Peavey Road Master - It's Alive!!

I have finally fixed my Peavey Road Master. Following the diagnosis a while back I have got the resistors that I needed, and replaced them (along with putting smaller LEDs in the front panel so they don't catch so easily.










And Eric the Destroyer is back in action! After all that it was a couple of duff resistors. Less than 50p's worth of parts. Feel kind of silly that it's taken this long to sort a simple problem, but I am quite new at this, plus I get the good feelings that go with having sorted the issue.

Doubleplusgood is that I can take Eric to band practice next weekend.

Peavey Roadmaster - Welp...

So, that possible solution wasn't any sort of solution.

Which leads me to the bit I'd been putting off, getting out the multimeter and painstakingly testing all the resistors.

A long time and a lot of mumbling, headscratching, and messaging Mr. Foxen on Facebook I have identified two resistors that I get no reading from, and one that is about twice the value that shows on the schematic.

This puts the potential cost of fixing the problem into the dizzying heights of about £1.50.

I really hope this is the fix I need, otherwise it's time to get experts involved.

Peavey Roadmaster - The Saga Continues

Had the lid off the Roadmaster again yesterday. Cleaned the hell out of everything I thought needed cleaning. Refreshed all the solder joints. Lugged it back upstairs, plugged it in and... still fizzy, crappy overdrive on the lead channel.

Bah.

BUT!

It appears there might be a solution.

Turns out the effects loop might be causing a problem, as even though I never use it, it's still gonna get dirty and corroded and because of the way these things are wired that might cause signal loss. So as soon as the house is awake and caffeinated I will begin diagnosis and, hopefully, I might be able to fix this problem without taking the damn thing apart again.

Effects Loops: a Problem Waiting to Happen on Diabolical Devices

Peavey Roadmaster - Testing

Welp...

That was mostly successful.

The amp works, and sounds come out of it. The clean channel is nice and warm and clear, the reverb works but is a little noisy (not imagining this being an issue with high-gain doom though).

But the lead channel is still fizzy and glitchy and cutty-outy. Which sucks.

Well, from a certain perspective it's quite cool, as it'd be useful for noise stuff, but I imagine it won't do Eric's overall health much good if I keep using it. It's a bit of a mystery as all the relevant valves tested okay and all the big caps are brand new...

I've sent Oli a message to see if he has any ideas.

Eric's Got Some Brand New Caps

Having sent my Peavey Road Master head off to Oli for general diagnosis, I now have him back along with some new capacitors. After establishing that the big filter caps weren't going to ELECTROCUTE ME TO DEATH I began unplugging and de-soldering so I could whip the boards out and replace the caps.



The de-soldering was something of a pain in the arse, not only because a lot of the stuff I de-soldered had no reason not to be some kind of plug connection, but because two of the wires I de-soldered had actually been a plug connection until the mysterious Mr. Previous Owners made something inside the amp explode and then made a bit of a pig's ear of fixing it. There are lovely scorch marks on various bits of the power board.

Anyway, with that done there was some rather more expected de-soldering to get the original caps off and then the new ones were soldered into place.





Eric himself remains in bits as it's quarter to eleven at night so I won't be able to test him anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to to that before Christmas.

Peavey Roadmaster Gut Shots

Today I added some handles to my Peavey Roadmaster head to make the thing a bit easier to carry (there were three handles originally but a previous owner decided to remove the ones at either end of the top for some reason. I can only assume he was a really strong guy), and while I had it out I decided to take some photographs of the insides.





I love how those PCBs look. Modern parallel track boards just don't have that same flowing aesthetic.