Rumble 500c lost/loses power for 1 min.

[Enrique M]

I sent the same post to the Rumble club, did not get a lot of ideas, beyond what is probably the best one -- get it looked at under warranty. In the mean time, I am curious if what I am experiencing is a known/knowable issue and what the best way for me to trouble shoot things should it happen again might be.

Last night my Rumble 500c simply cut out while I was playing at home -- total loss of power in the middle of a jam -- no red lights on, no nothing. And after about a minute it all came back on. This is the second time this has happened in the last few weeks. The first time I assumed I had a loose electrical connection some place and tightened what need to be tightened cable wise. I guess that was not the issue.

My board stayed powered, it and my amp are running off the same electrical outlet, and have been for a long time. I have acquired a few more pedal recently, including a Sushibox UA that uses a bit more power. It seems like the shut down occurred when I hit the power on my envelope filter. No clue if there is cause/effect or if it is even part of the equation.

Amp is less that one year old, I was running my board through the effects loop.

Any ideas?

 

[jimmydean]

No need to investigate , if under warranty get it fixed or better yet replaced. Fender is not big on service for the Rumble line.......hope they just replace with new one .

 

[eniac]

Is the fan working? If so, are the vents blocked and/or covered with dust?

 

[Enrique M]

Is the fan working? If so, are the vents blocked and/or covered with dust?

I think so. It is now. I seems like it was last night. But that is something for me to pay attention to if this happens again. The vents seem fine, but I did pull the amp away from the wall to give it the full 6 inches of clearance the owners manual suggests. I prob. only had 4.

Thanks for adding something to my trouble shooting list.

 

[WRM]

If you're sure it's the Amp, and it sounds like it is, go repair/warranty. Nothing you can do to fix it (no user serviceable parts).

 

[agedhorse]

Does the problem continue without the pedals or anything else except the bass? No wireless, right?

 

[Roland GR 88]

Eliminate any dodgy electrical connections like power strips and splitters. Take the pedal off the board to eliminate that and if it still cuts out use warranty for what it’s intended for.
Fender is easy enough to deal with and it will be fixed or most likely replaced for free.

Good luck

 

[Enrique M]

Eliminate any dodgy electrical connections like power strips and splitters. Take the pedal off the board to eliminate that and if it still cuts out use warranty for what it’s intended for.
Fender is easy enough to deal with and it will be fixed or most likely replaced for free.

Good luck

My whole house -- built 1938 -- is a dodgy electrical connection. But, I am working on splitting the pedals from the amp power strip wise, upgrading my powers strips, and double checking what I can in terms of my electricity. It seems like a prime suspect in this case.

 

[Enrique M]

Does the problem continue without the pedals or anything else except the bass? No wireless, right?

No wireless.

In neither case was it strictly amp and bass. The pedal board was on in both incidents, and remained on when the amp lost power. And, perhaps unwisely, my board (8 pedals, 2 iso power supplies) and amp were using the same ace hardware power strip. As of yesterday, I have changed that and am looking into upgrading my power.

I plugged the amp directly into wall yesterday, and ran my pedal board off the strip, and did my best to recreate the problem. Everything worked fine. Today, I'll go get a single outlet surge protector for the amp and a real multi outlet surge protector.

We have very funky electricity in this house, not quite green acres style, but sort of. And a very limited number of outlets. Our (meile) washing machine was definitely on when the amp shut down a couple nights ago. I do not know very much about electricity, but I am wondering about a potential surge/overheating of the amp -- which would mean my amp works fine and I have other issues to deal with.

 

[agedhorse]

Is your pedal board completely disconnected from your amp or just “bypassed”?

There is under voltage protection on this amp, when the voltage drops low (say ~100V), the amp will shut down. I don’t recall the restart time but I think it’s on the order of 10 seconds.

Don’t bother with surge protectors, that’s not the cause, nor will it be particularly useful (regardless of the marketing) because all of the necessary protection is already built into the amp.

 

[Enrique M]

Is your pedal board completely disconnected from your amp or just “bypassed”?

There is under voltage protection on this amp, when the voltage drops low (say ~100V), the amp will shut down. I don’t recall the restart time but I think it’s on the order of 10 seconds.

Don’t bother with surge protectors, that’s not the cause, nor will it be particularly useful (regardless of the marketing) because all of the necessary protection is already built into the amp.

I am not entirely sure how to answer your first question.

But I think you are asking if during my trouble shooting efforts did I completely disconnect the pedalboard from my amp. And the answer to that is yes, no cable connections of anytype between the board and the amp. I have not been able to recreate the issue.

During normal operation, and at the moment of the amp shut down, the pedal board goes/was going in through the rumbles effects loop.

My apologies if I am dense, I am new to the bass, pedal board, electricity, and trouble shooting games.

 

[agedhorse]

My first suspicion is that you are having an undiscovered issue with your pedal board.

 

[Enrique M]

My first suspicion is that you are having an undiscovered issue with your pedal board.

Boooo! But that has crossed my mind.

I wonder if running my board and my amp off the same multi-strip somehow caused a surge (or drop) in power to the Amp that caused it to shut down?

Like I said in my original post, it seems like the issue occurred when I hit the "on switch" on my envelope filter. So, I suppose I have a starting point although beyond replace the power connections (the patch cables are have been replaced recently) to the pedal, and maybe switch to a different power input on the MXR micro brick, I am not entirely sure how to proceed beyond paying attention to whether or not this particular pedal is involved if this happens again.

I have also recently added a Sushi UA that draws a little more current that my other pedals, but I have used it quite a bit with zero issues and the first time, I think, this happened the UA was not on the board.


Thanks for the intel. Maybe I will send an email to the manufacturer of the pedal, see if any thing immediately strikes them as a possibility.

 

[agedhorse]

There's no problem operating the pedal board on the same receptacle/power source as your amp.

 

[G-Dog]

We have very funky electricity in this house, not quite green acres style, but sort of. And a very limited number of outlets. Our (meile) washing machine was definitely on when the amp shut down a couple nights ago. I do not know very much about electricity, but I am wondering about a potential surge/overheating of the amp -- which would mean my amp works fine and I have other issues to deal with.

There is under voltage protection on this amp, when the voltage drops low (say ~100V), the amp will shut down. I don’t recall the restart time but I think it’s on the order of 10 seconds.

Don’t bother with surge protectors, that’s not the cause, nor will it be particularly useful (regardless of the marketing) because all of the necessary protection is already built into the amp.

I suspect the washing machine cycling an electric motor drawing more voltage, in addition to the amp, than the system can quickly handle! I've seen such appliances dim the lights in such old homes with dodgy wiring.

 

[B-string]

If your pedal board is running in the effects loop it is always interrupting the signal from the preamp to the power amp in the combo/head. If voltage dropped too low going to the pedals when you kicked in an additional pedal, the LEDs could still light, but could not have enough voltage to run the ICs.
Possible as someone else said, the power to the amp head dropped too low during a heavy current startup cycle from the washing machine. When the current requirement eased up the voltage to the amp increased and the low voltage protection released.