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When I first got involved in TV repair everything was pretty much discreet so you had as many as 9 PCB's in some TV's, some which used to hinge out so you could get at them, some demanded the whole TV was taken to bits before you could access them. Heat was the main culprit to failure with bad joints being the most common thing. The only item which would render a TV beyond economical repair was the tube. If anything else failed it was repairable. Over time all the fly back ramps and sync circuits became available as single I.C's and CRT TV's then generally had one single reliable PCB. These became cheap to manufacture and prices fell.
Modern flat screens have 2 points of failure, the address bus joints of the LCD, screen fails with lines, missing pictures etc and the internal SMPS unit fails because the caps only have a finite life in that hostile application. When things fail depend on what components were used. A high quality capacitor designed for high temperature SMPS operation can cost twice as much as a lesser brand. When we buy goods we have no knowledge of what's inside and you can't even trust a brand name as many brands are built by third party OEM's and rebranded.
It saddens me though that we do chuck things away rather than repair. I personally don't throw any electrical item away as a complete part, if the item really is fucked then there's still something I can generally salvage and use again, be it the transformer or other electronic components.
The current Triumph motorcycle company is the same, and is the reason an awful lot of people won't buy them.
Good companies know that a thriving aftermarket is good publicity and helps to future proof their own products.
As for Roland, I'm happy enough with my potentially disposable Katana because of the price, but the Blues Cube costs more than a Princeton and should last accordingly.
Those display busses are horribly delicate, they fill me with dread whenever I see one. Makes a change from the old CRT sets - I remember a family friend's old set, wooden box and all. It had that horrible whine from the line flyback transformer, for which the accepted ( ) fix was of course a good, sharp slap on the top of the set with the palm of the hand. This unit endured such a leathering over time that the positive lead to the power switch eventually came off. I soldered it back on for them and it worked fine again. I wonder how long my LG panel would last under those conditions.
Yes, first series Spider Valves become valve power amps if the display blocks. The mainboard just can't be bought, nor can it be repaired as its a flash problem and the device used was pre-programed before instalation by the contract manufacturer who built the amps. The device fails and there is no way to reflash it - even if you can find a replacement device. Not even Line6 have the right code for doing that!!!! The joys of 3rd party manufacture. On the plus side, they still work fine as a 40watt valve power stage even with blocks in the display - stick a Helix (or similar) into the effects loop return and BINGO.
As many have said on here it is a numbers game. Generally Roland products have one of the best reputations for reliability, so for most users ease of repair is not really an issue. That said, there still should be a way to get second-hand and out of warranty stuff fixed, or a policy of providing a replacement at a significant discount.
I also appreciate that no one is likely to be happy if their amp blows up 10 years down the line and is unrepairable. But one does need to look at the overall cost of ownership, so even if an old-technology valve amp might still be repairable in 10 years time, the amount spent on new tubes and other repairs over that 10 years might well have added up to the same cost as buying a replacement. Added to this, just look at all the old-school valve amps that one sees on here from companies such as Mesa that are hugely complex and difficult to repair, so it is not as though 'going valve' is always - from a repairability standpoint - the equivalent of buying a Morris Marina.
It's a balance between intellectual property and consumer rights, and the consumer can always go elsewhere next time.
Sometimes, however, trying to explain to 'repair techs' the concept of multi-layer boards was hard work... when normally they were dealing with fairly simple valve or transistor circuits. And explaining to some folks that whilst the device may be generic but the code to make it function wasn't - and was not available, nor was any method of applying it to the device - was impossible. Trying to explain to some "repair techs" that their theories on why something has failed wasn't necessarily the case usually ended in rows and pissing competitions about who had been "doing this" the longest. In general, most techs are reasonable guys just trying to make a living - I'm talking about those who are good at talking the talk but are out of their depth on digital boards, but won't admit it.
I can't speak for Roland - I can't speak for Line6 any more - but sometimes a part isn't available, nor is it user repairable and that can render a unit BER (Beyond Economic Repair). I can think of a few units that were more expensive than the amp featured here that could fall into this category - but the instances of them failing was so low, it wasn't worth creating a 'fix'. As I said above, technically speaking the OP can't apply "consumer rights" here as they purchased it secondhand. Therefore they cannot prove how the unit has been used prior to their ownership - and the onus is on the consumer to prove that in any application thereof. Yes, these sorts of spats can cause all manner of 'outrage' about a lack of support etc but the instances are usually incredibly low - and fwiw, its the first time I've heard of such an issue with this amp. As I suggested, I think the OP should strike up a conversation with Roland - and keep moving the complaint higher up the food chain there. Don't expect a freebie but if some kind of discounted replacement is offered, that would be a good compromise for all parties IMHO.
Good luck.
I doubt very much whether this is the case to be honest, especially for digital gear.
It's actually easier to reverse engineer something from the product than the schematic.
Most of the ip in digital gear will will be in the digital domain, and thus unobtainable from the schematic.
But you are right about the code used to run the boards.
I find the satisfaction of achiving something far outweighs the cost saving much of the time. But my time is finite and I can earn better money at my job than I can save on many projects unless they can wait for me to have time/tool/components all together.
I have a couple of classic cars that I wouldn't dream of giving to the local garage to fix because 1) its not difficult and 2) its a hobby.
I've tried fixing stuff on my Golf but tbh, its no fun and as you say the saving in doing it myself is outweighed by the costs in time of doing so.
Something I was told whilst in Korea by one of the Contract Manufacturers I visited - if you see a screw in an electronic device, a human has had to install that as machines are still a bit wonky at doing this at this small size (nuts and bolts on cars can be done but even this needs human interfacing). What you are seeing far more of is clip together, glued and plastic-welded components... thats because you can program a robot to do this. I've watched an entire production line of *a particular well-known electronic product (not L6)* being made where from start to finish, there is no human intervention. However, the product was totally unrepairable should it fail as you couldn't even open the clam shell case.
I was just looking at the PCB of a Katana and if you cropped off a 4" square of it and asked me what it was I would have said it's the PCB from an audio interface, not a guitar amp
Some things spring to mind looking at it, are the BGA chips underfilled ? .... they should be ... it's a guitar amp, it's gonna vibrate a lot ... it's not going to have a stress free life like an audio interface sat on a shelf. Will it cope with spikes and dropouts from an outside generator gig with poor regulation ? how close to their max operating voltage are those caps working at, I bet there's not the margin there should be.
I'm betting the head version will prove more reliable than the combo but I wouldn't be surprised if there are various faults emerging with these amps in the future once they have been gig'ed a lot, random freezing of DSP and that kind of thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
There are plenty of companies (mainly in China and India) who specialize in reverse engineering electronic products.
MI gear is very simple compared with most modern electronics (and actually not were the money is).
Anyway, like I say it’s a business decision - you’re welcome to your own opinion but it won’t change a thing!