Hi all
While repairing an old Arcam for fun (a TON of bad capacitors) I unintentionally damaged one of the two amplifier boards on the unit. I didn't realise the V+V- caps were still charged and I plugged the main amplifier PCB connector - likely misaligned as it was quite tight in the bunch of cables. I saw sparks. Now I have V- (-53V) out of three out of four channels of that board.
Can I pick your brain on what could likely be the cause of this? I have been doing some preliminary testing and so far I've found Qx08 with emitter and collector shorted on all the affected channels. The main transistors seem to be ok.
Since I have voltage on the outputs, the PROTECT line goes HI and the amp shuts down.
I also believe I have found some Mute transistors not working (??) but I don't think that was me!
Schematics attached. The connector in question is P103A. That has V+, V- and all the outputs. The connector can be partly plugged misaligned but... I might have pushed -53V (V-) into BSRO. Still not sure how it's possible that three channels died. Could have been the sudden flow of current - to the correct inputs - from a charged capacitor to damage the components?
And yes, I did check that the caps were empty before plugging it back. Unfortunately I didn't realise that without the amp connectors plugged in, that board has no ground. So I referenced my multimeter to the wrong ground and it was telling me that it was ok. It wasn't...
Thanks all!