Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

jps wrote:Don't let this get to you, jake. Remember, Graham has to live with his RIO!!!, um, er, ah, incident!

Oooh, I missed it. Do tell!

kiramdear wrote:

jps wrote:Don't let this get to you, jake. Remember, Graham has to live with his RIO!!!, um, er, ah, incident!

Oooh, I missed it. Do tell!

I never knew he did custom auto re-finishing!

I took it back to the shop. John, I was playing "My Generation" when the fuse blew...how the hell did you know?

JakeK wrote:I took it back to the shop. John, I was playing "My Generation" when the fuse blew...how the hell did you know?

The same way a fish knows water is wet

lol you post has a double meaning only you will soon know!

I got the Deluxe back from the shop yesterday...it was a blown out fuse...apparently, Fender is shipping new amps with cheap fuses that are prone to blowing out. IVG put a brand new heavy duty fuse in it

There's usually a reason a fuse blows, I've heard of bad fuses, but not cheap ones. If there are such a beast, which ones should I stay away from?

whojamfan wrote:There's usually a reason a fuse blows, I've heard of bad fuses, but not cheap ones. If there are such a beast, which ones should I stay away from?

I was thinking the same thing--might be worth it for Jake to send a note to Fender's Customer Service to see what they say about the issue.

I know Fender has been taking some shots in some of the enthusiast sites over the components in their recent production amps. The Fender stuff I have is mostly used stuff a couple years old; I haven't had any issues (knock on wood!).

Bill

So what's a 'heavy duty' fuse, Jake?

I blew a fuse in my HRD 4X10 a few weeks but I know what caused it..... I turned it off instead of putting it on standby and realising my mistake immediately turned it back on. I don't think they like that!!

I was warned by an amp technician not to put anything other than the factory specified 1.6 amp fuse in it. 1.5 might be OK but DEFINITELY nothing higher.

Maybe a 'heavy duty' fuse is one of those they charge something like $20 for!

JakeK wrote:I got the Deluxe back from the shop yesterday...it was a blown out fuse...apparently, Fender is shipping new amps with cheap fuses that are prone to blowing out. IVG put a brand new heavy duty fuse in it

First rule of troubleshooting: check for the simplest thing first!

*I recently thought the bridge p/up went dead or there was a bad toggle on my TUR WB, after removing the P/g, I discovered that the treble volume knob was turned all the way down somehow. Oops.

Good thing there was a simple fix for that!

You know, I can hear the difference in the vintage fuses versus modern ones. When they blow, the pop is fuller, richer, more rounded yet with a warmer quality. The cold, impersonal pop of today takes what little joy there was in a bad situation and makes it a complete loss.

Let's hear it for those impossible-to-find unblown vintage fuses!!!

(I've got a bin full of blown ones...)

ozover50 wrote:So what's a 'heavy duty' fuse, Jake?

I blew a fuse in my HRD 4X10 a few weeks but I know what caused it..... I turned it off instead of putting it on standby and realising my mistake immediately turned it back on. I don't think they like that!!

I was warned by an amp technician not to put anything other than the factory specified 1.6 amp fuse in it. 1.5 might be OK but DEFINITELY nothing higher.

A fuse is rated for a given number of amps and a given amount of voltage. If the fuse is badly made, then perhaps it could be a cheap fuse and blow prematurely. Often people will put a fast blow fuse in the power section of an amp when it should have a slo blo fuse in that position. A fast blow will blow prematurely due to the AC line fluctuations, wheras a slo blo will ignore those and only blow when it needs to. Usually the cause for a power supply fuse blowing is a bad rectifier tube or diode, or a problem with the power tubes. On the other hand, you almost always want a fast blow fuse to protect the output transformer, as you don't want bad tubes to be going south without the fuse blowing. I would guess they used the fast blow fuse instead of a slo blo fuse. Make sure to always use a fuse with the correct current specification. If it blows a bunch, then there is some other problem that needs to be addressed in the amp rather than going to a larger fuse.

As far as standby is concerned......tube amps don't need a standby until you start to get up into Ampeg SVT territory. The traditional reason is to avoid cathode stripping, but at the voltages most tube guitar amps operate at, it isn't a concern.Standbys are useful for stage work as you can put it into standby while on a break for example. There are ways to do standby circuits that still mute the sound but don't stop the B+ voltage going to the tubes. Some of the more modern amps use these methods sometimes. So I've been leading up to this, but it doesn't matter if you turn power or standby on or off first. There are advantages to turning the power off before the standby, and power on first, but its not a big deal...your amp doesn't care either way.

Greg