Hello, steemians, and welcome to my page, eh!
My old Fender Princeton guitar amp has been buzzing more than it should for the past few months, so I decided it was time to change the power supply capacitors in the amp. The last time I did that was probably in the 1990s and the capacitors that I used then are apparently not the best quality on the market. Of course, I only found out about that a few years ago while participating in a tube amp group on faceplant.
This is the amp. It had been modified when I got it back in the 1980s. It should have a silver grill cloth but someone put this brown one on the amp. I sure wish that Gibson EB-0 was mine! I was testing it for my friend last year. That bass guitar is eye candy right there!
I pulled the chassis out of the amp so I could see which sizes of capacitor to order, and then left it out while I waited for the parts to get here.
The inside of this amp is pretty much a rat's nest of wires. The new capacitors are to the right of the chassis on the work bench. I also decided to pull out the power cord and put in a jack for a removable power cord. The regular cord on these amps can be damaged, so I prefer the removable cord.
Looking straight into the top of the chassis, you can see how this has been rewired. I had to do several modifications to the amp the last time I worked on it, so it no longer looks like the inside of the typical Princeton amp. I took this picture after replacing the filter capacitors, removing the old power cord, and installing the new power cord jack. You can see the old capacitors on the bench at the top of the picture.
Here's a better look at the power cord jack. It uses the standard computer type power cord. Since this is a 3 wire power cord, there's no need for the grounding switch. The last time I had worked on the amp, I had put in a 3 wire grounded power cord, and I had changed the ground switch to a standby power switch. These little amps normally don't have a standby switch, but I prefer having it in a tube amp. The old power cord clamp is not original equipment, but it did work well when the old cord was still in the amp. I saw no need to remove the clamp, there would just be a big hole there if I did.
After I finished working on the amp, I decided that I needed to go for a walk for some exercise before the sun got too low, so I didn't get the chassis put back into the amp. I can test it tomorrow or the next day, after all, it's not going anywhere.
Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my post, eh!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or a question if you would like.
May the Steem Force be with you!
Interesting thing about the three prong computer power cords.
Today, they are ubiquitous and standardized across the world.
And every electronics person has a bazillion around their house.
When this amp was built, the things didn't even exist.
Now, i wish for a proper standardized DC plug for a LED lamp.
So i can run a DC powerline straight from the backup batteries instead of converting to AC, just to convert it back to DC.
The only problem that I see with running straight DC for your lighting is the size of the wires you need to run 12 volts any distance without power loss. Converting it to 120 volts AC allows you to use reasonable sized wire and run your wires further without line losses. AC also doesn't arc in a switch the way DC does when you turn on a circuit with a load. Of course, that's not a problem when the load is a couple of LED lights, they don't draw much power.
Amber, Take out that old unused strain relief. they have plugs meant to fit the hole at the hardware.
Yeah, I had forgotten about these things.
Where did you order your caps from?
Also, that is a sexy bass. I was going to ask if it was yours but you already addressed that. I have an uncle that has one of those old gibsons. He also has a musicman stingray and a rickenbacker 4001. I used to always joke with him that I was going to steal his collection one day.
I myself have an 85 Japanese jazz bass special. It is a great compliment to my 85 Japanese contemporary telecaster.
They have decent prices and a really good selection of different parts.
Your uncle has some classic bass guitars! I always wanted to get a Rickenbacker when I was playing in the band, but they're expensive so it never happened.I get most of my parts from this place. https://www.tubesandmore.com/
I like modifying my guitar pedals, although it’s been quite some time, but haven’t dig into any amps though.
I still like reading articles like this about it. Maybe I’ll ill put down the guitar and start tinkering in the workshop again.
Thanks for sharing.
It's always interesting working on the older equipment.