Fender combo. Owner complained that sound level varied, or sound went off altogether for brief periods, after a half hour of use. Additional symptom was that the status LEDs on the footpedal flickered. He said that he'd looked it up on the net, and many people had reported that this problem was caused by the two ceramic feed resistors in the low voltage + and - rails, having bad joints. OK, we've all seen this, I guess. Anyways, unit would not fault on my bench, and no amount of pushing, prodding, poking, bashing, heating or freezing, would provoke it, so reluctantly, I had to remove the main board to get a look behind it. I say reluctantly, because it's a bit of a long winded job involving removal of all of the (grub screwed) knobs, pot nuts and washers, jack nuts and washers etc. When the board was out, I had a really detailed look at all the joints with a powerful light and my headband magnifier, but no joints actually looked bad anywhere, including on the two ceramic resistors. So I went for the Mr Cook test and grabbed the wires on those resistors one by one with pliers, and pulled. And Lo! On the third one, it pulled cleanly and easily from the joint, leaving the now dreaded 'volcano' behind. How much longer are we going to have to put up with this crap ? It's not as if it's the quick 'good little earner' that bad joints used to be when you could find them in a minute or two with a Biro pen, a can of freezer, and a Mk I eyeball ...
Arfa