crate gt80 keeps blowing fuses

dmwescovich · Newbie Alert Joined: 30 May 2007 Posts: 1

i've got an old crate gt80 amp with one 10' speaker and both solid state and tube innards. bought it used in 97 or 98. bout a year after i got it, it blew a fuse, and when i replaced it, it blew again. this happened each time i put a new fuse in. it would blow immediately.

i ended up getting another amp, and put the gt80 into storage. now i've got it back out again, and curious about fixing it myself. it was a great sounding amp; i really want to get it up and running again.

anyone have any experience with this kind of problem?
thanks.

wes

_drg · Newbie Alert Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

I have the exact same problem, fuse blowing(though maybe not for the same reason). I hope that someone else has seen this and found some likely issues to check. Many thanks if anyone can chime in!

Herb · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:09 pm Post subject:

Immediate fuse blowing is usually the indication of a dead short somewhere. And it's usually somewhere ugly and expensive.
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MikeM · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject:

What's the configuration? Tube peamp or SS? Tube power section?

Blowing a fuse immediately means a short somewhere.

_drg · Newbie Alert Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

What's the configuration? Tube peamp or SS? Tube power section?
--It's one of those weird hybrid amps with tube or ss preamp, depending which button is pressed, and an all SS amp. I believe the power is SS. Unfortunately, I bought it used(off of Craigslist...worked fine for like 10 days), so I have no manual, schematic, warranty, or store return policy to help. The bummer part is that the Crate website is NO help. They have no info or troubleshooting guides or anything. Heck, they don't even support their stuff directly it looks like. They have some outsourced place called loudtechinc(dot)com covering their support now. But, it's a bit of a joke. You go to their site and try to go to the Crate help part and it's just a dead link! I've hit some amp forums/sites, but they seem to dismiss Crate products and focus more on the high end, nicer stuff. Talk about a brick wall. Anyhow, I hate to go try some $12/minute phone support from across the world, just to find that they don't support this model anymore anyway.

Blowing a fuse immediately means a short somewhere.
--Crud, that's what I was afraid of. I'm not too good at the diagnosis part unless I see an obvious, fried component(I let the caps sit for a bit, pulled the chassis, and didn't see anything that jumped out at me). I guess that I'm stuck with the sell it on craigslist/ebay to an amp tinkerer, or the old throw parts at it until I find the one that was bad technique!
Just out of curiosity, could one of the 3 preamp tubes be the short, or do they just blow and leave an open circuit...or, could they do either. I guess that I could pull them, try to fire the thing up and see if it blows fuses or arcs or something Smile

Better grab the fire extinguisher and the safety goggles.

Thanks tons for the input.

MikeM · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:15 pm Post subject:

Tubes can definetly short out! I'd try swapping them out and see if that makes a difference?

I replaced some parts on a Crate amp I used to own a few years back and had excellent service from them. As far as I know they're still headquartered out of St. Louis? The folks I talked to were extremely helpful.