6550 Tube Blew - A Few Questions


Hi. While listening to my system the other night, I noticed one of the power tubes for the right channel glowed extra bright, and static came through the speaker. I immediately shut down the amp, and haven't turned it back on.

Is it possible to check for damage to the other channel or other parts of the amp without installing a new tube to replace the blown one? I don't want to buy a matched pair and then discover that the amp has other damage.

Is it safe to test each channel with the other channel's tubes removed? Thanks!

Terry
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1. The simpliest way is to plug in the tube and if there's no bias voltage reading, the bias resistor is blown. What it simply means that cathode power supply has an open circuit and tube doesn't emit electrones to anode.
To ensure safety of remaining circuit and tube it's essential to visually inspect DC supply caps, elements and PCB itself around the blown tube with magnifying glass. DC caps may look like baloon or have traces of liquid waste around them. If that's the case you should replace them first.
2. Visual ID bias resistor. Locate bias resistor between cathode pins of the tube (usually pins 1 and 8 but check with any tube dealer who will share the pin geography of any tube you'll ask). Bias resistor most of the time 10Ohms and sometimes 100 Ohms and designed to get your voltage drop reading plus to protect the circuit by cutting off power from cathode. Tube may well work without bias resistor and you can bias it by measuring current instead FYI. To ensure that it's blown just test the sucker for open circuit.
3. If bias resistor is OK and your visual test is negative, consider your tube's gone 'piecefully' and you're safe to replace the new one.

Do all your tests with mentioned above dummy load resistor instead of speakers and connect your unpowered preamp or source to input.

Unfortunately not all of tube amps are plug-n-play when they blow tubes, but having been dealing with number of guitar amps seen everything. I hope that it's just a tube that you need to replace, but don't know precisely how Jolidas built. No surprise to me that they might be better built than VTLs and all you need to do is just to replace tube and worst case tube+bias resistor. If you'll be aquainted to the luxury to get schematics and circuit element description from manufacturer, you'll also benefit and make your life a-bit easier.

Continue to post what you find.
Hey, that was a great post. I think I found the resistors you said on Ebay (who has 50 watt resistors lying around? :) ), and I'll start on these tests as soon as the tubes arrive. Thanks a lot!

Terry
Forgot to mention that I prefer to bias amps on dummy load instead of speaker. When I owned VTL, I implemented switch to dummy load and used it even if I wanted to simply stand by the amp with no listening(only in case if I plan to listen to it multiple times per day).
Ok, thanks for the info. I didn't know about the bias resistor blowing. I'll certainly call Jolida today and ask about it, and where I can obtain 0service if necessary.

Iirc, the same thing happened once before, and I didn't need to replace a resistor. But, I was thinking, if its just a resistor, shouldn't be too difficult to do myself if I can be told which resistor. Another reason to call Jolida and do some Googling.

Terry
Well, I got the replacement tubes today, replaced the right channel with them, and am not getting power at all.

I checked the fuse, and it was still good. I checked inside, and could see no obvious damage or the smell of something burnt. What are some of the obvious things I can check before I bring it in for out-of-warranty repair?