My Amp Died (Kinda)

[alex.parent]

I have a B-52 at100, and yesterday it just stopped working. My band's singer suggested switching the circuitry to solid state, which worked. We also noticed, however, that only 1 of the 4 power tubes was running. Can anyone shed some light on this situation?

[bassdrummer2333]

Did you burn out the tubes by cranking it?

[patrickhowell]

Did you burn out the tubes by cranking it?

You don't burn out the tubes by cranking it...

Since it's a pretty cheap amp, it might have gotten too hot and ruined a trace on the PCB. That's a big problem with Marshalls, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in a B52.

[patrickhowell]

I have a B-52 at100, and yesterday it just stopped working. My band's singer suggested switching the circuitry to solid state, which worked. We also noticed, however, that only 1 of the 4 power tubes was running. Can anyone shed some light on this situation?

Are you sure only 1 of the tubes is working? Is that one tube glowing bright orange? Do you have any extra power tubes that you can try? Since this is a push-pull power amp the tubes work in pairs. If one tube fails, the second tube will receive way too much voltage and glow brighter than the others.

If it works with the solid-state rectifier, but not the tube rectifier maybe the 5AR4 rectifier tube is bad.

I would try switching out a few tubes and seeing if that fixes the problem. If that doesn't work, then you should stop playing the amp and get it to a technician. That is, unless you know how to drain the filter capacitors and you're very comfortable working with deadly voltages (~450V in your case).

[alex.parent]

I talked to a guy at our local guitar shop and he thought it was probably the rectifier tube so I ordered a new one to see if that's the problem. Thanks for the help!