Do you leave your rig switched on?

[buffordbass]

I too use the 1 hour rule... if it is less than an hour til showtime, I just leave everything on and muted at the TU-2 tuner. If it's more than an hour, I turn it off... I'll have to get back 10-15 minutes before show time and turn it back on, but I also unplug my SR4 so i dont burn up the battery.... it's active the whole time a cord is plugged in. If its been an hour I also want to re-check tuning... temp changes and all, you know!!

 

[ihateusernames]

on, never thought to turn it off. mute at amp or multi-effects between sound-check and start time or between sets. of course, i'm always setting up and checking within an hour of start because of my work schedule. when using tubes i just flip the ol standby switch.

 

[A9X]

About turning stuff on and off, this is not only true for amps. I work in industrial instrumentation and control systems. A certain additive scale manual said "avoid turning off and on". We turned this controller on for loop test(make sure it works)and then off. When it got powered up again, it cratered. The manufacturer said FOUR WEEK DELIVERY but bosses want it running next week. I opened the POS up and found the power supply capacitors were running at 1 volt below their rating so every time you turn it on(spike voltage) it's getting slammed with most likely a voltage spike higher than its rating and blowing a capacitor out. Replaced the marginal capacitor with one rated at twice the operating voltage. No more problems.

I've been in this situation so many times with gear when I was doing maintenance work. It often surprised me how often it would happen with LV devices in >$100k gear where the extra few cents parts cost would be trivial compared to the reputation for unreliability some of them got. During downtime we used to open gear up and replace anything too close to spec.

 

[Petebass]

I leave mine on for 2 reasons:-

1) As already mentioned, electronic components have a tenancy to fail at start-up more so than while in use.

2) The #%^& switch is at the back where I can't reach it. I have the same gripe about tweeter attenuation knobs, but that's a whole new thread......