Posted by ezragreen on September 23, 2003 at 08:50:18

It was about 5am when I plugged the 1st laurel into the new variac.
The variac has an ammeter & it wasnt wkg but did seem to be ouputting
ac.(I'll return variac later). I turned on the amp and got no b+ on the main pwr spply cap? No fil voltages? no tubes lit,etc. No noise
frm speakers. Did have ac at the mains trans. It basically looked dead
from the neck up. (I had just carefully re-chkd all conns) Realizing
I was too tired to trbl shoot further I went to bed. I did pull rectifier out because when inserting tubes I did notice it seemed to
insert a little too easy and indeed theree were a few kind of burrs on
the pins. ...5 hrs asleep.....wake up. Because the variac mite be suspect I went for it and plugged straight into outlet. I also removed
and inserted the rect. once more and threw the swtch. Voila, all voltages within spec. Dont know if a questionable solder joint with
just a little resistance kicked thru, if the rect made better contact,
or directly into outlet kick started the thing. But for now all is well. (I do remember talk on the forum about the teflon sockets' contacts being a little too limber? Any more on that I should be aware
of r.w.?) I guess some socket tensioners are in my future just in case.
I just thought you all might enjoy my little trauma. The lesson:sleep on it. (tonight the other amp! wish me luck)

regards
ezragreen