Magic Smoke Released.......

Everything can be fixed. If it is something relatively simple, a tech can repair it for not a lot of money. Is the amp worth an evaluation and estimate?

 

maybe get agedhorse to have a quick look at the pics and possibly give you an idea what could have blown

 

No doubt the folks who used to maintain Carvin amps are still alive, still have documentation and may even have spares. I wouldn't write it off yet. Of course if you are just looking for GAS justification that's another story.

 

Carvin support is non-existent for products no longer being sold.

 

I don't think that's the area of failure, though of course it's impossible to know for sure without diagnosis.

Generally, I would expect to see burned or fractured parts from those symptoms, plus parts that have failed but are not visually obvious.

When an amp fails in bridged mode, often the damage is more significant because the opposite channel becomes exposed to the extreme conditions as well.

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that there may be parts on the underside of the PCB and under the heel of the heatsinks that are compromised. The most common fault timeline is that a failure in the amplifier places an extreme failure on the power supply, so when repairing its critical to isolate the 2 likely damaged areas and insure that each is fully repaired before deisolating them for final testing.

In practice, test jigs are often used to do this, with a current limited supply for testing the amp portion (this is a class AB/G/H amp) and a source limited supply for testing the SMPS.

Imo, it's probably going to cost more to repair than to buy a used replacement.

 

Sounds like a Carvin !
I've had two and they both did this exact same thing.
Which is maybe the reason why they don't sell amps anymore.

P.s. That Dug pedal is awesome sauce for tone

 

Close call.

For a minute I thought you'd hurt your FF.

 

Time to switch to a QSC

 

Hmmm...I'm thinking back to that Seattle GTG a couple of years ago (2017?) where your 1515/66 cab put my very robust plate amp into protect mode nearly instantly. Thet's the only time in 12 years that's happened.

 

Time to check the FF for wiring faults or speaker shorts?

 

It was fine with Rob's Carvin at the GTG, and I think with my smaller amp too. Something subtle in the crossover would be my WAG.

 

Now that you mention this, I recall troubleshooting an issue with a cabinet like this for somebody here on TB. The speaker caused any amp based on the IcePower technology to go into protect. Since the IcePower modules include some additional protections beyond what lower level platforms offer, they detected a potentially fatal resonant condition caused by a defective crossover design (illegal loadvto the amp) and shut the amp down protecting the amp.

With this additional information, perhaps this issue is part of the root cause of this failure too (for different reasons since it's not class D)

Can you post the crossover schematic that you used?

 

Had one do it the first night of ownership. At a gig. Driving the PA.

Go get a QSC.

 

If it's one of the crossovers with a printed board could it be something jumping traces or like that? Or more component value problems?

My boards were sort of built with giving a mind to lots of room and over-build, since I knew I'd be throwing lots of voltage in its direction.







I have been in both from time to time to make sure that the connections and mounting has remained firm.

 

My crossover isn't the same as the 'standard' one in most of these cabs...but I used Peavey IPR3000's (a few different iterations) run bridged and had similar failures in both which were a single capacitor going that caused a high-pitched whine. One of the amps later also ended up with fan-noise leaking into the output when using an unbalanced input signal that even Peavey was at a loss to explain and said they'd never had happen. They actually asked if I'd send the amp to their engineering department for diagnosis rather than service.

...since moving to a single high powered Hypex based amp, I've not had a problem.

 

It's very much dependent on some attempts at impedance compensation within the crossover that was the cause of the problem. I provided a modification that solved the problem.

Some amps worked ok, some blew up, and some went into protect mode. This is why amp manufacturers put (or SHOULD PUT) so much effort into thorough protection schemes. There are enough absurdly stupid speaker/crossover designs (especially in, but not exclusive to the DIY community) that present illegal loads to amps that it's prudent to protect against such mistakes (or intentional foolishness).

 

I'd never even heard of impedance compensation circuits! I've just about grasped the concept after doing some reading. I can see there could be some potential to stuff up with something relatively complicated like that, but are they *useful* in our context?