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I've nursed a circa 1972 AC-30/TB back to life but the reverb tank is missing. This is the infamous circuit-board model for which any technical documentation is nonexistent, so I traced out the schematic and drew it up properly. The tank's missing, though, and I'm stumped for what should be in there. Definitely one with high-impedance transducers (no transformer!) but the tank I tried (4FB3xxx) gave only a ghostly whisper of a reverb. I'm absolutely certain the reverb circuit hadn't been modded in any way, and there were no witness marks on the plywood for anything other than the tank itself. Would a now-unobtanium tank have been used here?
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That attachment is not working.Originally posted by Enzo
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You have two cbles to the reverb pan, unplug then from it, turn the amp on and the reverb up. Now touch the tip of each cord one by one. One should hum out the speaker. Does it? That is the return and plugs into the OUTPUT jack on the pan. The other is the drive, and when playing through teh amp ther should be a strong signal there.
So explore that, to not only find if it was plugged in right, but also to detect which half has the problem.
Link worked for me.
You have a reverb volume control on either half, make sure both are up.
One trick is to drive the reverb with the amp, and connect the OUTPUT jack on the pan to some other amp. get reverb there? And likewise drive the pan from some other amp and plug the pan OUTPUT into this. Does reverb come out now? That all tests the two sides separately.
Did we verify the tank you used had apapropriate resistance readings at both ends?Education is what you're left with after you have forgotten what you have learned.Comment
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In haste, I left out some important details:
Signal at the tank is much attenuated relative to that at V6B's plate. Not at all surprising; C21 creates a HPF that's up in the ultrasonics. Seems that a tank with an input impedance of hundreds of kilohms would be required for this circuit. Did such a thing ever exist? C21 is clearly original.Comment
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Can somebody zip that attachment and repost it?Originally posted by Enzo
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You need the infamous homemade VOX piezo based reverb tank, made out of some aluminum U railing, 2 ceramic pickup cartridges (Sonotone/Elac/you-name-it)
Use office type rubberbands to hold it, guaranteed disintegration in a year or so.
Very high impedance and thatīs an understatement:
Mick Bailey picture:
Read all about it:http://music-electronics-forum.com/t32851/
Pickup detail:
This is the standalone version, courtesy of vintagekiki, yours should be very close (I mean drive and pickup section):
IF similar (it should), you might reform it into a regular one.
Best would be to get a Fender type reverb tank transformer and a low impedance tank, results would be near classic Fender reverb, about what Mesa gets out of a single 12AX7.Juan Manuel FaheyComment
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Originally posted by J M Fahey View Post
My mind is suitably boggled and yeah, I would call that contraption "now-unobtanium" to be sure.
That's what I had in mind if the original type of tank was impossible to find. The Cambridge Reverb and the 1978 AC30 schematics will guide me.....IF similar (it should), you might reform it into a regular one.
Best would be to get a Fender type reverb tank transformer and a low impedance tank, results would be near classic Fender reverb, about what Mesa gets out of a single 12AX7.Comment
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It's All Over NowComment
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Reposting the schematics as apparently the download isn't working again.Comment
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A real big thanks for the re-post. This clears up a lot of questions I had about the amp - especially around the reverb circuit which has been butchered and partly removed in the amp I have.
Much appreciated.Comment
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I've stumbled across this thread (6 1/2 years after the fact!) while having a near-identical issue, and found that the PDF schematics have been invaluable! Could the original poster (asfi) be persuaded to release the KiCAD files from which the PDF files were derived?Comment
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