Peavey Mace / Deuce / Classic?

robgilmo

He said he replaced the two valves based on no output and one being dimmer than the other. I'm sure I read somewhere that on these (or it could have been a different one, classic 50 maybe) that when one valve goes faulty none of them work, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
I wonder if he was experiencing the same problems I am , replaced a valve, had it working for an hour then put it away and put it on EBay, the valve change not fixing the problem.

robgilmo

Don't old dry caps reform when you bring the voltage up slowly with a variac?

robgilmo

So this morning I plugged it in, switched it on and it did what it was supposed to do, then, around a minute in a loud crunch/ crack from the speakers and back to being normal again, I will have another play with it tonight. Csn you use these smps without the pedal?

ICBM

robgilmo said:

Don't old dry caps reform when you bring the voltage up slowly with a variac?

Yes, but not like that. It is possible it's a cap, but even if it 'fixes' itself for a while I don't expect it to stay fixed.

robgilmo said:

So this morning I plugged it in, switched it on and it did what it was supposed to do, then, around a minute in a loud crunch/ crack from the speakers and back to being normal again, I will have another play with it tonight. Csn you use these smps without the pedal?

Yes. In fact most of them don't have the pedal at all.

robgilmo

Ah, mine doesnt work without the pedal, no chanels are live without the pedal plugged in.

robgilmo

And now they are!!!
I set everything all up tonight and its been running for a good half hour now with no problems,  Works without the pedals plugged in, everything just seems to work fine now!!
There's gremlins in there!

robgilmo

So ive ran the amp a few times now, a few hours each time and its been faultless, if anything its sounding better the more I use it, Its gone from sounding quite dark and muddy to sounding clean and bright, not Vox bright but brighter than muddy, any thoughts? Should I let sleeping dogs be and just get the thing serviced?

ICBM

robgilmo said:

So ive ran the amp a few times now, a few hours each time and its been faultless, if anything its sounding better the more I use it, Its gone from sounding quite dark and muddy to sounding clean and bright, not Vox bright but brighter than muddy, any thoughts? Should I let sleeping dogs be and just get the thing serviced?

That is unusual, but promising. It may be that some combination of poor contacts, dried-out caps or something else from ten years in a garage or somewhere is slowly putting itself right... it might be a good idea to get it looked at, but on the other hand if it's now working fine it probably isn't urgent.

Old Peavey amps are actually usually quite hard to kill, so in some ways it doesn't surprise me! One of the bass amps I use at the practice studio was rescued after being left out in the rain for several days, and after I'd dried it for a week and replaced the mains cable and the speaker, it powered up fine .

robgilmo

Cool, I wonder if 200 miles on its back in the boot of my car including Suffolk country lane potholes shook something loose, who knows, I'll play it till it breaks! Thanks for all the advice fella, its greatly appreciated.

robgilmo

And it broke! Last night I switched it on , the Red lamp flashed then dead, nothing, no light or sound. So , I unplugged it and pulled the fuse, fuse was Ok so plugged it back in and switched it on , Red light flashed then dead, nothing.
 So I decided to look at the plug, I dont quite know why but it seemed an easy place to start and as there was no power getting through seemed the most obvious.
Inside the plug the neutral wire securing screw had come loose and was rattling around inside the plug, the earth screw was also loose but still in the screw socket and the live screw wasn't far behind it.
It worked fine after sorting that lot out, how they came loose I dont know, how dangerous that was I can only guess, especially the earth, makes you wonder.
It seems to be working fine now, I played through it for a few hours last night and it never missed a beat, I fell asleep on the couch and forgot to switch it off and this morning it was still working as it should after being left on all night!

I'm hoping this was the cause of its issues.

ICBM

I probably should have thought to ask you if you'd checked that a lot earlier... for me, it's absolutely the first thing I ever do when looking at an amp, so it becomes easy to forget that it should be part of the troubleshooting process.

It's surprising how many you do find with the screws loose, and yet the amp seems to - mostly - work properly.

Also make sure the cable clamp is properly fitted on the outer flex and not on the individual cores, and is done up tight with a decent length of uncut outer flex beyond it - it's not being that lets the terminal screws work loose as the wires get tugged and twisted.

If it doesn't look like this, it's wrong.

http://www.brats-qth.org/training/graphics/plug.jpg

It's good practice to leave a little slack in the earth wire like that too, so if the cable gets really pulled hard and strips out from the clamp, the earth is the last wire to break. This may sound fussy but it's worth doing right - your gear will be safer and more reliable.

(For what it's worth, if you Google image 'UK mains plug wiring', about half of the pics show wrongly fitted plugs because the cable clamp isn't done properly, either with not enough flex beyond the clamp or it not done up tightly.)

robgilmo

That's a very good tip about the earth being the last to break, thankyou, I will check that and make sure its done properly in my plug.

robgilmo

Ive started on the footswitch now, Oh dear, cant leave things alone. Ive stripped it down, it was working fine but at work we have one of the largest powder coating facilities in the country, so its in getting a new coat. The wiring from the pedal to the amp isnt original, the casing has a hole either end drilled in it, both look to accommodate a din socket. The wiring at present is an 8 foot length with a din plug on either end (it is din isnt it?) ,it is well flimsy and one of the plugs is falling apart.
 So I am thinking to replace this. Is it wise to keep a socket on the pedal or do you reckon it should be hard wired? Im thinking hardwired so to keep it simple and take one weak link out of the chain. Originally it was hard wired. I will need some better wire, something less flimsy and at least one decent plug, also if I hard wire it I will need a decent wire gland for the casing. Can anyone point me in the right direction to a online shop that will stock decent bits to make this up?  Also, the cable, does the signal go through it? Or is it just a low voltage thing?

https://i.imgur.com/wojefnM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uXTBzWe.jpg

robgilmo

So here is what Im thinking, hard wire the pedal, one of these on the amp , https://www.rapidonline.com/lumberg-kfv60-6-pin-din-female-chassis-socket-iec-60130-9-front-panel-mount-15-1536. . Then one of these on the cable.   https://www.rapidonline.com/lumberg-sv60-6-pin-male-din-plug-iec-60130-9-straight-cable-mount-15-1506 ;        And 5 meters of 6 core cable to connect the two, 

ICBM

It’s definitely worth upgrading the cable and connectors, they were notoriously unreliable - a poor design choice by Peavey, but most people used the amps as a clean pedal platform so it probably didn’t matter. I’ve seen a couple with them replaced with 6-pin XLRs, but that’s a lot of work because the chassis has to be filed out.

robgilmo

I will stick to the din plug I think, I could get the chassis hole reamed out at work but I would rather not have swarf floating around in there. 
 Do you know if the pedal switches earth through the casing? One switch has a washer with an earth tag on it that looks like it earths through the casing but Im not sure. If so I will have to remove some of the powder coating to make contact. Its the one on the far left, I think that's the phaser switch.
https://i.imgur.com/hSDRffK.jpg

ICBM

Yes, just remove a bit of the powder coating around that hole.

JayGee

ICBM said:

If it doesn't look like this, it's wrong.

http://www.brats-qth.org/training/graphics/plug.jpg

It's good practice to leave a little slack in the earth wire like that too, so if the cable gets really pulled hard and strips out from the clamp, the earth is the last wire to break. This may sound fussy but it's worth doing right - your gear will be safer and more reliable.

(For what it's worth, if you Google image 'UK mains plug wiring', about half of the pics show wrongly fitted plugs because the cable clamp isn't done properly, either with not enough flex beyond the clamp or it not done up tightly.)

...and if it looks like this...

https://i.imgur.com/n1nbbm3.jpg

...it’s very wrong! [1]

Regarding the fault finding thing I think we’ve all kind of got used to IEC mains cables where trying a different “kettle” lead is a 5 second job and the first thing you try when something seems to be switching itself on and off at random. Actually taking the top off a plug is something I haven’t done in a very long time!

[1] Am I the only person who immediately thinks of that album cover whenever they see a question about wiring UK mains plugs?