I had a customer who just could not find out why one channel did not work on his kit built amp while the other one worked great. After countless Emails I finally had him send the amp to me to determine what the issue was. As soon as the box arrived I could sense a problem because the amp was moving inside the box. I opened the box to find the amp had actually flipped on its side due to mainly poor (read that as loose) packing and probably some bad handling by UPS thrown in. As I took the amp out of the box I could see that the frame had bent near the front of the power transformer. Those transformers are heavy, have a lot of inertia, and if allowed to move around can generate a lot of force on the frame. I was able to bend the frame back fairly close to it's original shape by applying force from the inside of the frame with a wooden block and a hammer. It never got quite back to looking new. Sorry I don't have an "after" photo. It turns out that the problem with the amp was ONE connection to ONE resistor on the driver board. It HADN'T BEEN SOLDERED and was not making contact and therefore was not "in the circuit". I soldered the connection and the other channel on the amp worked fine.
The moral of the story is pack an amp tightly padded up with newspapers. DO NOT ever use styrofoam peanuts to pack an amp. They will not pack tightly enough to prevent motion of the amp inside the box. Another trick is to pack between the transformers with a BLOCK of styrofoam or newspapers packed tightly. This will stiffen up the transformer group and prevent a bent frame.
Bob
The moral of the story is pack an amp tightly padded up with newspapers. DO NOT ever use styrofoam peanuts to pack an amp. They will not pack tightly enough to prevent motion of the amp inside the box. Another trick is to pack between the transformers with a BLOCK of styrofoam or newspapers packed tightly. This will stiffen up the transformer group and prevent a bent frame.
Bob
