Palmer pga05-NOW FIXED!

[dirtycooter]

Ok. Been getting this stupid hum in my rig lately. It would be runnin tit sucker for 15-30 minutes then it would slowly start brewin up a faint hum that would build steadily till you knew there was an elephant in the room for sure. Then after it got annoying loud it would sometimes stop after a few minutes and straighten up for a bit or it would completely start fadin out my whole wet side and losin all sound.
I was dickin with things for days tryin to figure it out. Kept searchin for this ground loop doin different things. I change stuff a little and wait for it to build up and take off doin it again. It was intermittent so it made it difficult to track down.
The head and dry cab never made any noise-it was all in the wet side.
Today I started it up and its dead. The palmers light was on but it was tits up. Bam-no signal goin to my fx-not even a blip in the input meters. there is two sides of this palmer for separate processing-I had always just used the one side. Each half has two line out filtered sends. I need both lineout feeds to do my shtick. I think its been dickin up for a few weeks now come to think of it.
Luckily the other side still works and I am back in business after movin some cables around and usin the other channel. But I am not happy this thing took a big fat half a shit. I kinxa wanna know why it did it.
There anyone local here in this hell hole we call Michigan that can get in there and fixify this thing??? Its an arm, a leg, and a pair of nads to buy this new again. They are now over a grand. Far more than I payed in 98. Cantrell has two of these units in
his rack rig.

[motorhead]

Brian Wallace

[vanhalen5150]

I'll bet one of those big resistors finally failed. As they heat up, maybe one was causing the hum then finally packed it in. Not sure but maybe you'd have to disconnect each one to diagnose. I realize that resistors are not like caps either. But in this case they are not like a fuse either. Having those series and parallel wiring is a whole different thing. Is there an internal fuse btw? It may only be accessible inside on the chassis.

If that's what it is, it's about a $10 fix.

[chrisom]

I agree that you wanna hope is a power resistor. At least you could get a replacement. What you Don't want to find is it's a failure of some kind of a "proprietary inductor/frequency transformer buried in epoxy " (or plaster in the case of Groove Tubes SE), because you could only get it through the actual company then.

Having said that, Palmer seems to be a respectable and available company who would probably get you the part, and would want to so they maintain a good standing in the market field. I would actually try them first, to get a diagnosis of the problem and the parts to fix it. Be sure to mention to their service department you are an electronics service person.

Mesa Boogie, Peavey Electronics, and Alesis were three companies I dealt with in the past who always "went the extra mile" to make sure you had the resources to keep their products up and going, even if they weren't doing the work. Sometimes I did actually have to send stuff in, but many times I was able to fix it myself with their help.

[dirtycooter]

Yeah this palmer doesn't have the "load box" built in. Its just an active line out box basically.
One channel will give you two parallel line out feeds in t/s format or one xlr out. Then you have a choice of "filtered" or "plain" line out signal on those.
The input can be a speaker level input or a line level with a tiny switch when feeding it.
There are two identical channels with an input, two ts outs, and xlr-luckily the 2nd chan still works so far.

If the power is not on it works like a regular line out box but the filter section won't work. I need that filter plus I use the shit out of that dual parallel send. I have a killer stereo slap fattener short delay program in my lex right now that I conjured up from scratch on one right now and the other feeds my stereo 250-300 ms ping pong l+r delay. I can keep the fat slap on for "bigness" then trip my longer delay programs on the other send independently with complete control. So it big, then suddenly deeeeeper and even more lush. Gotta have dual sends for this.

I dial in the filter so my dry cab sounds exactly the same as my wet cab with fx bypassed then leave it there and start addin fx.
This is what allows me to use the super transparent crown amp-without it I am kinda screwed and have use somethin else as a power amp that reacts more guitar amp like to a direct signal.

Maybe I should just get a Matrix power amp if I have to replace it-then my rack will be about 30lbs lighter and a couple less rack spaces. It'll be one less expensive box to power and keep runnin.

[vanhalen5150]

30lbs isn't so bad. Just do some push ups.

[Palmer Germany]

Sorry to learn you are having trouble with our unit. We will be more than willing to help you get the unit up and running again. Could you please provide us some more information to your setup? Feel free to contact us under info@palmer-germany.com or on Facebook.

Best Regards
Your Palmer Germany Team

[chrisom]

As I said- a great company. German Engineering rocks. Way to go, Palmer!

[dirtycooter]

Sweet!!!

[dirtycooter]

Wow!
Emailed them and got instant response back. They think its a power supply failure inside and are arrainging to send me the part to fix it.
So hopefully soon I can have her back and goin strong. I have had this thing since around 98-99 and it has been awesome. I always dreaded the day it may wear out. Its a major link to my rig and have always been glad I got it. Nothin else compares to this box.
So I feel way better now. I was ill with grief there for a bit.

[guitar007]

Sorry to learn you are having trouble with our unit. We will be more than willing to help you get the unit up and running again. Could you please provide us some more information to your setup? Feel free to contact us under info@palmer-germany.com or on Facebook.

Best Regards
Your Palmer Germany Team

There are plenty of companies in this business that can learn a lot about customer service from this reply.

[Blix]

Palmer rocks, I've seen them do this before, just top notch customer service.
I have to try their PDA-09, supposed to be a killer unit.

[dirtycooter]

PALMER CUSTOMER SERVICE IS AWESOME!!!!!!!

I had emailed them and contacted Robin Henlich.
We emailed back and fourth only a few times-he wanted to be sure since its such a long distance that we got my PGA05 fixed it right the first time.

Today-I received a brand new power supply board, the channel 1 input, and the channel 1 control module

FREE!

All I have to do is swap parts and send back the old ones directly to him. Thats it.

Now that is some awesome kick ass customer service bar none!


I thought it was gonna be a major deal with them being so far away. Totally NOT the case. Couldn't have been easier than they made it.

[dazzlindino]

That kicks total hinney!!!

[vanhalen5150]

Bitch'n.....