[skeptic]

Thanks guys. I think I'm just gonna resolder all the joints.

 
Sonido - can you tell us which, if any, of the LED's and/or tube heaters are coming on right now?  It may be possible to narrow this down a bit and avoid having to pull your speedball boards. If your heaters aren't coming up (no tube glow at all?), for example, that narrows things down a lot.

 

[Sonido]

Sonido - can you tell us which, if any, of the LED's and/or tube heaters are coming on right now?  It may be possible to narrow this down a bit and avoid having to pull your speedball boards. If your heaters aren't coming up (no tube glow at all?), for example, that narrows things down a lot.

No tube glow from either tube. I'll have to check LED's when I get home.

 

[skeptic]

No tube glow from either tube. I'll have to check LED's when I get home.

 
That's actually good news from a trouble shooting standpoint.  Since your heaters run off ac, straight from the main transformer, I think you can pretty much focus on the joints on your transformer terminals and IEC outlet and ignore all else until the tubes light up.  Are you sure it isn't just your fuse?  Per the directions when measuring voltages set forth in the manual, take some measurements on the IEC pins and transformer terminals and let us know if power is getting to the transformer.  Sounds very much like it isn't.  Good luck!   

 

[Sonido]

That's actually good news from a trouble shooting standpoint.  Since your heaters run off ac, straight from the main transformer, I think you can pretty much focus on the joints on your transformer terminals and IEC outlet and ignore all else until the tubes light up.  Are you sure it isn't just your fuse?  Per the directions when measuring voltages set forth in the manual, take some measurements on the IEC pins and transformer terminals and let us know if power is getting to the transformer.  Sounds very much like it isn't.  Good luck!   

I'll check the fuse again. Might as well replace it since I have spares. I'm using 0.5 amps slow blow because I blew the original fuse due to a short when I first finished building the Crack, and I wanted to get a 1 amp slow blow, but Radioshack only had 0.5 amp and it worked fine.

Another thing is I was in the middle of plugging my headphones in when it died. I do believe unlike other times, I was plugging it in slower than normal, and it got stuck a bit halfway. Maybe this caused a short? Either that or the vibration of plugging in shook loose a solder joint.

 

[brunk]

I'll check the fuse again. Might as well replace it since I have spares. I'm using 0.5 amps slow blow because I blew the original fuse due to a short when I first finished building the Crack, and I wanted to get a 1 amp slow blow, but Radioshack only had 0.5 amp and it worked fine.

Another thing is I was in the middle of plugging my headphones in when it died. I do believe unlike other times, I was plugging it in slower than normal, and it got stuck a bit halfway. Maybe this caused a short? Either that or the vibration of plugging in shook loose a solder joint.

Remember to use a bit higher heat than normal, I sit around 350-375 celsius on my dial with a 2-3mm chisel tip. This will reduce dwell time and allow you to work faster too. Double check that you have good mechanical connections too when you suck the old solder out. Hopefully that'll help you

 

[JamieMcC]

Every now and then I like to get out and play Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds the 1978 version with the narration by Richard Burton. I havn't done so for a while and was truly surprised at how good it is through the Crack the spoken narration and sound effects are just excellent.

 

[dsound]

Another thing is I was in the middle of plugging my headphones in when it died. I do believe unlike other times, I was plugging it in slower than normal, and it got stuck a bit halfway. Maybe this caused a short? Either that or the vibration of plugging in shook loose a solder joint.

I don't think you can short your Crack by partially plugging in your headphones; that being said the act of plugging in the phones could have shaken a bad-joint loose.  That happened to me, I used to get a nasty "pop!" every once in a while when I plugged my phones in and I traced it to a bad ground wire-connection.
 
Hope you get this solved soon

 

[Sonido]

Just got home. Confirmed that it's not a fuse problem, and none of the LEDs light up. Looks like bad solder somewhere.

 

[Sonido]

Well that was easy.

 
Resoldered 5 or 6 solder joints that looked suspect. Added some leaded solder for good measure. Two were definitely bad and moved upon touching. I guess lesson learned here is unlike cars and gasoline, lead is good here. Actually, I learned this lesson a while back and built my Quickie with leaded solder, but it seems the mistake of using lead-free solder keeps coming back to bite. For those that don't know the difference between the solder types, lead-free solder has a higher melting point so it's harder to get it to the right temperature resulting in cold solders.

 

[DefQon]

   
No it didn't and I was kind of expecting it to. Wiring and soldering is straight forward enough.  If you are after one with a termination block I suggest you could always check with the seller prior to ordering.

 
I have about 14 of them from an order I made over a year ago so it's all good. Just wondering why yours didn't come with the end terminal blocks for easy fast secure termination. 

 

[Loquah]

  Every now and then I like to get out and play Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds the 1978 version with the narration by Richard Burton. I havn't done so for a while and was truly surprised at how good it is through the Crack the spoken narration and sound effects are just excellent.

 
I love that album!!
 
Haven't specifically listened to it through the Bottlehead amps though - a track here or there, but not the whole album so I haven't really gotten into the moment with it

 

[Aussiejuggalo]

Loquah, Thanks you really dont need much to build these things

Sonido, Lucky I was following the problems with your Crack, was thinking about using some lead free solder if I end up buying one of these

 

[brunk]

Loquah, Thanks you really dont need much to build these things

Sonido, Lucky I was following the problems with your Crack, was thinking about using some lead free solder if I end up buying one of these

Yeah, treat yourself to some 63/37 solder (smallest diameter you can get), a flux pen, a 2-3mm chisel tip and you'll be spared of these common issues when new to soldering
 
EDIT: Don't be shy on the heat either. If you find yourself waiting over 5-7 seconds for the solder flow, crank it up.

 

[Aussiejuggalo]

Yeah, treat yourself to some 63/37 solder (smallest diameter you can get), a flux pen, a 2-3mm chisel tip and you'll be spared of these common issues when new to soldering

EDIT: Don't be shy on the heat either. If you find yourself waiting over 5-7 seconds for the solder flow, crank it up.

So chisel tip is easier then pencil for this kinda stuff? I use a pencil on wire, thats about as far as my soldering knowledge goes

Gonna probably get flamed... what does flux do again? I forgot lol

One good thing with my soldering iron is it can do 30 or 60w, I dont have one of those fancy soldering stations just a good ol' wall plug

 

[DefQon]

Gonna probably get flamed... what does flux do again? I forgot lol

 

 
Fluxcapacitor = more jiggawatts.