Krell 300S repair


Hello! Working on a Krell 300S amp; looking for some help. It comes on immediatly when plugged in, and goes through the bias test. The power switch tests fine, but you can't power up or power down with the switch. Pin 7 (from the switch) on the front panel chip is +, but the power out pin 9 is also + which should be low until you switch the unit on. I've taken the chip out a few times and cleaned/reseated it, but still same problem. Thanks in advance!

jwendt2003

This is a tough one because it's a microcontroller, so I'm guessing it's a reset issue. If you know where the voltage regulators are located, test the output voltage (usually 5 or 12 volts, sometimes one each). The reset of the controller (Pin 1) requires a reference of 5 volts. Check that. Then work back on the circuit trace until you see the first electrolytic capacitor connected between Pin 1 and ground. Check the cap. Then do the same for Pin 26 (VDD). This pin should be 12V (maybe 5, don't know without a schematic). Check along the circuit trace to the first electrolytic to ground. If these caps are dried out the controller will have difficulty maintaining a constant voltage.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Then there are components that act on the controller outputs that may have failed, such as opto-couplers and transistors.

Well, there was a switch on the board that said 'Mains/Manual'. Flipped it back and now the power button works fine. Found out after changing 2 caps. The right side is back to staying on full bias during the bias walkdown test on power up. The left side is fine. My friend has already changed all the main electrolytics on the driver boards before I got it. From what I understand, it could be any one of the protection circuits, or leaky power transistors throwing the DC offset out? I have a cheapo meter; I need to borrow a good one the has lower DC scales...