Fender Tweed Deluxe late 50's (kinda)

    After some time and many issues in my life not guitar related, I finally finished my first amp build. It started out as a Mojotone 5E3 deluxe build. I spent a few days back in November building it, then a few more days finding mistakes,etc and finally around Thanksgiving I was ready to try it out. At first it sounded very nice, quirky, just like I think the originals were. Then, as I was playing along, it blew up. I don't mean it started smoking or anything like that, it went of like a cherry bomb. Two of the filter capacitors exploded and part of one of them actually stuck in the wall. In a weird way it was kinda awesome.


    When I took it apart it had many components that needed to be replaced, so I ordered some on Ebay and pirated some out of a few trashed stomp base I have, mostly resistors. Most of the values of the replacements are in the ball park. After repairs it did not sound right so I put it in the corner for a few weeks. I figured I had killed the thing. Today I decided to give it one more look over and I found another resistor that had been damaged. Fixed it and it sounds better than it ever did.


    I still do not know what happened the first time to make it blow up, I have no idea. But now finally I have a working amp.


    I put up two profiles tonight of the Normal Channel one is cranked more than the other. I think it sounds good if you are looking for that old school sound. Of all the profiles I have done this one responds the most to changes in the Amp Section for some reason. If you are looking for a Deluxe sound, download one and try it out. I used the Jensen C12Q speaker that came with the kit.


    The profiles are under Hays Deluxe.

    Curious about the filter caps. If they are too old they are inclined to fail, if the voltage coming from the rectifier exceeds their capacity they will blow. Was the transformer and power supply parts set from a kit or was it scavenged parts?

    I'm not sure what happened and I wish I had taken some pics of the damage but I did not. When I redid the amp I bought a turrent board, removed all of the parts from the old grommet board and completely redid it. I think i had some bad joints on the original grommet board that contributed to the problem. Everything in the original build that blew up was new.


    Here's a pic of the amp with my new favorite mystery guitar. Its a mystery because I have no idea who built it or where it came from.


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    Quote from Klappy

    Sounds like you had the polarity reversed on the caps. Pretty much a guaranteed explosion. :D


    I the case where the caps have been connected with reverse polarity, would it be likely to play for a while before going "bang" as described? Some transformers have multiple options for taps - it is possible in some circumstances to take double the AC voltage you are expecting - if your diodes don't blow, your caps will.

    The 5e3 uses a full-wave 5Y3 rectifier with a center-tap, so I don't see any issues there. If the center tap in the secondary is mixed up with one of the other two secondary leads, you are essentially making a half wave rectifier which has a lower DC voltage when filtered. I'm still betting it was cap polarity.

    I hate emojis, but I hate being misunderstood more. :)

    It could have been cap polarity, but I checked several times. I think I had the power leads messed up. I'm color blind, almost completely. When I rewired it I had my wife come out and tell me the colors. It probably had something to do with that.


    If any of you remember the old SCTV skit where they blew things up, this was like that. "Blowed up real good"