I have repaired and restored a lot of amps, I had just opened up a old amp when I noticed a couple of picture's in the chassis as i slid it out of the cab, I flipped the pic's over to see who or what they were, There to my Supprise was a young lady in the Buff, Very Shocking indeed, When your an old man like me, that's about all the old ticker could stand !
That's my Shocking Storey and I'm Stickin to it !
The moral of this story is ( Clean your amp out before taking it to your Tech ) and save that poor old man's life
Johnhenry
I have luckly not been hit with any major current, BUT... i have gotten complacent in an amp, and started wiggling things with my fingers forgetting it was on or plugged in... you stop and are like WTF!! and drain things fast:)
Once watched my dad fly across a room after taking 600v from a tube ham radio... his arm wouldn't stop shaking for like 2 days...
I recapped an Ampeg V-4 once. These things have two multi-section "can" caps wired in series to get the voltage rating up. Of course, this puts half the B+ on the metal housing of one of tha caps. Obvious, once you look at the schematic, which I hadn't done yet.
I was doing someting that involved reaching under chassis and managed to touch my wrist to the cap housing and my foream to the chassis. TINGLY! Went looking for the schematic PDQ! (And put an insulator over the damn cap!)
BUT, what really frosts me is checking bias by shunting the OT and having the probe slip off the plate terminal and hit the chassis. The fuse for a Fluke is like $20!!!
I replaced filter caps in a super lead marshall 100w amp. It was back in the 70's. I replaced all the series wired caps and put metal cans in. I taped the base of the caps to isloate them from the chassie , the ones above ground. The amp was puting out 160watts and ran at 560 volts DC.
After replacing them I turn the amp on and no smoke. The voltage was also good. I plugged in a Gibson SG and played and was impressed with how solid it sounded. I then flicked the tubes with 1 hand for any noise. In the process I touched the top of a filter cap while my other hand was on the guitar strings and stuck to the amp. It took all my strenght to pull away from the amp and fall to my knees. That put the fear of god in me when working on amps for a while but I've never been afraid to open them up. I just stick 1 hand in my back pocket if I'm doing anything I'm in doubt about.
I did put the paper covers over the filter caps and never did a dumb thing like that again. Live and Learn
Lonely Raven wrote:I've only serviced a few dozen amps, scratch built two, and kit built two. I've been lucky enough to avoid shocking myself. Though once, I somehow managed to weld an aluminum chassis with my soldering iron! I must have left it plugged in while tweaking the circuit and Bzzzzz, welding time!
No damage except for a chunk of the chassis melting.
I guess that would have hurt.
I've left the solder ( from the spool ) laying across
components that had a similar event.
When I was in the Army, we used Collins SSB radios while transitioning to digital comm. gear. One of the guys had the lid off a 1000v power supply on the operators console and I leaned on it with my hand...he said my hair actually stood straight up (we were out in the middle of nowhere so haircuts were "optional" . My arms and chest were sore for a week. I went from being careful to respectful that day.
My first post as a new member and my response is a resounding yes! Many times but fortunately for me never really high voltage. Years ago I did bench work at a high end audio retailer and got hit w/ 120 a/c once or twice a month. Mostly from amps or receivers when I wasn't paying enough attention, but it was all solid state stuff. I'm getting ready to do my first amp build so my tube experience is lacking and I'll be paying very close attention to plate voltages.
I got knocked on my ass (literally) by an improperly installed 6550 in an Engl once. It wasn't lighting, so I reached in to remove it. It was put in (no locator key) wrong, and the metal base (which is usually grounded) was at 500 V plate potential. Man, like a kick in the teeth times ten !
I was checking out an old Elk Viking Bass Head, 4 EL-34s, very similar to an old Hi Watt, about 575 on the plates.
Knocked me back about four feet and fried my signal tracer.
first post here, I'm a lurker on several forums like this. I mostly read. There are some very smart people on here. Cheers to that, let's keep them around. I always learn way more using "search" than asking dumb questions, I feel like it's less of a drain on a great resource, I've seen the smart people driven off other boards by sheer dumbass-ness. So I lurk and learn and post occasionally. Here's one:
I got zapped by 120 lots of times as a little kid, a little too curious. My dad, who figured I was going to get in trouble no matter what, at least had the foresight to give me two pieces of advice: always be wearing rubber soled shoes when working on anything electrical (duh), and if in doubt, short it with a big screwdriver first. Of course now I one-hand everything too. I've worked on hundreds of amps (and other electronic what-have-you) and made lots of big sparks and taken some good notches out of some screwdrivers, but I've never been zapped with B+. so far. I've been popped with HT plug leads working on cars and motorcycles tho. that's fun. Low current, but it's a good jolt. I'm very careful around higher-zoot performance ignitions.
speaking of, was just flipping past "american chopper" the other night; dumbass Jr. was holding a tach mount in his bare hands while one of his flunkies TIG'd it to the bars. Wow. He was even sitting on the bike, firmly grounded to the bare seat pan. I promise natural selection will eventually take its course with that guy. TIGs only spit about 50-60v on trigger, but with a huge current wallop (like 100A available, depending on your settings and machine). not terribly smart.
My girlfriend had a very close call when she was younger, she lived in upstate NY a mile or so from HT wires that fed the whole town. In a storm one of the wires blew down and crossed local power lines, also jumping to phone lines on the same pole. Everything in thier house that was plugged in (or a telephone) literally exploded in variously sized fireballs. The phone she had just hung up five seconds earlier vaporized into a black smudge on the wall. Their garage burned down. not cool.
My father belonged to Holiday Spas / European Health Spas back in the ’60-‘70s. We used to tag along sometimes. There were some vending machines in the pool room which had a tiled floor. One day I was trying to put quarters in the soda machine but my arm would shake every time the quarter touched the slot. It became a game to try to get the quarters in without spasms making it fly away 1st. Of course the floor was wet and I had bare feet. Probably a 2 prong non-polarized power cord or reversed wall wiring.
Nope. I've never been shocked, but I've blown up alot of parts when I plugged it back in and turned it on. I knew a guy once that knew a guy that used his finger to find out if there was voltage present. He just got used to it supposedly. LOL.
I replaced the mains fuse, the power switch was on and the amp was still plugged in. My finger touched the metal outer ring while my other hand was holding the chassis... 120V 60Hz right through the chest. NOT fun!
I live alone so I spent the rest of the evening with a phone right beside me in case I had to dial 911 and I kept checking my heart pulse.
I'll never change a fuse again without disconnecting the power cord first!
Amplifiers built:
Marshall 2204 head with some mods
Low-power 2204 (cathode biased 6V6s)
Single-knob dual-6K6GT amps using a Wattkins uPCB
AC30 clone with Plexified preamp section
AX84 Firefly
I threw a pliers darn near thru a door many years ago. At that point i was just beginning to explore the insides of an amp and had no idea what was what ! Amazing i lived thru that period ! I didn't know what it was i touched at the time, but today remembering the result i'm sure it was B+. At my age now i might not live thru a shock like that, but i haven't been shocked in years aside from a little jolt here and there, never from the B+ rail.....i treat that with more respect than i would an angry grizzly.
I have repaired and restored a lot of amps, I had just opened up a old amp when I noticed a couple of picture's in the chassis as i slid it out of the cab, I flipped the pic's over to see who or what they were, There to my Supprise was a young lady in the Buff, 
