To be fair, every manufacturing operation I've seen in Japan and China does the soldering with robots, but the rework/repair with people.
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TRACE-ELLIOT ELF SCHEMATIC
- Thread starter steve pearce
- Start date
To be fair, every manufacturing operation I've seen in Japan and China does the soldering with robots, but the rework/repair with people.
I'll bet you lunch wherever you like that most of that "rework/repair" is board swaps.... like the vast majority.
And I'm not even deriding robots. They are much more precise than humans. You run my dad through an MRI or hook my kid up to an EKG and I HOPE it was assembled by robots. "Point to point hand wired" is a quaint notion. But it's neither efficient nor accurate.
If nothing else by plugging the Elf's speaker cable into another amp you shorted the Elf's power amp driving the sleeve of the cable to ground. Bridged amps don't like that at all.
If you're very lucky Peavey might have a program where you send them a failed amp and they send you a new one at a charge.
If you're very lucky Peavey might have a program where you send them a failed amp and they send you a new one at a charge.
yeah that's my thinking too, except never considered an exchange. Interesting concept and a good idea, will keep you all posted.so far I'm betting on me going back to Ashdown but in the two days I had it I liked the TE one so will keep an open mind. Customer service and after care response says a lot to me.
The guy in the video below does "impossible" (according to the manufacturer) component level repairs on popular laptops. He does it with salvaged components and unauthorized schematics obtained from dubious sources. He is obviously a genius, but still proves that you can make quite complicated repairs, if you have the gumption.
He took a task that many would consider a waste of time, which is completely unsupported by the manufacturer and made a career out of it. He performs repairs and shows how to do what the manufacturer simply will not do... in fact, the manufacturer has been actively trying to stop the burgeoning repair community.
He took a task that many would consider a waste of time, which is completely unsupported by the manufacturer and made a career out of it. He performs repairs and shows how to do what the manufacturer simply will not do... in fact, the manufacturer has been actively trying to stop the burgeoning repair community.
Magic Smoke?There's no shortage of magic smoke however...
IMHO this is the repair cost:
Trace Elliot ELF 200-watt Micro Bass Head
$ 299.99
I wouldn't hold your breath on support documents. I recently emailed Eden (Marshall) requesting a schematic for my 2001 WT-400. I couldnt find the WT-PS1C module anywhere online. They wouldn't send any documents, even though I worked in a repair shop authorized for Eden and Marshall from 2003 to 2006. They didnt care, only cared that I do not currently work in that shop. Jerks. I figured it out (copper and silkscreen polarity markers didnt match) but it would have been nice to have a full schematic for my amp.
I should have bought a Mesa; WD800 is my next amp.
As far as small soldering, the SMT boards are assembled by a pick-and-place machine (places parts onto the bare board after solder paste is screened on) and then ran through a reflow machine (kind of like a pizza oven) Getting parts off is easy with the right equipment, like the desoldering tweezers, hot air station, or a hotplate. (And liquid flux!) We get IPC certified to NASA-8739.6/J-STD-001 at work, so it's a way of life now.
As a person with decent technical skills, I think I could troubleshoot my old Tubeworks amps but I would be reticent to prod the inside of my GB Shuttle 6.2. Luckily, I have no call to do either.
I know there's a pervasive feeling that we smart people should be able to fix our stuff. It's an affront to our common sense, self-reliance (and maybe pride) that nowadays we crack something open and look dumbly at it. We just feel like we should be able to dive in and make all right. We don't want to see this stuff go to the landfill, regardless how inexpensive it is to replace. But let's face it, today's technology has outpaced a lot of our skills and manufacturers have little incentive to make equipment readily repairable, aside from board swaps.
(* Steps down from soapbox *)
I know there's a pervasive feeling that we smart people should be able to fix our stuff. It's an affront to our common sense, self-reliance (and maybe pride) that nowadays we crack something open and look dumbly at it. We just feel like we should be able to dive in and make all right. We don't want to see this stuff go to the landfill, regardless how inexpensive it is to replace. But let's face it, today's technology has outpaced a lot of our skills and manufacturers have little incentive to make equipment readily repairable, aside from board swaps.
(* Steps down from soapbox *)
Well, look at it this way: Even if you had all the tools and lab equipment needed to do this, there's still an extremely high probability that you couldn't repair it unless you had the schematics...and you'll never get the schematics.
Sorry to hear about your fried amp, this sucks.
Hope you get it fixed. Meanwhile, if you have it open, be sure to post in the Gut Pics thread...
Amp Guts Photos - Official Thread - Lets see those pics
I might take the failed amp apart to examine the build quality to consider whether or not I would want another one. It doesn't seem that amp is especially well designed though, mistakenly plugging amps into other amps is not that uncommon. I had some one do that to me, a guitar player thought it would be just fine to share my speaker cabinet. The Ashdown howled in protest but fortunately continued to work after the insults stopped.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,035
- 5
- 220,956
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Plugging an amp's outputs into the output of another amp is a tough fault to protect against. There are many undefined unknowns depending on individual designs.
In spite of best intentions, no protection circuits are perfect.
In spite of best intentions, no protection circuits are perfect.
Careless unlucky misplacement of the bare end of a 1/4'' speaker end, temporarily shorting the amp, might be all the protection is good for.
I'm talking specifically about board repairs here, not complete device repairs. When the boards fail QC, they go to a person for rework or scrap. Same when they come in under RMA. I am not saying Trace does that with their amps, but I am saying that humans absolutely solder those little things on much more expensive devices.
Next time I'm out on the eastern side of the state, I'll hit you up
According to the owners manual, the speaker output is bridged, meaning that both terminals of the output jack carry speaker-level signal. If this is plugged into a typical 1/4" signal input, then one of the two speaker terminals is being shorted to ground.
https://www.traceelliot.com/resources/te-elf-om.pdf
Note in edit: Most of the other "micro" heads are this way too. It would seem overly complicated to build a bridge-mode amp for such a low power level, but with Class-D as I understand it, there are some advantages relative to how the amplifier circuit draws current from the power supply, that make the overall design simpler and more robust.
https://www.traceelliot.com/resources/te-elf-om.pdf
Note in edit: Most of the other "micro" heads are this way too. It would seem overly complicated to build a bridge-mode amp for such a low power level, but with Class-D as I understand it, there are some advantages relative to how the amplifier circuit draws current from the power supply, that make the overall design simpler and more robust.
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I'm talking specifically about board repairs here, not complete device repairs. When the boards fail QC, they go to a person for rework or scrap. Same when they come in under RMA. I am not saying Trace does that with their amps, but I am saying that humans absolutely solder those little things on much more expensive devices.
Next time I'm out on the eastern side of the state, I'll hit you up
Do it!
I am happy to report that your assertion is incorrect. The variability of human work far exceeds that of automatic assembly so I, having worked much of my career in industries where discrete assembly is done, will take the consistence and reliability of automatic assembly nearly every time. Exceptions exist but they are just that: exceptions.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I wrote. The assembly is absolutely done by machines. Rework after failed QC (which was in my entire post had you quoted it) is rarely done by machine. It's done by a human. It was actually the most surprising thing to me on my first factory visit. I have seen this time and again visiting manufacturers in Asia. I never claimed that people are building the devices by hand. I said that rework is often done by people, indicating that it is indeed a possible option for a determined person.
