A Most Dangerous Amp

Hi to all,

As some of you already know, my business involves servicing professional audio equipment including valve instrument amplifiers. Some of these amps are quite new but others are decades old.

Last week, one of the oldest examples I have ever seen arrived in the workshop carried by its proud owner. A "classic" early 1960s built Gibson GA 40 aka - the "Les Paul". It has a single chassis is fitted at the top of an open backed cabinet with a 12 inch speaker - see pic.

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The amp was made in the USA for their local market and hence the 115 volt AC power system. As you can see from the schematic it has no AC supply safety earth - standard US practice at the time.

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Instead, there is a "polarity switch " that connects a 0.02uF, 400volt DC capacitor to the chassis from one or other of the AC supply wires. Users are supposed to pick the one that causes the least humming noise !!

Now, this particular GA40 amp had been long ago converted to operate from a

240 volt AC supply. A 230/115 volt AUTO-TRANSFORMER ( also made in the USA ) had been installed in the bottom of the speaker cabinet. It was fitted with a 2 pin US type outlet and a short, black rubber " figure 8 " cable trailing out of a hole in cover plate. A dubious looking in-line join extended this cable via 2 metres of round black rubber cable finally ending in an Aussie 3 pin plug.

Safety problems:

  1. The short figure 8 cable (carrying 240 volts AC ) was covered in open cracks allowing the tinned copper conductors to be seen and touched.

  1. The 230 /115 volt auto-transformer was wired with its common connection going to the 240 volt AC active wire.

  2. Because of #2, the "polarity switch" connected the amplifier's * FLOATING * chassis to either 120 volts AC or 240 volts AC via the now 45 year old, 0.02 uF, film cap.

  1. Such film caps are not rated to withstand 240 volts AC and commonly fail short when made to do so.

When I enquired, the owner admitted he sometimes receiving " shocks " from the amp and had no idea what the "polarity switch " was for. He also revealed that his 6 year old daughter liked to plug mic into the amp and sing through it.

Given that mics and electric guitars connect people directly to the metalwork of any amplifiers they are being used with - the whole situation was highly lethal.

Suffice to say, the old amp now has a modern 3 core lead supplying the auto-transformer, the transformer's frame is wired to the AC supply ground pin and the chassis of the amp is permanently wired to the frame of the transformer. The oversized and very dangerous 0.02 uF film cap ( referred to as a "death cap" in the USA) has simply been removed.

....... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison
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Hi Phil, a good warning to those that have these things. The auto-transformer bit pricked up my ears, then to hear that a 6-year old is handling it - scary shit.

... J

Reply to
Johnny Boy

"Phil Allison" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

How was the hum performance after the mod, was the customer happy with it?

Reply to
Geoff C

"Geoff C"

** Perhaps I need to explain what a "polarity switch" does on a guitar amp in the USA.

Up until the early 1970s, US domestic power outlets were of the two pin variety with an active and a neutral pin with 110 to 125 volts AC @ 60 Hz across them - with * NO * provision for earthing the appliance. The neutral conductor was held close to ground potential by connecting it to an earth stake at the street pole or elsewhere. This worked well enough for domestic appliances like lamps, heaters, electric jugs, vacuum cleaners and radios etc.

However, a guitar amp is another matter. Because of its high voltage gain and high input impedance at audio frequencies, the chassis needs to be earthed in order to minimise capacitive injection of AC line noise and 60 Hz hum picked up by a less than perfectly shielded electric guitar or mic.

When it is not earthed, an amplifier's metal chassis "floats" and will typically take up an AC voltage around half that of the AC supply due to stray capacitance in the AC supply transformer and internal AC wiring - about 50 to 80 volts AC in the USA. This AC voltage can easily be measured with a high impedance AC meter, ie a VTVM back then or a DMM nowadays.

The "solution" ( read Yankee dodge) invented by guitar amp makers was to add a paper or plastic film capacitor of about 0.02 uF to .05 uF from chassis to neutral - swamping the effect of stray capacitances and bringing the chassis voltage very close to ground potential.

The particular capacitor value was chosen to be large enough to do the trick but no so large that when linked to the AC active line the maximum AC current that flowed would cause a serious electric shock to any user who happened to be in contact with the ground ( ie bare feet) or any earthed metal. A 0.05 uF cap has an impedance at 60 Hz of 53 kohms - allowing 2.3 mA to flow.

However, since USA style two pin AC supply plugs can be inserted into the wall outlet * either way around * you never know which wire is active and which neutral inside an appliance - so makers fitted a SPDT changeover switch to allow the user could find out by trial and error. An electric guitar or mic would hum or buzz considerably less in the right ( ie neutral side) position. This switch was christened the " POLARITY " switch and was always placed right next to the AC supply on/off switch.

Such guitar amplifiers were designed to be local US models only and NEVER meant to be sold or used in ANY country with 230/240 volt AC power.

However, these amps CAN be safely converted for use with a 240 volt AC supply if connected to an ISOLATION step-down transformer. The polarity cap inside the amp cannot conduct any AC current to earth when supplied by an 240 /120 step down isolation transformer - nor can it possibly be subjected to 240 volts AC and hence fail short.

....... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

I played a gig on the roof of a bus by the beach years back and got one serious shock from my guitar and mic. Had to kick the lead out of the guitar. Stopped playing and found out later the whole thing was running on a generator. The bass player never had a problem though.

:-P

Reply to
Peter

"Phil Allison" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

And I'll bet they were not "Y" class either!

Reply to
Geoff C

"Geoff C"

** Not class "Y" nor even class "X" - not even AC voltage rated at all. Just ordinary paper, oil filed paper or mylar film caps of 400 or 600 volts DC rating.

Some US amp makers ( ie Mesa Boogie) even left 0.047uF polarity caps in place on their 240 volt AC export models sold here in the 1980s and 1990s.

After some time subjected to 240 volts AC, they simply exploded with an enormous BANG.

Scared the wits out of the amp's owners !!

...... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

Quite frankly I dont think its a problem. Anyone with a 45 year old speaker that is still in workable condition must be anal enough to know everything about it.

Reply to
Dac

"Dac" wrote in news:4525e547$0$11969$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

Hard to believe you mean that. It is certainly a potentially lethal problem, since failure of the polarity cap may mean curtains for the user.

Reply to
Geoff C

He was being facetious, doesn't anyone have a sense of humour on this group?

Friday

Reply to
Friday

Friday wrote in news:45260514$1 snipped-for-privacy@news.peopletelecom.com.au:

Only when there is humour involved.

Reply to
Geoff C

I've been about one heartbeat away from getting electrocuted by 240V, and it ain't real humourous. :-(

Bob

Reply to
Bob Parker

It hurts like shit.

Reply to
R1rob

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