What a goddamed pain in the ass. When they're working, Fishmans sound great. Unfortunately, eventually they all have problems. Not only did my volume pots freak out, the skin cover rotted off in chunks. I have two of their problem children but would never buy another. The Henriksens are expensive but much more reliable.
Why did you take off the knobs if you a spraying the pots from the rear ? Was it necessary? Okay perhaps just to wipe the front? I wished there was more talk Instruction & turning the area where the work was being performed. What spray was being used ?
I took the knobs off because I wasn't sure if I'd need to remove them from the panel to be able to do a thorough cleaning. It did make it easier to wipe up drips out of the front, yes. I don't remember for sure if I was using radio shack brand electronics cleaner spray or if I had graduated to Caig De-oxit; the whole reason I took this apart and got at it from the back was to address a knob that hadn't responded to being cleaned from the front. I think it's interesting to see inside equipment, but I'm not a factory trained technician and have been told I'm a bad teacher, so that's why there isn't much in the way of explanation here.
I called Fishman and I was told they didn't clean the pots n suggested not to open the amp . So on the master n gain on guitar impute I have dirty pots for the last year n half. Once I set the volume that's it . It's a small pain but do I chance opening the amp etc. ?
If it still turns on but doesn't produce any sound - not even noise as you turn the volume level up - you likely have a bad connection from the board to the speaker. I'd guess at the speaker end, but check both just to be sure. If it is making noise but not guitar/vocals, you may have a problem somewhere else on the board, but I don't have a circuit diagram with test points, so you'd have to take your best guess trying to trace out where the signal goes dead. Good luck!
Hey man are there two speakers behind the screen on this amp? A woofer and a tweeter? My mini recently went sort of mute. It still works but it’s just not as full as it was. I’m wondering if it’s because one of those speakers is blown...any info would be helpful. Thanks.
I don't remember and don't seem to have any pictures of the inside, but indications are it has a 6.5 inch woofer and a 1" tweeter. Could be a bad connection or a failing or failed driver. I had a similar experience with an Eden EX112 bass cab where I got a sudden and dramatic drop in output... The speaker had somehow gone from 10 ohms at 6kHz pulse (yeah yeah but that's the tool I have) to 48.
Had an 8 year old Fishman SA220, pulled it out of storage to sell only to find the master volume was crackly and there was generally speaking, all around static that I did not remember when I used it. I contacted Fishman tech support and they emailed me a PDF on how to disassemble and clean out the pots. When I told them my plan was to use compressed air, followed by DeoxIT style connective cleaner, they insisted I did not use anything but compressed air. Micheal from tech support told me, "the contact cleaner will dissolve the lubricant and ruin the pots." So of course I left out the contact cleaner, but went over it twice with a can of compressed air and I am back up and running. Not only is the crackle gone on the master volume, but the static is gone too. It is very very quiet, like I just opened a new box from UPS. I thought I would share this.
Most dirty pots do clean up with little more than repeated use; if they don't, it's not super difficult to get in to the back side on something like this unit, but definitely worth giving twisting a try. This one didn't respond to that, hence the video.
@@gregpetre absolutely, if not here to discuss, then why post the video, right? :) I would have done a better response earlier, but I injured an index finger and typing wasn't going well for me. I asked the amp's owner how long he had had it and been using it before he noticed a problem with the mic volume pot when I agreed to take a crack at the repair, and it was on the order of a couple of years, and the issue only showed up when he had used someone else's microphone and needed to adjust the gain for that channel. After that, it had been especially crackly, and onward through the process. Meanwhile, I have basses that will start to develop a crackle in the tone pot after just a week of being out of use and a few vigorous turns is all they ever need. I learned that from Dave, of Dave's World of Fun Stuff, in many of his videos after previously thinking a scratchy pot instantly means you had to get in the control cavity and clean it out with deoxit or whatever. Saves a lot of stress!
My friend has a loud box and it has a hum that gets worse when using the di , since there is no ground lift , what option would he have to get rid of the hum ?
If it's humming when it's not plugged into anything, there's definitely something wrong with it that needs to be addressed. Standard "check the cleanliness of connectors, filter caps for visible leaking, solder connections especially to ground, and solidity of any plug-in connectors to and from the internal power supply" are where I'd start here, but you might want to have him take it to an amp tech for evaluation, as there may be something helpful in knowing that using the XLR input makes the problem worse. Good luck!
I own an old Loudbox 100 (the grey one) and I get the feeling that they don't make them than like they used to. Mine is now 10 years old and all pots run smooth without any crackling or noises. And it got only few slight marks in the Tolex were it took a real beating.
This one, the primary user puts plenty of miles on it, but I don't know how filthy the environments get. Some of that is, I'm sure, that the pots got set to some value and then left alone for a few years, then something changed and required a pot movement. He's been happy with it since the cleaning, so hopefully it was just a case of ingested grivit. (I have gone looking for the slang term the keyboard here has identified as misspelled and I guess nobody uses the word grivit to mean speck of dust or dirt except me, oh well.)
So the top eventually came out just with effort. I don't know if it's that there was residual glue from the covering on the cabinet, or if there was shielding foil stuck to something where it shouldn't have been, but once you get it loose, it's only a matter of disconnecting the wiring inside. I think you can be more aggressive with slipping something like a putty knife down the sides of the chassis... the iSesamo I was trying to use didn't really do anything for me.
This one is one of the ones without the battery, so I don't know what you should expect for one with. The manual for the Mini Charge says it's a lead acid battery and lists care tips for long life; they say it should last up to five years if you do what they suggest. Check into that to see if you need to make any changes to how you work with your unit, I'd say. For the microphone, this amp's user just rolls with an SM58. I've tested one with an SM57 and it's fine. You won't be able to use anything that requires phantom power directly off the amp, though.
