Orange Amps Forum

I opened mine up and it also has the "black plastic lugs" on the main board instead of being screwed down... I'm thinking that might allow the board to vibrate with a resonance at high volume/gain, and since the tubes are mounted to it, that might be mechanically coupled to the tubes and the cause of the tone/squeal.... that's just a random guess... I'll try some experiments with it and see if I can learn more. My amp tech is backed up, so I've got a couple of weeks to play with it.

This squeal is at a particular frequency residing in the frequencies governed by the "High" tone knob. i.e., I can turn the HIGH pot down and eliminate the squeal.

It might be useful if someone with a "good" AD15 has any pics of the main board and maybe the EQ board they could post. I know other people near me that have this amp, but I'm still trying to convince one of them to let me take theirs apart and compare it with mine.

edit: I'm not suggesting anyone take their amp apart and take pictures for me. but if you've done so in the past and have the pics they might be useful. everyone has been extremely helpful and I thank you all for taking the time to think and post about this.

I'll try to open mine up this weekend. Finding time is a challenge though, our 2nd kid was born 25 days ago.....!!!

Right on man, I've got three myself. Oldest is 6. Remember, sleep is overrated!

Yeah, 25 days but only two nights...

Congratulations! Hope the new one isn't squealing too much.


Andy.

HCW wrote:Right on man, I've got three myself. Oldest is 6. Remember, sleep is overrated!

Ain't it just????

a.hun wrote:Yeah, 25 days but only two nights...

Congratulations! Hope the new one isn't squealing too much.


Andy.

No, she's pretty good. And i dont want to be the overly proud dad, but some of her poos are pretty close to Orange tolex colour. Very impressive!

If the plastic lugs are the culprit, couldn't these be changed out very easily with metal ones? And...pics would be very nice of both versions whenever possible!

ironlung40 wrote:If the plastic lugs are the culprit, couldn't these be changed out very easily with metal ones? And...pics would be very nice of both versions whenever possible!

Just to clarify, the plastic lugs were not the thing causing my AD15 to oscillate, that was something to do with the circuit itself.

The plastic lugs combined with PCB mounted tube sockets caused a different issue. Said issue being that the board moved a enough when replacing tubes to cause shorts.

It may be possible to replace the lugs with metal ones however I would question why Trace Elliot switched to plastic. It may have been a cost cutting measure but then again there may have been a very good reason. If it was merely to save them maybe 5p it's a pretty big compromise in quality for the customer.

tspaceman3 wrote:

ironlung40 wrote:If the plastic lugs are the culprit, couldn't these be changed out very easily with metal ones? And...pics would be very nice of both versions whenever possible!

Just to clarify, the plastic lugs were not the thing causing my AD15 to oscillate, that was something to do with the circuit itself.

The plastic lugs combined with PCB mounted tube sockets caused a different issue. Said issue being that the board moved a enough when replacing tubes to cause shorts.

It may be possible to replace the lugs with metal ones however I would question why Trace Elliot switched to plastic. It may have been a cost cutting measure but then again there may have been a very good reason. If it was merely to save them maybe 5p it's a pretty big compromise in quality for the customer.

O.K. Noted. Thanks for reply.

Ok, a small update. I've managed to get the squealing to stop when nothing is plugged into the amp, but I still get the squeal with something plugged in and the volume way up. The input jack is suppose to ground out the inputs when nothing is plugged in, but it was not making a good connection so that is why it was squealing with nothing plugged in. I took it apart and cleaned it thoroughly with freon and a small wire brush to fix that problem.

However, I'm still getting the unpleasant ring out of the amp plugged in and trying to play it. It seems to be feedback related. I've found that I can plug in a cable (tried several, most of my cables are Armor Gold) and the squealing will start as I move other end of the cable in front of the speaker.

Here are a few pics I took of the inside:

These two show the potential shorting risk between one of the transformer connections and a mounting bolt. I think this is what tspaceman3 was talking about.








Here is a pic of the plastic lugs:





Here are some pics of the Front Panel board:







Here are some pics of the main board:

Thanks for sharing this and the pictures.

Here's a picture of the metal lugs.
I noticed in your pictures your board design date is 4/10/2002. So far i've seen 3 board designs for the Ad15.
My serial #005 has a different board than they used in production, dated 30/7/1998, wired very differently and labeled millennium. its using metal lugs. They probably used this board in 10 or so of the first ad15's I noticed forum member SOONER has the same millennium board in his serial #001. Then by my serial #021 and #023 they used a board dated 16/10/1998 for production. also using metal lugs. My serial #446 from 2001 has the same board 16/10/1998. This one uses plastic lugs. Seems very solid though. So i'm wondering if that 3rd board design they went to in 2002 wasn't a good idea?!?!?

steamboat wrote: So i'm wondering if that 3rd board design they went to in 2002 wasn't a good idea?!?!?

Interesting that sometime in 2002 was apparently when manufacturing was moved from the Trace Elliot facility to some other facility. Apparently the Trace quality wasn't that bad after all...

steamboat wrote:Here's a picture of the metal lugs.
I noticed in your pictures your board design date is 4/10/2002. So far i've seen 3 board designs for the Ad15.
My serial #005 has a different board than they used in production, dated 30/7/1998, wired very differently and labeled millennium. its using metal lugs. They probably used this board in 10 or so of the first ad15's I noticed forum member SOONER has the same millennium board in his serial #001. Then by my serial #021 and #023 they used a board dated 16/10/1998 for production. also using metal lugs. My serial #446 from 2001 has the same board 16/10/1998. This one uses plastic lugs. Seems very solid though. So i'm wondering if that 3rd board design they went to in 2002 wasn't a good idea?!?!?

Very possible! I have been able to talk my friend into letting me borrow his AD15 and take it apart (I did replace a scratchy pot on it for him a while back, and it's the reason I bought one for myself). I'll do a side-by-side comparison this weekend and post what I find.

Sooner wrote:

steamboat wrote: So i'm wondering if that 3rd board design they went to in 2002 wasn't a good idea?!?!?

Interesting that sometime in 2002 was apparently when manufacturing was moved from the Trace Elliot facility to some other facility. Apparently the Trace quality wasn't that bad after all...

They did the job to the price spec basically. Some of the stuff to come out of the TE factory (eg the Gibson Goldtone and some TE own amps) was pretty abysmal in terms of reliability. Other designs they did put together much better. Nothing too far wrong with the TE built Oranges IME.


Andy.

steamboat wrote:

Hi Steamboat. Do you have a close-up picture of one of those blue capacitors where you can read the writing on them?