Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Feb 17, 2023 15:28:32 GMT -5
I owned a Friedman Pink Taco about 10 years back, so I'm a fan of this brand. They are known for quality of construction and great sound.
This is a long story...
A pal of mine called me up two weeks ago to ask me if I could help him fix his Friedman Runt 50.
It's two months old (still brand new) and for the past three weeks has been acting up. I asked what the issues are and he described the tone controls of the overdrive channel being really weird. The treble control was acting like a volume control and the mid and bass controls did nothing. I suggested he contact Dave Friedman and describe the issue.
A week later he came back and said Dave suggested it may be one or more pots being bad (they apparently have had some reliability issues with the pot assemblies...more on that later) and he would send my pal replacements. I asked if me working on it would void the warranty, and he said he asked the question; Friedman stated the pots are "plug-in" replacements. All that's necessary is to remove the knob, remove the plug from the board, Remove the mounting nut, and reinstall the new pot. Fine--I'll do it.
The parts came in so this morning my pal brought the amp over and I warmed it up to see what the issue was. Yup: the tone control on the dirt channel was acting like a volume/gain control. On the low side it was quiet and clean. Dialed up it got loud and dirty. The master vol was working fine, and the mid and bass controls were not working at all throughout their range.
I drained the caps, pulled the plugs for the three pots and tested them, and they all tested just fine, all the way to their plug pins. Strange. I tested the replacement pots--they tested good--dropped them in (Dave marked them for treb, mid, and bass) and fired it up.
This time, the treble and the mid controls worked fine, and bass control was doing nothing.
This was the point I went online to find a schematic because this is a "printed circus board" based amp, and the traces are on the underside of the board. If I could see signal flow, I could troubleshoot the thing. But no dice--there is no schematic available. And there is no way I'm pulling 50 connections to remove the board and have a peek under her skirts.
So I got busy looking for a poor solder connection, etc., on the topside of the board. I found four resistors that looked like they had been already replaced following the initial build, and all but one had good, clean solder connections. The one bad solder joint was a pretty bad crusty blob on a 1/2-watt resistor in the power section. This was nowhere near the tone circuit, but I fixed that anyway.
At this point, I was stuck because no schematic. So I put the original pots back in and fired it up, expecting it to revert to the original complaint.
But everything worked fine! What the heck? I told my pal that it's working fine, until it doesn't all over again; the amp is unreliable and it probably has a bad ground somewhere in the tone section.
That is when he mentioned this was the second Friedman Runt he's had, because the first one went back with inop tone controls on the clean channel. WHAT? Holy smokes.
I asked him to call his guy at Chuck Levin's and see if he can bring this one back for an exchange. He did, and lucky for him they have a few in stock. So it's going back. Perhaps the third time's the charm.
This is really puzzling to me because having owned a killer sounding and trouble-free Pink Taco for several years, I cannot understand the pattern of failures with this one...and the previous one. "Do I need to come down there?!"
This is a long story...
A pal of mine called me up two weeks ago to ask me if I could help him fix his Friedman Runt 50.
It's two months old (still brand new) and for the past three weeks has been acting up. I asked what the issues are and he described the tone controls of the overdrive channel being really weird. The treble control was acting like a volume control and the mid and bass controls did nothing. I suggested he contact Dave Friedman and describe the issue.
A week later he came back and said Dave suggested it may be one or more pots being bad (they apparently have had some reliability issues with the pot assemblies...more on that later) and he would send my pal replacements. I asked if me working on it would void the warranty, and he said he asked the question; Friedman stated the pots are "plug-in" replacements. All that's necessary is to remove the knob, remove the plug from the board, Remove the mounting nut, and reinstall the new pot. Fine--I'll do it.
The parts came in so this morning my pal brought the amp over and I warmed it up to see what the issue was. Yup: the tone control on the dirt channel was acting like a volume/gain control. On the low side it was quiet and clean. Dialed up it got loud and dirty. The master vol was working fine, and the mid and bass controls were not working at all throughout their range.
I drained the caps, pulled the plugs for the three pots and tested them, and they all tested just fine, all the way to their plug pins. Strange. I tested the replacement pots--they tested good--dropped them in (Dave marked them for treb, mid, and bass) and fired it up.
This time, the treble and the mid controls worked fine, and bass control was doing nothing.
This was the point I went online to find a schematic because this is a "printed circus board" based amp, and the traces are on the underside of the board. If I could see signal flow, I could troubleshoot the thing. But no dice--there is no schematic available. And there is no way I'm pulling 50 connections to remove the board and have a peek under her skirts.
So I got busy looking for a poor solder connection, etc., on the topside of the board. I found four resistors that looked like they had been already replaced following the initial build, and all but one had good, clean solder connections. The one bad solder joint was a pretty bad crusty blob on a 1/2-watt resistor in the power section. This was nowhere near the tone circuit, but I fixed that anyway.
At this point, I was stuck because no schematic. So I put the original pots back in and fired it up, expecting it to revert to the original complaint.
But everything worked fine! What the heck? I told my pal that it's working fine, until it doesn't all over again; the amp is unreliable and it probably has a bad ground somewhere in the tone section.
That is when he mentioned this was the second Friedman Runt he's had, because the first one went back with inop tone controls on the clean channel. WHAT? Holy smokes.
I asked him to call his guy at Chuck Levin's and see if he can bring this one back for an exchange. He did, and lucky for him they have a few in stock. So it's going back. Perhaps the third time's the charm.
This is really puzzling to me because having owned a killer sounding and trouble-free Pink Taco for several years, I cannot understand the pattern of failures with this one...and the previous one. "Do I need to come down there?!"
