Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

So, following on from my good experience every time when info is needed from
Fender, apparently backed up by Mr Cook's experience earlier this week,
today I tried the same thing with another reputable company - Gibson, as in
Les Paul.

I had a little Gibson Goldtone "Les Paul Junior" amplifier turn up, reported
"dead". And indeed it was, because the fuse in the IEC inlet was blown,
badly. It had an American power lead on it, plugged into UK adaptor, which
started alarm bells ringing. I replaced the fuse, and wound the supply up on
the variac, whilst monitoring the AC heater volts of the output valve. It
was at exactly 6.3 volts when the variac was at about 110 volts, confirming
that this was indeed a U.S. spec amplifier. A quick check with the owner
revealed that it was a recent acquisition, and the person that sold it to
him had told him that the adaptor was everything that it needed to make it
work in the UK ...

Anyways, I digress. Looking at the transformer wiring, there was a couple of
twisted pairs and a sealed-off white wire around the primary side of things,
so I figured that this might well be a split primary tranny with the two
windings currently in parallel, and a +10v tap that was unused. I went to
the Gibson website to see if I could find a copy of the schematic to verify
that it was indeed a 'universal' transformer. Of course, there was every
schematic for every guitar and amplifier they have ever sold, except this
little Junior ... So I emailed technical to ask for it. Some hours later, I
got a reply from somewhere in Europe saying that they did not have the
schematic, but fortunately, it was available on the net. This was followed
by a link about a thousand characters long, to Google images, where there
are several not-very-good GIF images that have been drawn by third parties.
And of course, none of them have bothered to show a split primary
transformer.

Sad to say, this made me a bit mad and I sent an email back telling them
what I thought of a supposedly reputable large company that did not have
schematics for products that they sold, and then had the gall to refer
people to third party schematics on the net.

Fortunately, having many years of experience in this game, I managed to
figure which wires were which, and to get the two windings wired in series
and in the correct phase to make it 240 volt. But how much easier it would
have been to have had a schematic with a configuration table to do it from.

Am I being unreasonable expecting them to have information on a product that
they proudly put their name to ? I mean, this thing ain't cheap. Looking on
the net, they seem to go for anything from $350 to $500 + which is a lot
for a very simple 2 valve 5 watt amp ...

Arfa

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

"Arfa Daily"

( snip piles of AD's retarded drivel)

Am I being unreasonable expecting them to have information on a product
that they proudly put their name to ? I mean, this thing ain't cheap.
Looking on the net, they seem to go for anything from $350 to $500 +
which is a lot for a very simple 2 valve 5 watt amp ...


** See pic:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ampli...s-paul-jr.-amp

Who but AD would bother to even look for a schem for an amp whose wiring was
as self evident as this ??

As for the AC wiring for the transformer, I have been sent drawings for 120V
to 240V conversion that were WRONG - so even more reason not to bother.



..... Phil

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

Phil, it is against the law for you to have a gun.

It is not against the law for you to go out hunting crocodiles.

T

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

snip everything you have to say

As ever, it is you who is the ****wit, Philip. You have decided to go off on
one of your rants, completely missing the point of what the post was about.
Most of what you say is irrelevant crap based on invalid context snipping.

You are totally insane except when you have your meds in check, and I have
absolutely no interest in anything you have to say regarding my post, as I
suspect is probably the case with everyone else on here.

**** off and harass some other group.

****.

Arfa

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

And now you're repeating yourself and STILL not understanding what the post
was about.

Off to the doc post haste Philip, and get him to check your meds again ...
:-)

Arfa

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

Arfa Daily wrote:
So, following on from my good experience every time when info is needed from
Fender, apparently backed up by Mr Cook's experience earlier this week,
today I tried the same thing with another reputable company - Gibson, as in
Les Paul.

I had a little Gibson Goldtone "Les Paul Junior" amplifier turn up, reported
"dead". And indeed it was, because the fuse in the IEC inlet was blown,
badly. It had an American power lead on it, plugged into UK adaptor, which
started alarm bells ringing. I replaced the fuse, and wound the supply up on
the variac, whilst monitoring the AC heater volts of the output valve. It
was at exactly 6.3 volts when the variac was at about 110 volts, confirming
that this was indeed a U.S. spec amplifier. A quick check with the owner
revealed that it was a recent acquisition, and the person that sold it to
him had told him that the adaptor was everything that it needed to make it
work in the UK ...

Anyways, I digress. Looking at the transformer wiring, there was a couple of
twisted pairs and a sealed-off white wire around the primary side of things,
so I figured that this might well be a split primary tranny with the two
windings currently in parallel, and a +10v tap that was unused. I went to
the Gibson website to see if I could find a copy of the schematic to verify
that it was indeed a 'universal' transformer. Of course, there was every
schematic for every guitar and amplifier they have ever sold, except this
little Junior ... So I emailed technical to ask for it. Some hours later, I
got a reply from somewhere in Europe saying that they did not have the
schematic, but fortunately, it was available on the net. This was followed
by a link about a thousand characters long, to Google images, where there
are several not-very-good GIF images that have been drawn by third parties.
And of course, none of them have bothered to show a split primary
transformer.

Sad to say, this made me a bit mad and I sent an email back telling them
what I thought of a supposedly reputable large company that did not have

If they were reputable to start with, the input wiring diagram would be
marked inside the chassis, along side the typical warnings.

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

If they were reputable to start with, the input wiring diagram would be
marked inside the chassis, along side the typical warnings.


There's very few items come with any kind of schematic these days ...

Arfa

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

Arfa Daily wrote:



If they were reputable to start with, the input wiring diagram would be
marked inside the chassis, along side the typical warnings.


There's very few items come with any kind of schematic these days ...

Arfa

True. The last things may be appliances sometimes have those cryptic
appliance schematics. I have a china prison industries mini fridge that
has a wiring diagram on it the rear. I'm not sure why, as nobody would
ever service such a thing anyways. Even better is there's only one loop of
wire in the damn thing anyways- power cord to thermostat to compressor.
There's no light or defrost time/heater or evaporator fan to even make it
interesting.

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:



If they were reputable to start with, the input wiring diagram would be
marked inside the chassis, along side the typical warnings.


There's very few items come with any kind of schematic these days ...

Arfa

True. The last things may be appliances sometimes have those cryptic
appliance schematics. I have a china prison industries mini fridge that
has a wiring diagram on it the rear. I'm not sure why, as nobody would
ever service such a thing anyways. Even better is there's only one loop of
wire in the damn thing anyways- power cord to thermostat to compressor.
There's no light or defrost time/heater or evaporator fan to even make it
interesting.



You're right - they are cryptic, aren't they ? A bit like car schematics.
Not only do they use odd symbols, they also use odd ways of indicating what
connects to what.

A bit like Philips service manuals, really ... :-)

Arfa

Fender good - Gibson, poor ...
 

Arfa Daily wrote:


"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:



If they were reputable to start with, the input wiring diagram would be
marked inside the chassis, along side the typical warnings.


There's very few items come with any kind of schematic these days ...

Arfa

True. The last things may be appliances sometimes have those cryptic
appliance schematics. I have a china prison industries mini fridge that
has a wiring diagram on it the rear. I'm not sure why, as nobody would
ever service such a thing anyways. Even better is there's only one loop of
wire in the damn thing anyways- power cord to thermostat to compressor.
There's no light or defrost time/heater or evaporator fan to even make it
interesting.



You're right - they are cryptic, aren't they ? A bit like car schematics.
Not only do they use odd symbols, they also use odd ways of indicating what
connects to what.

A bit like Philips service manuals, really ... :-)

I guess at least in appliances, they tend to not wrap every wiring harness
with loom and extra layer of electrical tape. I plain out tell people, if
it's broken, uses electricity and isn't a car, I may be willing to take a
look at it. Even nonsense machinery with stuff like all black or
white/white with yellow tracer stripes is more pleasing to deal with. I
feel no shame in tagging every ambigious cable/connector/wire with these
things

http://www.idealindustries.com/produ...r_booklets.jsp