Solid State Amp Repair

Roland Cube Repair – Cube 80

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Roland Cube Repair

This Roland Cube Repair was a cube 80 from the ever popular Roland Cube range. These amps have a reputation for indestructibility and I’m not surprised. Despite their popularity and the hundreds of amp repair enquiries I receive, I’ve only ever had 3 Roland repair enquiries! Two were from the Roland Cube range, of which this is one. You’ve probably also seen the Anderton’s videos in which they set a Micro Cube on fire and shoot it at the local archery range! It survives the archery and the electronics survives the inferno (the paper speaker cone burns of course)!
Roland Cube Repair Jack Socket.jpg

But this one is not even really a faulty amp. The owner had used a cheap balanced jack as a guitar cable. Unfortunately the cable plug had disintegrated inside the amplifier, leaving a jack tip inside the input socket.

It was a relatively simple job to remove the rogue part, but I got an opportunity to admire the rigid construction of the amp whilst doing it.

If you have a Roland Cube repair you’re unusual(!), but please get in touch and I’ll get it sorted for you.

Fender Mustang Repair

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Fender Mustang Repair Internal

This Fender Mustang Repair Internal was a fiddly job, but quickly completed. Unlike many of the expensive and vintage fender valve amps that I often get in for repair, low cost amps like the Fender Mustang, whilst they represent good value for money, must be completed quickly in order for them to be economical for the customer.

fender-mustang-repair-dsp

This Fender Mustang had fallen foul of an incident involving the customer’s wife, some headphones and the hoover! The amp’s headphone jack was damaged and rendered unusable. As the sockets are quite flimsy, the cusomer asked me to ‘upgrade’ the Aux in at the same time.

Replacing jack sockets is an easy job on many amps, but this one was a little fiddly. Because of the small size of the amp, the replacement socket had to not only be sturdier than the original, but also less than 9mm long! It took a bit of searching but I was able to find one to allow me to complete the Fender Mustang repair.fender-mustang-repair-mcu

Whilst inside, I took a few photos of the ‘brains’ of the unit, a Freescale DSP and an ARM microcontroller.

If you have a Fender Mustang Repair, please send me a message

fender-mustang-repair-psu

Trace Elliot Repair – GP7SM 200W

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Trace Elliot Repair

Trace Elliot Repair – GP7SM 200W

This Trace Elliot repair is actually a service. My solid state service procedure involves the following steps:

  • Cleaning of all pots and connectors
  • Re-soldering dry or suspect joints
  • Any preventative maintenance required
  • Replacement of out of tolerance or defective components
  • Output power test.

 

I’ve seen a couple of Trace Elliot repairs in a pretty sorry state. The main cause of trouble is normally the ‘bipolar bear’ (bad electronics joke by the designer) output stage. This unit uses a lateral MOSFET output stage that is more reliable, so the customer has little to worry about. I’d recommend that owners of a Trace Elliot amp with the original stage have the output stage replaced at some point if the amp gets really heavy use.

Here’s the owner’s feedback, taken from the now extinct review site ‘www.qype.co.uk’ before it merged into ‘Yelp.co.uk’ and deleted all old reviews!
“ Rowan at Ampworks very kindly serviced my Trace Elliot GSM200 solid state head at extremely short notice. He did a thorough job of making sure everything was as it should be inside, re-soldered any suspect connections, checked the electronics and pots. I can’t recommend Rowan and Ampworks enough. John (Leicester) “(pigbobman, 28-03-2013)
Thanks for the kind words John. I’m glad you were happy with your service.

If you have a Trace Elliot Repair job that needs doing please, get in touch.