I've never seen a guitar amp damaged that badly before. Very educational Stuart. Hey people. When something on your amp doesn't work take it to a repair person. Don't hit or kick your amp.
Was gonna say the same thing. The good ol' thump on the amp to get something to work should be used once or maybe twice in a pinch to get thru a gig or rehearsal. After that, straight to a good tech to have the problem diagnosed. Original problem(s) was probably fairly minor and would have been relatively inexpensive to repair.
@@wadesummers4102 , I am old enough to know that thumping the cabinet to get an electronic device to work again is only effective on American made products!🤣
Yes anything is repairable, but at a large cost of time.
6 месяцев назад
This was super helpful! My blues jr recently was smelling like burning and I took the back off to see that pod 7 where the first el84 is burned just like this one. It didn’t burn up the whole board like the one in this video but now I will for sure not be using it and getting repaired before it does!! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks to viewer Simon for pointing out that this is quite a common fault caused by poor pcb design on the valve board.See this jpfamps.com/upgrade-pcb-for-fender-blues-junior/
Hey Stuart, thanks for publishing. Once again a very interesting scenario. What a mess..! The guy was unlucky, with all that banging it decided to bite back. Good for some spares I suppose, especially the cabinet. Cool vid..Ed..uk..😀
So far my 1998 Blues Jr has served me well. I've done the usual stuff including cap job, cooler bias, improved input jack etc but so far haven't had to resort to "percussive maintenance" to solve any issues. I think if mine flamed out like that one I'd just use it as an extension speaker or maybe a foot rest.
That is amazing! I guess when you have to hit an amp to make it work, it's time for a fix. Or just keep hitting it and yell, "Rock-N-Roll" as it burns. Great look at a catastrophe. Thanks Stuart.
Meanwhile, I'm still buying and servicing and playing hand wired Fender amps from the 1960's and 1970's with no problem. My latest is a 1969 Bandmaster Reverb that I replaced all of the electrolytics, doghouse resistors, bias supply and added a bias trim pot (Rob Robinette modification). And I've never had to "smack" any of my amps to get them to work! (The Bandmaster did have a bad solder joint which could have occurred in shipping-see my troubleshooting YT video).
I fully agree BUT how much would those amps cost today to have made and purchase may I ask? Something like 3K? The amp in this video is cheap and that's because it's cheap for a reason. Have a 1971 HIWATT DR 103 that my father purchased the year I was born. When he passed away it was passed down to me and has been in use for over half a Damn century (With service of course and a Bias mod to cool it down as modern production valves just are not as good and it was even Biased hot back in the day) Service is expensive but I just had one about 3 years ago with a full recap and one new pot and is going strong to this day and is in wonderfully good condition. I do not use it as much as I would like because everyone in my house hates the thing, but they do understand. Have no idea what it is worth and I could care less as its just one of those things I will never let go but I am sure that having one built today would not be cheap.
@@shane011471 Good point. The Bandmaster Reverb listed for $350 in Fender's Oct 1969 price list. That's about $2,853 in today's dollars. I paid $999 in Jan, 2023, plus about $50 in parts to service it, including a used Amperex GZ34 for $12. (it came with a 5U4). Edit: Someone is asking $3,323 for a 1972 Hiwatt DR103 from 1972 on Reverb.
@@MichaelSmith-rn1qw Hell Yes my friend! Rock On. You could never find any amp that well made for the money that you spent. (Current production crap) Use the hell out of it and enjoy it!
@@MichaelSmith-rn1qw I appreciate it very much, but I could care less on it's value! Every time I plug into it, I have nothing but joy looking back at life (If that makes any Damn sense) and having one and used inside a home is just plain stupid in every respect, but I do not care! I think the amp sounds wonderful and brings me joy AND sadness at the same time. Treat every day as it was your last!
Wow that is quite extra ordinary. Something has pulled a heck of a lot of current for that to burn so badly. I’d save the transformers and maybe speaker, chassis and cab and build a simpler circuit out of it. All that trouble due to a dodgy reverb and hitting the amp when a new mox or mod reverb could have been had on ebay for about 20quid. There are some after market valve boards available for the blues junior as well.
@@gerardoromano3436 oh, didn't know that this amp line is made in Mexico, makes sense now (I also speak and write Spanish, hence why I found it interesting). Thanks for the info.
I've just had arcing on my BJ V2 from one of the big electrolytic caps to a nearby resistor. It's always something with these things... Tired of fixing it only to get meh... tones. I'm out.
Even though the customer could buy another Blue's Jr online for "200 quid or so", I would advise him not to. All of the modern Fenders have issues with thin/flimsy circuit boards with tiny solder pads and foil traces that fail, hot-running parts mounted right against the board, and lead-free solder connections that break down prematurely. Fenders with EL84's are particularly problematic because they run the tubes at very high dissipation, flogging the tubes like rented mules so that they short circuit and fail prematurely and end up doing damage to the amplifier. If the guy insists on buying another modern Fender he really should bring it to a tech and have the soldering redone and the filter caps changed *before the amp develops problems*, otherwise he'll just find himself in the same position soon enough.
Correct as Fender makes crap now. I will say that these amps are not expensive so maybe it just comes down to the old saying "You Get What You Pay For"
That's just the kind of amp I like. It's a good learning project. I would take the effort to repair it, if it worked, then good, if not, then nothing lost. Either way I would gain some new skills or buy some new tools. Definitely not worth paying for a repair like that on a common amp. I don't know if board problems are common on these amps, but in general, modern boards are a bit thin on the traces. I have a 1977 Peavey and the traces are super thick and heavy, like 5 or 6 mm wide and the boards themselves are probably 2.5 or 3 mm thick. It would take a nuclear bomb to damage those boards
@stuartukguitarampguy5830 I know. I have a pile of "project" amps and radios that I plan on fixing at some point. I decided this year to not take on any new projects and instead focus on the ones I have. I've already scrapped a Marshall VS102R that's been laying around for 3 years- the power board was hopelessly shorted. No loss, I kept the 2 creamback speakers and sold the rest as spare parts to another hobbyist, so I about broke even My next nightmare is a modern Peavey Tour 700 bass amp with surface mounted components and a cutting off problem. We'll see how that goes 😉
Don't Do It ! I had the same issue with a friends amp. The amp didn't burn up like yours there, however, the board was so corroded, and the ribbon cables were breaking at the boards. You have to replace the ribbon cables with strait point to point soldering. I am the best solderer I know. I did it for Millitary when I worked defence equipment. The amp took me to solder hell and snowballed at every attempt . The board ar terrible. Sad thing is, I have the same amp for 15 years now. It works great and I think this will be the best time to sell it.
Yikes. I wouldn't even bother taking it in to a tech.😂. Chalk it up as a loss and start shopping for a new amp. That's what the Brits would call "completely and utterly knackered"
@@ryanrobles3501 Hi Ryan Yes both available (and the burned pcbs). You can have them all FOC if you can collect (or pay the shipping). If you want them contact me directly via the email address on the splash screen at the end of all my vids. Thanks
Wow, that is not only poor design, but downright dangerous. No amp short of being directly struck by lightning, should burn like that! The owner is lucky that he only lost the amp and not his house!
Ah interesting thanks James. I have a soft spot for them but they definitely do have a handful of annoying basic design errors which lead to maintenance issues.
You should amend your comment to say "not very impressed with modern Fender amps that use circuit boards". If you had a 1960s or 1970s handwired amp with the old fashioned island board you'd be more impressed. Although I prefer handwired amps with turret or islet boards, printed circuit boards can be done well enough to be reasonably reliable and serviceable, but Fender has never made the engineering decisions necessary to make their PCB amps reliable for the long term. Even the special and expensive modern so called handwired offenders pretty much suck considering what they cost. As for Peavey, they were very reliable amps in their day but the original American company is long gone and now they're just a hollow shell of what they used to be (and some Peavey amps like the much-liked Classic 30 sound great but are a nightmare to repair).
@@goodun2974 I agree with your statement in general. However, It does sound - from Stuart's description - that this amp was continually banged on in order to get the reverb to work. Not a good thing, no matter the amp. I'd call this one operator error.
@@wadesummers4102 , The circuit boards, the foils, and the solder connections are way too skimpy and fragile to take much physical abuse. I wouldn't even call them roadworthy; probably not really able to hold up well to the vibration and shock of being bounced around from gig to gig in a Van or truck. So yes, definitely operator error involved here, except that to some extent these amps should haven built ruggedly enough be able to handle that kind of mechanical shock. The EL84 tubes, however, are run so hot and hard in these amps that banging on the amp while it's turned on and everything is hot runs the risk of causing a shorted output tube. By the way, Stewart mused several times that he was surprised the plus fused didn't blow, but I didn't see him check the fuse to see if it was of the correct type and value; it's possible that it had blown a fuse in the past and the amp's owner might have replaced it with a higher value, or subbed a slowblow fuse where it should have been a fastblow, or something like that. Although sometimes by the time a fuse blows it's way too late anyway!
@@garymoore3497 I'm with Stuart on this one. This is not an easy or time-wise cost effective repair. The reliability would also be questionable when the boards are this badly chard. They will no doubt be carbonized internally. No amount of track repair or cleaning will stop leakage. The bias will not settle and with 450 volts ht it will most likely track again. Given the amps life on the road, bodged wire pcb track repairs wont cut it with vibration. Expect no help from fender as parts are now warranty period only. The sub valve board is available from a company ebay but not the main board. I have spent many hours replacing the snapped off ribbons which break easily when trying to remove the boards. You only have one or two attempts at removal before this happens. Easy to prevent how? Who knows what customers subject their amps to. Humidity including damp,and the ingress of beer! Vibration form transit in vehicles to gigs. Condensation is a common cause when the amp is left in cold vehicles overnight and then brought indoors. I think this ship has sailed and on its way to Valhalla. I do however admire your optimism of easy repair ..
They are not robust enough to be abused. Crappy thin boards, crap components, weak ribbon cables, crap pots and a crap speaker. I am surprised they sound as good as they do. They are NOT a good value amp. Shame on Fender for profit chasing. Strip out the bits that are OK for spares. Bin the rest 🙂
