got my DSL back from repair yesterday

siraxeman

the so called tech guy that had my amp for 3 weeks and my having to chase him several times over it finally lets me know its done. £45....he supplied the valve bases as he cut my old ones out and I provided a new set of valves. Anyway I get it back home fire it up..clean channel works just fine. Changes the channel over to the dirty side and hardly any sound at all no distortion and the tiniest low volume sound when the amp was up past gig volumes. So back it goes...and I await who knows how long. What kind of tech doesn't check his work before saying its fixed and getting me to come collect n pay him...when I get this back I wont bother taking to him again. I will look to see where he parks his horse next time I go to get the amp from his house. Also noticed the buttons on the control panel are all pointing a bit to the right like hes not put it back together quite straight inside?

ICBM

Oh dear.

More than most amps, these require thoroughness. To be honest £45 sounds suspiciously cheap for a competent job on one of them if it needed anything related to valve sockets.

I would be inclined to ask for a refund and take it to someone else rather than let this chap have another go. I'm not always 100% perfect either - no-one is - but not noticing one of the channels isn't working is just incompetent.

Danny1969

It's a least a couple of hours work including a soak test so yeah I'd agree £45 sounds too cheap really, unless he's working from home and doesn't have any business rent and rates to pay. I would expect £70 ish maybe a bit more. 

I doubt he's dense enough not to check the dirty channel, more like somethings come loose or there's a bad joint and it's been shaken up  on the trip home in the car. It's somethings not back right it's probably stressed, pot washer wrong side of the panel etc

siraxeman

I believe this guy has a day job...and I think its 'on the side' from home.thats be what I now believe to the case.

jpfamps

I've seen this fault on a DSL that had been "repaired" by someone else.

There several interconnecting cables between the PCBs in the amp, and these had been put back incorrectly, which I concluded was due to the repairer having the wrong schematic.

Regardless, £45 is not a commercial rate for this type of repair.

ICBM

jpfamps said:

There several interconnecting cables between the PCBs in the amp, and these had been put back incorrectly, which I concluded was due to the repairer having the wrong schematic.

I always put masking tape 'flags' with the connector numbers written on those cables before I start taking the amp apart.

I don't take them off when I've finished either - it's handy the next time you work on it, saves time .

Not that I ever have to work on one of these more than once, of course . I do try my best to pre-emtively fix all the known problem areas the first time, even if they aren't the actual fault, but there's only so much you can do and some people don't want to spend the extra.

jpfamps

ICBM said:

jpfamps said:

There several interconnecting cables between the PCBs in the amp, and these had been put back incorrectly, which I concluded was due to the repairer having the wrong schematic.

I always put masking tape 'flags' with the connector numbers written on those cables before I start taking the amp apart.

I don't take them off when I've finished either - it's handy the next time you work on it, saves time .

Not that I ever have to work on one of these more than once, of course . I do try my best to pre-emtively fix all the known problem areas the first time, even if they aren't the actual fault, but there's only so much you can do and some people don't want to spend the extra.

I use the masking tape flags too!

The only time I've had a return on one of these was when the customer (against my advice) didn't want to pay for the PCB to be replaced......

I've learnt my lesson on this, and now if the PCB needs replacing and the customer doesn't want to pay for it, I refuse to do the repair.

ICBM

My problem is that several of the ones I "know" belong to rehearsal studios, and it's very hard to bulletproof them to withstand that.

Although the two 100-watters I converted to 50s by cutting the burned areas out of the PCB - which luckily apply to valves 2 and 4 usually - and removing all associated components have remained totally reliable since then. I thought it was worth a try! Since one was on its second board at that point…

For normal customers I would likewise always replace the board though.

impmann

/\ Or suggest a different amp! ;-)

jpfamps

ICBM said:

My problem is that several of the ones I "know" belong to rehearsal studios, and it's very hard to bulletproof them to withstand that.

Although the two 100-watters I converted to 50s by cutting the burned areas out of the PCB - which luckily apply to valves 2 and 4 usually - and removing all associated components have remained totally reliable since then. I thought it was worth a try! Since one was on its second board at that point…

For normal customers I would likewise always replace the board though.

Whacking the screen grids up to 2k2 helps with reliability too.

For rehearsal studios I always recommend 50W valves amps as you've halved both the chance of a power valve failure and the cost of revalving the amp.

ICBM

impmann said:

Or suggest a different amp! ;-)

That's why they then bought Peaveys and Blackstar IDs .

They still want me to keep the Marshalls going if at all possible, so I will if I can... it wasn't my fault they bought them though!

jpfamps said:

For rehearsal studios I always recommend 50W valves amps as you've halved both the chance of a power valve failure and the cost of revalving the amp.

Same here. 100s are just a bad idea. The advantage of starting with a DSL100 and halving the power is that it still has the higher-rated transformers, so they haven't blown one since...

I've also done a similar thing the other way round by fitting their DSL201 with a 401 OT, after the original type blew twice. It's a pain to get in though, you have to enlarge the chassis cutout.

siraxeman

just text him for an update...he's "had to get a service manual" will look at it today........

ICBM

siraxeman said:

just text him for an update...he's "had to get a service manual" will look at it today........

That doesn't bode well. I agree with jpfamps that he's likely to have mixed up some connectors - hence it couldn't have been tested and working when it left there. I can't think of many other reasons he might need it - it's not actually a very difficult amp to understand despite the complexity of the jumper cable nonsense.

I hope he doesn't go by the factory setting for the bias either - it's ridiculously hot, they need 30mA per valve not the 45mA the service info states.

siraxeman

Its fixed..just got a text back....all it was was a dodgy preamp valve...at least that's what he said in his text ? Is that possible even? Just asked if its ok to go get the amp back, awaiting his reply......

jpfamps

Could be a problem with a pre-amp valve dedicated to the lead channel.

Nerine

Even if it's a simple trivial thing like that, you'd expect a tech to test it out before returning it or saying it's ready. Make sure you turn it on and play through it thoroughly before you leave this time!

jpfamps

Nerine said:

Even if it's a simple trivial thing like that, you'd expect a tech to test it out before returning it or saying it's ready. Make sure you turn it on and play through it thoroughly before you leave this time!

Indeed, however £45 doesn't seem like a commercial rate for this repair, and without want to sound self-righteous you (generally) get what you pay for.

A considerable amount of my time is taken testing amps after I have repaired them, and this time needs to be charged for.

This is one area where some people doing a "cheap" repair will skimp on to keep the cost down.

siraxeman

Amp back home and fully working. Gig next Saturday to give it its first thorough loud test. :-)

siraxeman

doh.......this saga continues. Just realised the reverb that was working on the amp before this guy played around with it isn't. I usually have it on very low...anyway was just having a play thru the amp and noticed the reverb on both channels was on halfway...but I couldn't hear any. So I turned it all the way up..and still nothing. This guy is some tech I can tell you. This is getting tedious now. The amp is working thankfully but seems he's now somehow knocked the reverb off..maybe its just not plugged in somewhere ? Anyway I've sent him a text and await a response tomorrow. But the word incompetent is buzzing round in my head for some reason can't think what.......

ICBM

He could have simply forgotten to plug the connectors on the tank cable back into the amp chassis. If he'd plugged them in the wrong way round you would hear some reverb, but quiet.

It's also possible he hasn't reconnected (or connected wrongly) one or more of the internal cables that go to the reverb board.

Or that he's been unlucky and the reverb tank has died in transit on the way back to you. But that's clutching at straws a bit...

siraxeman

I got a reply...he forgot to plug the 2 phonos in the back....said if I cant do it nip it round to him and he'll do it there...now I've got the back off and am looking around the transformer looking were these phono plugs plug in ? Trots off to Google........