The trouble with being cloned is that you acquire something of a
responsibility and/or duty of care and, despite trying to slip quietly
out of the back door in all matters thermionic, I am being fetched up to
sort out various problems that (were it my own kit) I would sooner run
away from, or cure by my customary method of consigning the offending
articles to a couple of weeks/months under the bed, while they *get
their thinking right*

Anyway, having bashed all the following out for an offlist email, I
thought I would reproduce it (mostly) here for a chuckle, as it is a bit
quiet and to get the maximum mileage from it..!!!

(Disbelievers and Antibloggers look away now....)

------------------------------------------------------------
This will make you smile:

Tony, the guy with the 300B monos (that I removed the volume controls
from a while back) was on the phone the other day with one of the amp's
meters racing up and down - up to 100 mA and them back down to 40 mA,
when it should be steady at 75 mA. (Can't remember if the amp was
working or not - I think it might have been??)

Anyway, I told him to have a good look underneath for anything
*untoward* (scorch marks, charred resistors, bulging caps) and he came
back and said he reckoned one of the caps was a bit puffed up and sent
me some pix (one of which is attached). He brought the amps round the
next day and I said I thought the *slight* bulge on the cap might
indicate a problem. He promptly whipped a couple of Maplins equivalent
replacements out of his pocket (I have said before he's not daft) and I
swapped it and wired them into my system.

Bingo, bongo - both amps was fine!

(Me looking good...!! :-)

The next day, he's on the phone again to say the *other amp* (which I
did not touch) was playing up now - the triode was lighting up, but the
rectifier and driver weren't.....

Gawd, here's a chance for me to lose all my hard-won Brownie Points, I
thought! But, I said to bring it round. (Remember, if nothing else,
this guy is in a position to write me a *no quibble* MOT Cert on the '74
Triumph Trident if/when we ever get round to sorting it out!! ;-)

He did and I (luckily) upended it without taking the valves out. I
scruted hard for a few minutes and couldn't *see* anything wrong at all.
(Tony, who is getting into it a bit, had already measured everything
comparing the two amps and was convinced there was nothing untoward.) I
was starting to suspect the (Audio Note) transformer when it struck me -
the driver and rectifer (both octals) were in the wrong places (ie
swapped round)!!

The bloody amps are handed (see photo) - which I think has led to them
being wired out of phase on the OPTs and certainly was the cause of Tony
putting the valves in wrong!! Anyway, no damage done and once again the
amp was fine! (So I managed to *not* lose face!! :-)

But...

He told me he had metered everything including the caps (which read
zero) and I said that wasn't too wise!! I suspect it's a bit dangerous
and that there's a special way to measure them - am I right?

Here's the chuckle - now one of the amps has a ('Sam Wah' - 80p?)
Maplins relacement cap in it instead of the original Black Gate and
sounds *exactly* the same as the other one with both BGs!!

:-)
------------------------------------------------------------

I did say to him I have a 'No ****ing Idea' card in my pocket and he
could expect to see me play it sometime if he keeps coming up with
mysteries on these bloody amps - he said to keep it in my pocket!!
Further - to complete the cloning process and make matters worse, he now
wants a WAD Phono II....!!

(That's 'psxmad2' in another place, to some here! ;-)

That's it - back to what you were doing and do try to keep the *noise*
down a bit in here, will you....