Anyone's old mesa smell like its burning?

[newtomesa]

Not the burning smell you get from matches or an open fire, kind of like a stale smell like dust burning.

I completely took apart my mark III, cleaned all the surfaces with a sponge (cause believe me, this thing was insanely dusty, it had this orange dust all over the amp, I first thought the power tubes were gold tinted!! :shock: ).

I took a look inside to see if the pcb was fried or if any of the caps were leaking, but no dice. Everything looks to be in tip top shape.

Evey time I fire it up and that fan gets going, it smells bad :? .

Any clues/remedies? Also, I thought I should mention that the amp does not get overly hot, it feels warm completely within reason.
Thanks!

 

[Russ]

You might be smelling dust burning.
When you wiped things down with the damp sponge yo umay have left a residue albeit thin of dust mud that turned into a faint hazing. This will still burn and smell bad. I would check to be sure that nothing has fallen into the fan or that the fan isn't itself burning up. Sometimes the brushes in a fan may start to go bad and you will get a bad smell.

 

[newtomesa]

I did pry open the fan to clean the bearings with contact cleaners, I did not notice any foreign objects or any smell coming from it.

I just realized I still have a few of the original preamp tubes in the amp which, although wiped down, are potentially still dusty. I'll know when my new tubes come in (in a day or two).

Thanks for the fan idea though, i may have missed something. If the new tubes don't fix the problem, I may look into a new fan.

 

[Dirt123]

Re: Anyone's old mesa smell like its burning?

Only when I'm Smokin'!

 

[newtomesa]

:lol: