Metropoulos Forum

Anyone ever watched any components on their amp burn up?

Tonight I was working on the plexi, and I accidentally dropped a 820ohm resistor onto the huge white resistor for the effects loop while the amp was on, and it exploded and set on fire! It was pretty cool once I'd realised it'd done no harm to anything but the 820ohm resistor...

Supposedly you can make electrolytics explode.

several times
once either 10K res (near bias pot) burn up -> changed -> burn up -> changed -> burn up...................... (this was a shorting powertube)
Lately under board short (Vox AC50) {moved wire} burn up my board --> now this is a smoky leaky board
I watched these burner stuffs i had (just about) heart attack

Sub

Billy Batz wrote:Supposedly you can make electrolytics explode.

I may find out when I fire up the JTM45/100.......I know the RS caps in the originals were only 450V rated, but something about that frightens me.......

Billy Batz wrote:Supposedly you can make electrolytics explode.

Damn right you can.
I remember seeing a guy take a 100uf and wiring it up to an extention cord, then he took the other end, and pluged it in a wall plug far away. It was like an m80, maybe even louder.

The same guy used to take mercury out of a common thermometer, and roll it up like a joint, and put a fuse.
That was definately more powerfull than an m80. It blew up a big Pipe Tobbaco can about 100ft in the air, and bent it all up.
And that was just a tiny amount. Mercury is some bad shit.

Sounds like you cake a bomb with 20 1000v/100uF cans linked to a power source set on a timer. Maybe I shoudnt put that idea out there

Guest 2 wrote:

Billy Batz wrote:Supposedly you can make electrolytics explode.

Damn right you can.
I remember seeing a guy take a 100uf and wiring it up to an extention cord, then he took the other end, and pluged it in a wall plug far away. It was like an m80, maybe even louder.

The same guy used to take mercury out of a common thermometer, and roll it up like a joint, and put a fuse.
That was definately more powerfull than an m80. It blew up a big Pipe Tobbaco can about 100ft in the air, and bent it all up.
And that was just a tiny amount. Mercury is some bad shit.

yikes!

Well, at least our guests finally have useful information to contribute to the world of building amps.

film at eleven

Call me silly...but IMHO Plexi and effects loop sound strange in the same sentence.

Well it came as standard on the plexi reissue, and it's tonally transparent when off so why not use it? I've found it very useful, it sounds great with effects like delay so I can really add depth to the sound in small spaces. I'd never cut up a real plexi for one though.

I didn't mean it bad at all. I was just reading the thread and it hit me. Nothing implied by it...really.

Hazy

Billy Batz wrote:Supposedly you can make electrolytics explode.

I used to work for a TV and microwave oven manufacturer and I've seen big electrolytics pop many times. This was usually because someone had loaded them with the wrong polarity. Nothing like hearing a pop and seeing foil in the air. Smells awful though.

I used to work for Magnetek. We made all kinds of products, one of which was a power inverter. When the caps would get installed backwards in the output section of the thing, they would explode. First you would hear a really loud "BOOM" and then the smell. They were filled with FISH OIL! That's right. Every time one of them would explode, it would smell like skank crotch! And it would linger for hours. You couldn't just tell her to go take a shower.