My Crack Smokes [solved]

[Paul Birkeland]

If you have 382 volts at terminal 2, your Crack would have never worked pre-Speedball.  With the Speedball, 155V on T1 and T5 is also way, way off.

Are you living in a 240V country? (Outside North America) If so, did you order a 240V transformer?  Are the batteries in your meter pretty fresh?

[captain widwiki]

Yes I live in France and I've ordered the good transformer (240V).

[Paul Birkeland]

I would double check how you are taking measurements.  Your voltages won't double from installing the Speedball. Also, if you had 382V across a 250V cap, other problems would pop up.

[captain widwiki]

I've double checked voltage and they are almost the same... On the first built of the stock crack the voltages were ok but I've noticed that they have all increase before the built of the speedball but I wasn't shure if it was important because my crack was working good.

[captain widwiki]

Hi,

I don't want to start a new topic because I've almost the same problem as before:

when I plug the jack (without source) there is a loud noise in both channel (but louder on the left). This buzzy noise is louder when the volume pot is at 0 and decrease at higher volume (but is still louder than anything i've heard). There is also a scratchy noise when I increase the volume the first time but not each time I touch it.

However since the last time I've resolder everything and I don't know why I've different voltages (have also used a different multimeter):

T1: 73
T2: 172
T3: 01
T4: 172
T5: 73
T6: 01
T7: 87
T8: 01
T9: 79
T10: 01-02
T11: 01
T12: 01
T13: 173
T14: 01
T15: 190
T20: 01
T21: 208-9

Is there any hope now ?

[Paul Birkeland]

Can you post some photos of your build? 

[captain widwiki]

I've soldered and resoldered many times so it may look strange in some places

[fullheadofnothing]

Your hum is probably MJE350 related. See this thread:
http://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php?topic=6039.0

Edited To Add:
Have you tried using a 6080 instead of the 5998?

[captain widwiki]

It's not a hum but a loud buzzy noise, and I don't think my 5998 have any problem cause within the stock building he is dead silent.

[fullheadofnothing]

But have you used the 6080?

[captain widwiki]

Yes the first month but I've changed because my 6080 was noisy

[Hornet900]

when I plug the jack (without source) there is a loud noise in both channel (but louder on the left). This buzzy noise is louder when the volume pot is at 0 and decrease at higher volume (but is still louder than anything i've heard). There is also a scratchy noise when I increase the volume the first time but not each time I touch it.

sounds like the problem I had captain ...try replacing the  MJE350 on the 2 small pcb boards, I bought mine from ebay  and solved the problem 

[Doc B.]

Yes, replace the MJE350s. We got a bogus batch several months ago. We can send you some replacements. Just email replacementparts at bottlehead dot com with your request and shipping info.

[captain widwiki]

Problem solved ! It's the first time I can hear my crack upgraded with speedball and it's just amazing 
I went throught lot of troubles but I made it and I would like to thank everyone for the support.