Back to the top of the Amp Debugging Page | Back to the GEO Home Page |
There's good news and bad news. The good news is that it's easy to find the problem, at least the thing that is burning. Just unplug the amp, open up the chassis and look for what's burned, charred, or overheated looking. That's what's causing the smoke/smell.
The bad news is that in almost all cases, the part that is burning is a power handling component. These are ALL expensive. Worse, in some cases, the part that is burning is not what is causing the problem, and you still have to find what else is faulty.
In some ways, having smoke coming out of the amplifier is kind of a deviant, hard-headed version of having a fuse blow - something is eating too much power, it's just that the fuse for some reason is not blowing. This is especially suspect if the fuse blew, and you didn't have another of the right rating, so you stuck in a higher current rated fuse.
Possible causes are: