1984 in the IIC+.

back then they were still small volume and did their own boards in-house. I think they did this to avoid drilling holes.

[Mick Bailey]

I've never come across one of those. I can see holes in some unused pads, though. The TVs were made like that so the engineer, who often had to work on your set at your home, could replace a component easily without having to remove the PCB.

How charitable it would be to think that perhaps Mesa had the same idea back then.

[drewl]

I have pics somewhere of an early Mesa like that I worked on years ago.

They used Dymo Tape to label the rear panel controls and jacks.

Some Carvin amps are laid out like that, some of the old X- series.

Was it VHT I think that had some things written on their boards like "Proudly Made With PC Boards" and stuff like that.

[nsubulysses]

VHT does more than just tell you how proud they are

https://irationaudio.files.wordpress...0/img_2238.jpg

[Mick Bailey]

Ironic, as they were praising their own eyelet-board amps only a few years ago.

[J M Fahey]

I bet somewhere over the Interwebs there's a surgeons' equivalent to this thread.

At the local Municipal Hospital they always remember when Emergency Room surgeons had to pull a regular household lightbulb out of a guy´s ass.
He wouldn´t say how it got there and Doctors are forbidden to ask, unless volunteered by Patient, under penalty of being sued under some "gender minority protection" Act or whatever.

[Mick Bailey]

Why go to the hospital? He could have sent Ken, Barbie or GI Joe up there to get it out.

[Dave H]

At the local Municipal Hospital they always remember when Emergency Room surgeons had to pull a regular household lightbulb out of a guy´s ass.

Was it screw or bayonet fitting?

[g1]

Why go to the hospital? He could have sent Ken, Barbie or GI Joe up there to get it out.

Gerbil's hands too small?

[catalin gramada]

The sickest thing found in an amp was a very,very thick layer of tar. The amp was recovered from a smokers tavern and on the top cover inside arround the vents has a few mm. layer of tar like something real exploded inside...Geez. Still wonder why still I smoke... Looks like someone put some mud inside...Thinking all this tar deposed on lungs...very scary

[pdf64]

VHT does more than just tell you how proud they are

https://irationaudio.files.wordpress...0/img_2238.jpg

The tubes are referred to as V101 - V103 on the pcb overlay -I wonder where they were expecting to fit the other 100 (just in case there's an awesome preamp that needs squeezing in there)?

[Leo_Gnardo]

The sickest thing found in an amp was a very,very thick layer of gudrons. The amp was recovered from a smokers tavern and on the top cover inside arround the vents has a few mm. layer of gudron like something real exploded inside...Geez. Still wonder why still I smoke... Looks like someone put some mud inside...Thinking all this gudrons deposed on pulmons...very scary

Wups, we're having another language barrier moment. Gudrons? Pulmons? Sounds awful, like spuzz smeared on crud. Ick!