Here I go very crazy, breaking down a dead abandoned Marshall JCM2000 TSL amplifier and rebuilding it in a JCM800 style with a handbuilt circuitboard. Part 1 from project start to modifying the chassis.
That was very nice of your customer ! This will be a rewarding project I'm sure. I love gutting fender hot rod amps and making 5f6a bassman or plexis or jcm amps. Sure beats buying transformers , speakers , chassis etc etc. One of my upcoming amps will be converting an origin 50 mashall to a 1987 ..
You know... I also have a deadish DSL100H here sitting right next to it. Owner has abandoned it at my workshop, who knows it may come to a similar fate.
Hell yea, will watch that one too if you record that project. Took me about 3 months since it was my first build with a lot of help. The transformers were long gone so the power supply had to be redesigned to run what we had. Now it's what the DSL should have been, stock plexi on channel 1, footswitchable extra gain stage in front of the plexi for channel 2. Dual master volume to balance the channels. May try to add a footswitchable solo boost eventually. Might be biased since I built it but holy shit it's the sound I've been chasing for the 15 years I've been playing.
I completely understand your hate for complex Marshall designs like the JCM2000 and TSL series and so on. I am on the same page. I am not a guitar amp tech but I do soldering jobs on a daily basis and I am learning guitar amp designs. However I got myself a DSL100H (Vietnamese version) and the design is quite good in comparison to those multiple PCB designs. Definitely not the simpliest design like the JCM800 but nonetheless very workable. Only 1 big PCB that can be flipped to work under it. I am not sure why yours failed (the one you've shown on the video which seems to be the same model) but I would be interested to know what issue it has and why it made you hate it please. Thanks!
This one is a mystery, it came to me with what seems to be two previous episodes of arcing around the power tubes. I.e. previous arc repairs on the board + fresh arcing soot and damage. I did my best to remove arc damage and restore circuit traces, and redo poor work from some mystery previous tech. At the point it was still blowing fuses. I told the owner we need to purchase at least a new set of powertubes and a new main board + labour to have a RELIABLE amp (this came from a rental company and has no value to them if it isnt trustworthy). They then declined any further work and just abandoned it for salvage. In my last looks at it I could not say exactly what caused its problems, it may have been from the known board flaw regarding bias, or it may have been run without a speaker connected numerous times. At this time of writing I do not know for sure that the transformers are undamaged.
