Smallbox dead. Small blue thing fell out!

mniel8195

mniel8195

Active member
Sorry i don't know what to call the small parts and pieces of amps but maybe a picture will help. I was playing my smallbox out the other evening and i felt like i heard a rattle or something strange when i was playing. I got the amp home and hooked it up to my torpedo live and there was very little sound coming out then nothing at all. Figured a tube died. I just opened up the amp and found this "blue thing". I am the second owner and i live in Seattle. Just wondering where i should bring the amp for service.
 

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Yes it needs to be serviced. It's always a risk buying used amps, you never know if the amp was dropped or messed with. Good luck I love my smallbox
 
manchild":3v9r81t7 said:
Yes it needs to be serviced. It's always a risk buying used amps, you never know if the amp was dropped or messed with. Good luck I love my smallbox
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I have had the amp for almost 2 years and have had no issues. I know i have not dropped it. I have oepned it up to change the tubes and re bias. Not sure what could have cuased this. I imagine something like this is soldered in?
 
This is a picture of the effects loop after i found a piece of the puzzle had fallen out. I think it goes to this part of the amps not 100% sure. Just to let everyone know i am not going to do this work myself!
 

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It looks like the resister goes in the empty area of the upper board, on the lower left of that board. You can see two contact points that are missing the part.
 
Mike D.":3cohjkz6 said:
It looks like the resister goes in the empty area of the upper board, on the lower left of that board. You can see two contact points that are missing the part.
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That is what i was thinking. Will need verifying though.
 
The resistor is definitely from the loop board.
Look for the gap marked with R2 on the loop board. And there should be the resistor. Direct next to the brown capacitor on the up per lebt side.
With a desolder pump and a soldering Iron it's done within five minutes.
 
I have decided that i want to do the work myself after watching a ton of videos. Anyone recommend the type of soldering iron/tip and rosin needed for this job?

Thank you!
 
You dont need a rosin. Good quality soldering tin have a small amount of rosin anyway.
You dont need a pro Soldering station but a quality one with enough heat on tap. In Germany such units costs about 30$. Should be ok for occasional jobs.

Very important is a desoldering pump Imho. So you can clean the solder joints, easily insert the resistor without burning or melting something and set some quality new solder joints in the end.
 
Make sure you practice before you start soldering on your amp. I wouldn't want that to be the first thing I ever solder. If you feel uncomfortable at all, that would be a very inexpensive repair for an amp tech.
 
Hm, if that's the correct point for the resistor (which I don't know), letting someone with experience fix it probably costs less than buying the equipment needed for the fix. Given you don't have any experience with soldering, the probably for damaging the amp more or even hurting yourself is there. So I don't think it's a great idea to do it on yourself. Of course it isn't rocket sience and can be done, but is it really a good idea? I don't think so..
 
s_swanson":1x8no31y said:
Make sure you practice before you start soldering on your amp. I wouldn't want that to be the first thing I ever solder. If you feel uncomfortable at all, that would be a very inexpensive repair for an amp tech.
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Yes please practice on something of that size first. You really don't need anything more than 25-30 watt iron for small stuff like that. You can use some desoldering braid if you want but given the solder looks clean and amps only couple years old I'd just heat up the existing solder, but please don't take our advice, ASK DAVE.
 
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