I'm packing up the studio in preparation for our move, and I just started packing up my amps. As I was putting away the footswitch and power cable on my Lonestar Special, I heard a rattling when I tipped the amp back. I fiddled with it for a while, making sure it wasn't just the speaker cable rattling against something. Nope, it was coming from inside the chassis. Weird.
So I opened it up, and lo and behold there was a random "extra" capacitor rattling around loose inside of the chassis! There appears to be a solder joint that was resoldered at some point on the filter cap (I think those are the filter caps, at least). I vaguely remember bringing the amp in for service a long time ago, but I didn't remember when. Then I saw the tech's signature on the chassis from April of 2011. I don't remember what I brought the amp in for, maybe it was the first time that the rectifier tube blew (it's blown 2 or 3 times). So maybe the tech replaced one of the filter caps as part of the service? No idea. But the extra cap doesn't appear to have come off the board or anything, I think the tech just left it rattling around in there and I just noticed it for the first time nearly 13 years later.
Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
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Re: Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
I thought the same thing
At least it settled my nerves to be able to clearly see that it'd been replaced and the one that was loose in the chassis was almost certainly a spare!I wish I remembered what I sent it in for, and where I took it. I'd like to avoid taking any of my amps there again
Re: Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
That's just all-around really shoddy work. Bad solder joint and leaving an entire fucking filter cap banging around? Lol. Janky.
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vomitHatSteve
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Re: Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
That's the surprise cap for making the amp extra loud exactly one time when it shorts the wrong circuit.
Re: Interesting find inside my Mesa amp
vomitHatSteve wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 11:48 am
That's the surprise cap for making the amp extra loud exactly one time when it shorts the wrong circuit.
Yeah pretty much. That's the pyrotechnics capacitor.
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