I Broke my SI amp.... any ideas?

[rslice97]

Hi there. I have read many different posts regarding upgraded input caps for the SI so i decided to give it a go. I finised the project with little trouble following the drawing on the michael mardis website. I used magnet wire as leads to a small pc board with solen caps and irc resistors. When I fired it up it worked well for a couple of minutes (sounded much improved from what i could tell) then shut off. I checked for shorts and thought i had found the problem. Tried again with the same results. Now it will turn on with no sound. I have checked and double checked all connections but I cant seem to figure it out. Would any of you fine folks have any suggestions on what I should look for? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Richard

PS I have searched some but I didnt find exactly what i needed.

[BWRX]

i had the EXACT same problem with one of the new unmodified stock SI's. i was testing it and it worked great for a while, then all of the sudden the output shut off. let it go for a couple minutes, came back, turned it on and there was output again. couple minutes later the output went dead again. let it go again, came back, no more output

i had never opened up the amp before, but i did to visually inspect the board and saw nothing wrong. it can't even really smell any burned out parts... i'm pretty sure it's dead though cause i can't hear the turn on click with speakers connected.

you could try undoing the mods you did and see if it works but other than that

[rslice97]

Ya I would try to put it back to stock but I dont think I could find the original surface mount parts. Oh well I guess Ill keep playing with it until it actually blows up.

Thanks
Richard

[toddsts]

Originally posted by BWRX
i had the EXACT same problem with one of the new unmodified stock SI's. i was testing it and it worked great for a while, then all of the sudden the output shut off. let it go for a couple minutes, came back, turned it on and there was output again. couple minutes later the output went dead again. let it go again, came back, no more output

i had never opened up the amp before, but i did to visually inspect the board and saw nothing wrong. it can't even really smell any burned out parts... i'm pretty sure it's dead though cause i can't hear the turn on click with speakers connected.

you could try undoing the mods you did and see if it works but other than that

I let my friend have my working SI amp when one he was using for a project wouldn't work. He's not modding the amp itself, just fitting it into an enclosure to use as an amp on his V-Rod...pretty cool actually. Anyway, I now have the one that didn't work right out of the box. No pop at turn on, no output. I've verified the input trace to the first capacitor as a good signal path and I've checked the power trace as well. The LED lights up but no sound out. I've found the proper value for all the resitors on the input section. I've checked the caps but my fluke MM is giving me strange readings. I'm new to this DIY scene and wanted to know if the fact that the caps are still attached to the board is affecting their capacitance reading on the MM? I'm guessing yes or S.I. really hosed up the cap installation.

If anyone figures out what is hosing up these boards please post. This one may just be a DOA and there's no hope. But if not I'd like to resurrect it.

Thanks.

Todd

[rslice97]

Happy days!!! I completely took my amp apart, rewired everything slightly more tidy and tested it all again and to my suprise it worked!!!! I am being cautiously optimistic because it is pretty late and I live in an apartment so I cant really crank it. Needless to say im pretty happy. Anyways I wish I could be of some help to you guys who are also having the problems. Have you tried contacting the retailer you purchased them from or the manufacturer? I dont know if these have a warranty but if might be worth a try.