Mike Bendinelli at MESA/Boogie No Longer Doing Mods **UPDATE**

ZEEGLER said:
I wonder if Mesa would still do a loop mod to my MK IIb. I know that a IIC+ conversion is off the table as they ran out of boards a while back.
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Maybe, in the future? That’s all Mike B’s handiwork... unless there is some plan to pass the knowledge torch on to some other in-house techs.
 
thenine said:
Uh oh this post makes me worried. My MK IVa is with Mesa now. When I sent it in I had similar problems with CH 3. Squealing and a strange siren type sound above 2.5 on the MV. Also at the same spot, about 2.5 the EQ light above it would flicker (could be seen on foot switch also). I couldn’t hear the EQ kick in because of the squeal/siren/whooshing stuff that began to happen. Very strange problem. I tried some De-Oxit in the MV knob and the EQ on/off switch above but no help so I sent it in.

I believe my amp hadn’t been used much in recent years by the previous owner who was an older gentleman that apparently was entering an assisted living home. So they were selling off his amps and partcasters. I did not pull out the chassis but I wish I had now. I did see “MB” written in sharpie on one of the transformers.
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Well since its at Mesa it wouldnt hurt to talk to Mike about replacing the caps. If they havent leaked its not expensive to replace. Worst case is even if they did explode and messed up some traces on the board Mike can repair. Its just time consuming. Good luck!
 
For anyone looking for details about the Mark IV brown caps, I recently emailed Mike about my Mark IV B. He said "Those are not the nasty SPRAGUE timer bomb caps, they are the early version Illinois caps we used. I have seen no disasters but I do pull them to replace and usually find a touch of leakage on about 20 % (?) of them"

Still debating whether I should send it in or not. The amp functions perfectly, and yeah it seems like when Mike eventually retires, there's no reason to think Mesa/Gibson won't have a competent tech to take over his role.

 
Devin said:
Am I the only that finds it odd that there is seemingly only one guy at Mesa that handles all this stuff?
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I think it’s because Mike gets paid personally for his mods; you send a check payable to him for the mods while Boogie charges for the service. So unless he retires and teaches others how to do them it’ll just be service only
 
dawnofdreamx97 said:
It's not a big deal and if your amp tech runs at the sight of a Mark IV YOU should run with your amp away from them lol

Nick-
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Even Bruce Egnater wouldn't work on my mark IV. He kindly refused :D I kindly understood, and sent it to mike b. My current mark IVa i bought from mesa hollywood, and had the fix already done, but myself and my bandmate have sent him each 3 or 4 amps a piece in our day. great dude.
 
cardinal said:
The schematics are out there. Folks on the Boogie Board have been tinkering with these forever.
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No they are not. No one has correctly reversed it either yet. The people that think they know the ++ mod scheme are wrong. This is directly from Mike B. and I own several myself. The people on the BoogieBoard are cooking up what they "think" it is without a real one for reference... and they are wrong.
 
I think it’s absolutely retarded that in this day of DIY amp building and mods etc that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE hasn’t made RP-11 or whatever boards to upgrade IIBs to IICs, and/or the + or ++ mods on Mark IIIs.
 
Krull said:
The tonez are definitely there..on the older amps, which sadly need servicing.

The newer amps not so much.

I have a mark iib coli that needs new caps (8 of those 220uF) but doesn't have the loop mod which is suppose to add more gain. Probably will let it just collect dust though...
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Wanna sell that IIB Coli ?
 
Q
dawnofdreamx97 said:
No need to pull the boards out to recap a MKIV. Including the radial caps. I'll dig up the thread and post the link of how to do it. I've done 2 now and they came out beautiful.

It's not a big deal and if your amp tech runs at the sight of a Mark IV YOU should run with your amp away from them lol

Nick-
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I remember the thread, you had the good idea of breaking the brown caps and then desoldering the leads from the top. Then out in the new radial caps and get them as close as you can and solder them in. Then put hot glue underneath. As I remember that is about what you recommended and what I will do when I get around to it. Amps have been flying in for repair.
 
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