F50 Problems Yet Again

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John Denver

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I am once again experiencing issues with my F50.
The volume will drop at random times and remain at like 10% of the original volume....on all channels. This is corrected by switching to standby for a few moments.

It sounded to me like a power tube issue, but i just had them replaced with a matched mesa set due to a blown screen grid resistor a month ago. The Mesa rep said i should try pre-amp tubes. Does anyone else have any ideas. I'm just worried that if it is the power tube, something else may be causing them to die? I tapped on V1 and got no noise. I wasn't sure if a pre-amp tube can cause the volume to drop and then return.... Please give me some pointers guys!
 
May be a bad Master Volume knob. I've seen it a bunch. When the amp starts shaking, the resitive element and the wiper loose contact. Most of the time it is because the pot got smacked in and the back tabs are loose so the pot is not tight. You can easily see this. Sometimes, pots just wear out fast too due to poor manufacturing.
 
I feel and hear your pain. I bought an F-50 last year in wood & wicker. It's beautiful to look at, and for the first couple of weeks sounded just incredible. After numerous volume loss/tone drop and general reliability issues and replacing all the pre-amp tubes (a couple twice because the ones MB sent me actually rattled in my hand), and the power tubes - all in an attempt to rectify my final problem (which was not so much a drop in volume as it was a total loss of volume) I ended up taking it in for service.

I haven't been able to really enjoy mine yet, and it's just killing me. The straw to break this camel's proverbial back was when this happened in the middle of a gig. It's pretty freaking embarrassing when you start the song with a great big A chord and the amp starts to stutter violently like a really bad tremolo unit that's oscillating randomly, and then finally cuts out all together. I'm happy I didn't sell my DC-3, which I fortunately DID bring with me to that gig - it saved the day admirably. I swear - I'm NEVER selling my DC-3 - never.

The guy's had it almost four weeks now, and I'm beginning to get a little perturbed. I suspect mine was damaged in transit from Petaluma to NJ. I'm not technically inclined when it comes to these things, but it definitely sounded to me like there was something that had worked itself loose inside the amp.
 
Yeah like BB said, it could be a bad master pot.

In the circuit, since the FX loop is located after the master volume in the audio signal path, you can check if the problem lies with the pot by plugging a line level audio source into the FX return (your ipod, output of podxt or computer etc) and using the FX Mix as the volume control. If you have the same problem, it mean it's your poweramp.

Try this and let us know.

Good luck
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Sorry to hear that plumptone, let me know what ended up happening with yours.....as i think we are in the same situation. I'll try the FX loop test this weekend. I'm gonna get some spare tubes just in case to see if that will help too. Man i don't want to send this back to the tech.....only 1 month since he looked at it!
 
if anyone can give me a reason not to trade this obviously beaten to hell amp i supposedly bought new for a 5:50.....i'd love to hear it. I just worry i'll be doing this dance for a while. I mean the reverb tank was dead, it burned out screen grid resistors after about 2 weeks. Maybe not a tube issue.....so lets hear why i shouldn't chuck it to the curb for a 5:50.....my dealer has one
 
I was having some volume issues with my F50...not bad, but I would notice it from time to time. Last night I checked my pots and a couple on channel 2 were just slightly loose, but I noticed the gain pot was looser even than those 2...not real bad, but I could definitely see some play if I gently pulled/pushed on the knob. Anyway, unscrewed each and tightened them up with a pair of pliers and had no issues last night

But hey, if you feel the amp is a lemon and you can still get your money back, it might not be a bad idea!
 
Try inserting a patch cable between the send and return on the FX loop. Oddly, my Express did some "Fading" after trying it out and a patch cable was a temp fix.

I talked to boogie and they said to spray the ends of the cable with contact cleaner (DeOxit) and insert them in and out of the jacks and twist and it should go away. I haven't gotten a chance to do it yet though we got nearly a foot of snow dumped on us today.
 
Good ideas to try with the FX loop and volume/gain pots. I had another idea that occurred to me.....i can't try anything on my amp till saturday, so i'm just thinking too much i guess. I noticed when i used the headphone/recording line out running into a mixer to digital 8-track, the sound was "crackly" and terrible.....i'm not anal about audio tracking in the least...this was completely unusable....it wasn't right. So i am now thinking that since that line out is before the power tubes, that maybe this is really a pre-amp tube issue. If one was dying, would that cause volume drops? I've never read that anywhere....volume drops always seem to point to power tubes from what i've read. Can anyone confirm/reject this?

side note: when the volume does drop, the sound is also distorted and crackling......much like the recording/phones out sound.
 
The more you say the more I think that loose pots could be the problem. It's really easy for the knobs on these amps to get knocked and pushed on...the amp is quite heavy, I even feel them up against my leg when I'm carrying it, even when I'm trying to be careful, and any pressure on the knobs will cause the pots to push against the casings and since the casings are only held shut by metal tabs, enough pressure will cause them to bend open and pretty soon it's loose. When the casing is loose, the brushes inside don't have solid contact, which could result in volume loss...and if the contact is really loose to the point of barely touching, you could hear crackling as the brushes intermittently lose and regain contact. And it could be any pot...not just gain and volume. If you turn down all the tone pots on this amp there is no volume, so they will affect your volume as well.

It's really easy to check. If you need it, I can give you step-by-step instructions on how to pull out the chassis and check/fix the pots.
 
That would be great! Like i said, i'm gonna try and mess around with the amp this weekend....and that sounds like something i should definately look into. Thanks in advance!
 
Okay, here are step-by-step instructions to pull out the chassis and check for and/or fix any loose pots. First, the usual disclaimer about opening up tube amps: Tube amp circuits can hold LETHAL charges even if turned off and unplugged. It's best to let the amp sit turned off and unplugged for a while before opening it up to make sure all the capacitors have drained so you don't get shocked (I often do this kind of thing in the evening when I get home from work). It's unlikely to happen, but when fully charged, those capacitors can deliver lethal shocks. Just be careful and don't touch anything you don't need to...the pots themselves should be safe.

To Remove the Chassis: Remove the aluminum bar from the back of the amp, remove the power tubes (you can leave the preamp tubes in), then unplug all the cords and cables (power, footswitch, reverb, speaker, etc making note of what goes where, especially in the case of the two RCA plugs for the reverb). Then unscrew the screws on the top of the amp and pull them out. The chassis will lower a bit as you loosen these screws, so you may want to hold onto it, but it won’t lower too far, as there are wooden rails there that will keep it from dropping more than an inch or so. Then carefully pull the chassis out the back of the amp…you’ll have to lift it a bit to get it out and it’s heavier than you might expect, but if you lift it a bit it should come out pretty easily…I usually hold onto one of the transformers to lift it.

Checking the Pot Casings: Once you have the chassis out, set in on a flat surface (it will sit nicely on the transformers on a flat surface), then go one by one with each knob, pushing/pulling gently on each one while watching the pot. There will be a bit of play in all of the knobs, but you should not see the pot or its casing moving. If there is movement this pot it could be the culprit.

For any that are loose, remove the knob (there is a little set screw on each knob that you’ll need to loosen up so you can pull the knob off), then remove the nut holding the pot to the chassis. Push the pot back into the chassis and lift it up and out. Then you can tighten the tabs back down with a pair of pliers (you do not need to disconnect the wires, they are long enough to let you work on it with them connected). Put the pot back in place, and put the nut back on. Once you've made sure all the casings on the pots are tight put it all back together in the reverse order. The only thing that might be a bit tricky is getting the chassis lined up so that the screws that go in the top go into their holes in the chassis, but if you line the front of the chassis up with the front of the grille you shouldn’t have too much trouble. And make sure you put the power tubes back in before you turn the amp back on!!.

Hope this will do it for you. If you have any questions, let me know.
 
dude that sucks to hear

my f50 hasnt had a problem sinve ive gotten it bout 3 months ago, and i carry it aroudn quite a bit! :p
 
You could also replace the Preamp tubes 1 at a time with a known to be good tube. This might be easier than opening the amp up.

I have seen a few pots with this problem. :lol: I've overtightened a few too, and caused this problem. It's pretty easy to do. Squeazing the little clips so that it tightens the pot up is definitely easy to do too.


Make sure that you do not leave any marks on the amp where you have opened it up. Otherwise, you might loose your chance to take it back and exchange it.
 
Thanks a lot Surfcaster.....that seems very straight forward. I was doing some reading, and it sounds like a bad driver tube describes my problem. The driver tube is V4 in the F50.....which was not easy to find out...why couldn't they call it the phase splitter in the manual....as it is on the tube task chart. Oh well......i'll try that first and then check the pots.

As an aside question:

Could a failed driver tube kill my power tubes? If so, how quickly? Does tapping a bad driver tube help to diagnose it like the other pre-amp tubes?
 
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