| Back to the top of the Amp Debugging Page | Back to the GEO Home Page |
Some tests necessary to debugging a tube guitar amplifier may require you to perform operations inside the amplifier with voltage on. These tests can be hazardous to perform if you do not know the specific methods to do them safely. Such hazardous tests are presented only for your information, and the author does not recommend that you should perform these tests, especially if you do not already have the skills and experience to do them without harming yourself, other people, or the amplifier you're working on. These skills are not things that you can safely learn by yourself from reading some text.
In some cases, I have used alternate non-hazardous tests before recommending hazardous ones in an attempt to avoid recommending a hazardous test, even where the most expeditious thing to do would be to open the box up and poke around in it. If you're an experienced technician, this may cause some of the testing to be clumsy and roundabout. This is often why.
This debugging page is not intended to teach you how to do these tests safely. If you need to do any test on the inside of the amplifer chassis, you do not already know how to do such tests safely, take your amplifier to a qualified service technician. Saving a few bucks is not worth endangering your life. A rough guide to some safety precautions can be found in the Tube Amp FAQ, although those guidelines are not in themselves sufficient training for safety procedures, either.
If you have any question in your own mind about being able to do any test safely, take the amplifier to a qualified technician, do not risk your life and health. The author assumes no liabilty, express or implied, for your actions or their consequences to your life, health, or possessions. Proceed at your own risk. Your action in performing any of the tests recommended by this page constitutes your acknowlegement of this warning, and your express assumption of all risks associated with any procedure, as well as indemnification and agreement to hold harmless of the author in any and all legal actions of any nature whatsoever arising from your actions.