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Gig desaster: powermixer blow up at sound check before we start


Jkater

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Can't explain it: the singer's acoustic guitar was plugged to a channel and wasn't loud enough (didn't have a pre-amp between guitar and mixer) so I try pushing that button that says +4db/-10db to see if it changes the gain... KNACK! big loud noise in the speakers and the house breaker goes out. Put the breaker back on... Mixer is dead, won't turn on. :freak:

 

We plugged the keyboard on a small monitor and played acoustic and unamplified the whole gig...

 

I brought it to the store to have it checked out and it's more than the fuse. Something's broken and it will be sent for (hopefully) repair.

 

Can someone tell me what the hell possibly happened? Did I break that thing just pushing that button?

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Can't tell you what's wrong but it's good practice gigging and in the studio to turn down levels before changing something.


14db is quite a boost to put through the PA.


I'd also go with power surge though.

 

Yes, the fader was all the way up and I didn't think of lowering it before pushing the button. :o

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I wouldn't think that a maxed fader would throw the house breaker. That's why I suspected a power surge from the outside. Was there anything else turned on that was affected as well? What did you smell if anything?

 

 

Keyboard was plugged to the same outlet but wasn't turned on at that time. Nothing else got damaged.

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Might be a help in the future but I plug my PA and guitar rig into a surge protector. A couple of years ago we were playing a remote with a furnished generator. The damn thing spiked on us but our surge protection shut the door before anybody got electrocuted or gear was fried.

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The fact that the thing doesn't light up at all is a pretty sure indicator of a power supply problem. Whether something else is blown is another question. The fact that it popped the house breaker is pretty good evidence of a major current overload in the mixer. I'd be inclined to suspect this might be due to some pre-existing defect in the mixer, and that you may just have drawn the short straw, in that you were the one who punched the boost button when it blew.

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I've made that same mistake a few times.

 

If the singer was playing at the time you hit that switch it could have jolted the power section hard with the fader being all the way up. It's possible that when the gain switch was transitioning between settings there was no proper voltage regulation between the pre-amp and the power-amp for that moment.

 

Since nothing smells burnt, I agree with dcindc that it may just be an internal fuse that was blown.

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