Amp Shutting Down, need help

Is the AC cord plugged in on the same side of the line as the preamp and front end of the system?

Are you saying the front power switch is a maintained contact switch and not a momentary contact switch? In other words the push button switch has two positions, in and out?

• The front switch has two positions (though very subtle) either pushed in for Active or out for Standby.

• With the extension cord attached the rear On/Off breaker remains in the On position. My current operation (again with extension cord attached) is to only to change the unit from Standby to Active and visa versa when I want to listen to music or not. I never touch the rear circuit breaker On/Off Switch I leave it in the On position.

Have you thought about sending the Agon Link of this thread of yours to Cary service support?

• I will send it to them and I have been keeping them in the loop with no feedback as of late.

The reason I ask is your friend qualified, confident, to perform work inside the electrical panel of your apartment? Nothing major.... Just move the hot conductor of the audio 20 amp dedicated circuit to another 20 amp breaker on the other Line, leg, bus in the electrical panel. (Providing there are any spares. If there is not a spare he could use a breaker that is being used, for the test.)

• He said all the wires are live coming in to the breaker box and it is not a good idea to switch them as there is no way to kill the current coming into the box.

Turn off ever breaker at the electrical panel except the main breaker, if you have one, and the breaker that feeds the dedicated circuit to the Cary amp.

• I turned off all circuit breakers and unplugged everything I could physically remove from every outlet in the apartment so that just the Cary was plugged into the wall without the extension cord. The Cary On/Off breaker blew as usual after 20 seconds after I went from Standby to Active mode.

I would sure like to know what the VD, voltage drop, looks like at the end of the 50' 16/3 cord as the Cary amp is going through its active start up cycle...... Especially that last relay click you hear

• I attached a three way strip I had lying around into the end of the extension cord. I then plugged the Cary into one of the sockets and the voltage meter into the other.
• When turn the circuit breaker from Off to On the voltage at the end of the extension cord does not change. It remains at 118 volts. When I press the front button from Standby to Active the voltage remains at 118 volts for the 20 second duration. At that last relay click (at about 20 seconds) the voltage dropped from 118 volts down to 115 volts for split second and then back up to 118 volts.

Is the AC cord plugged in on the same side of the line as the preamp and front end of the system?

• All of these tests are performed with just the Cary plugged into the outlet and nothing else.

Getting back to the ground issue:

I have a great ground on my apartment terrace. It is a lightning rod building ground cable. I assume you can't get any better ground than that. Since the ground for all my outlets is through the conduit and outlet boxes should I somehow attach a wire from the lightning rod ground to the outlet box or green connector on the outlet? Not quite sure from earlier posts what I was supposed to test.

Thanks!

I don't think the ground is the problem.

Here is my theory:

Right now I think there might be DC on the line. DC can cause a toroidal transformer to saturate. Now what if its not very much DC, less maybe only about .3 to .5 volts...

In standby the amp might be OK. At full power the toroid saturates and the resulting inrush blows the breaker.

By adding the power cord there is enough voltage drop and resulting reduction in current inrush that things hold up.

In other places tried there is no DC on the line.

DC is a good culprit as we are talking about multiple dwellings in a single building.

There are 3 solutions I can think of:

1) have a current inrush limiter installed ()this might allow the amp to power up but I bet the transformer will be mechanically noisy)
2) have a DC blocker circuit installed (a rectifier bridge bypassed with electrolytic caps of the right value) We are talking about $15-$20 worth of parts. This is something I would have Cary do.
3) use a DC blocker with the circuitry of 2) in it.

You could test this theory by getting the DC Blocker of 3) and seeing if it sorts things out. If it does, I would have the amp modified by Cary to have these parts installed. Its an easy fix.

Sailcappy,

No I would not use the lightning bare 4/0 ground wire for an auxiliary equipment ground..... That could open up a whole new can of warms.

• I attached a three way strip I had lying around into the end of the extension cord. I then plugged the Cary into one of the sockets and the voltage meter into the other.
• When turn the circuit breaker from Off to On the voltage at the end of the extension cord does not change. It remains at 118 volts. When I press the front button from Standby to Active the voltage remains at 118 volts for the 20 second duration. At that last relay click (at about 20 seconds) the voltage dropped from 118 volts down to 115 volts for split second and then back up to 118 volts.
08-22-12: Sailcappy

Well I would bet the switch/breaker on the back of the unit is nothing more than a main power breaker/switch disconnect.

The maintained contact standby/active mode switch is in series with the rear panel breaker/switch. All amplifier loads are fed off this switch.

The soft start circuit, along with, I would imagine active sequence staging start up, keeps inrush currents controlled from the voltage readings you supplied. A 3 Volt VD on a 50' 16/3 cord is incredibly low to say the least.

Just curious is the multi meter voltage section reading true RMS?

One other test I should have mention is to check the VD with the amp playing music from a dynamic music source with the volume level set where you normally listen to music. IF the voltage were to sag below the safety limits of the amp, because of the VD of the extension cord, the amp could be damaged. If you do the test watch the meter to see if it moves around with the dynamics of the music material. Hard to believe the dynamics of the amp does not suffer because of the 50' 16/3 cord.......

The reason I ask is your friend qualified, confident, to perform work inside the electrical panel of your apartment? Nothing major.... Just move the hot conductor of the audio 20 amp dedicated circuit to another 20 amp breaker on the other Line, leg, bus in the electrical panel. (Providing there are any spares. If there is not a spare he could use a breaker that is being used, for the test.)
jea48

• He said all the wires are live coming in to the breaker box and it is not a good idea to switch them as there is no way to kill the current coming into the box.
Sailcappy

Your friend does not feel safe working on the inside of a live electrical panel and that is fine.....
Better safe than sorry.....

You would need to hire an electrician to do the test for you.

Atmasphere,

The Cary 7.250 has a built in DC blocker as well as a soft start circuit.
Jim