Too Hot Heartbreaker Head?

[mdortona]

Howdy!

I have a Heartbreaker head and just put a quad of EL-34s in her. Sounds great! Running at full power, bias switch set correctly to EL34, tube recto, and at 100 watts. However, I noticed that after playing for 30 mins or so, I started smelling something like "cooking tolex/plastic". Everything in the back was hot, but none of the power tubes were "red plating" or overly bright, just glowing blue as usual. Everything looked AOK but you can feel the heat coming out of the chasis' back vent. Is this normal? I remember my old Twin Reverb used to get quite hot too. I'm out of my league on this one and any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!


Matt

 

[Sardocasm]

Yep, that's normal. 100 watt heads will get very hot.

 

[mdortona]

Cool beans! Thanks!

 

[JOEY B.]

If the head does not have a fan, it will get very hot. My MkI would get this way as well. The guy that I sold it to called me about the heat issue. I told him that it had been that way for the last 20 years that I had owned the amp, with no problems in performance. It did make a good radiant heater, though. :lol:

 

[Octavarius]

The thing is that when some components are warmed up to extreme heat, and then cool down again. Repeatively, lots of, lots of times, they'll usually wear much faster. That's why a fan is such a good idea on amps.

 

[nosajwp]

My HB does this too...completely normal. Try not to leave anything back there that would burn easily, or block airflow for cooling.

Is it just me, or does anyone else here love that smell that a Mesa makes when it gets good and warmed up?

 

[mdortona]

Thanks gents!

Matt