Warming up and cooling down

[Sam Laming]

Hey there

Obviously you leave tubes heating up for a few minutes/longer if your going to play at loud volumes but what should you do when turning your amp off? I've heard of people letting amps cool down for a few minutes, does this mean turning the 'run' switch off and just leaving the amp on for a while then turn it and the mains off or something else? and for how long should you do this if so? thanks

 

[Sam Laming]

Anyone?

 

[duesentrieb]

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Just keep the amp during the winter after gigs in the room you've gigged it and give the tubes a bit time to cool down from those 80°C to room temperature before you're going outside where its -15°C - just to make the "shock" a bit milder and to prevent also condensation at least to a minimum.

 

[Hey_bert_whtcha_doin_bert]

I think he meant shutting the amp off in general. Myself, I let it cool down in stand by (run off) while I'm tearing everything else down, about 1 to 2 minutes. Some people say to turn the mains off immediately to drain the power thats built up from running, to minimize power surges when firing up, or something to that degree I think. SO, I dunna. Having done it both ways before, I've never seen a real difference in tube life really, but I've never held on to power tubes for any long period of time either, preamp tubes it doesn't matter either way, from what I've been told. I think its more of a matter of what way you were taught. Also Bogner amps you have to go through standby to shut them off, so I would think you should have to use stand by first, if you were going by them that is . I would really like to hear how Peter does it.

-Nick

 

[scottph]

I usually let them cool off for a few minutes, after turning the run to 0, before switching the main power off.

 

[Peter Diezel]

Power on ...... let´s warm up for 30 seconds.............. Run

Standby ................ wait 3 seconds ............... Power off

Wait 5 minutes before You take the amp from the cabinet.

 

[scottph]

You're lying! You just wanna make us ruin our amps so we need to buy new ones from you!

 

[Peter Diezel]

:idea: :idea: :idea:

 

[Hey_bert_whtcha_doin_bert]

Power on ...... let´s warm up for 30 seconds.............. Run

Standby ................ wait 3 seconds ............... Power off

Wait 5 minutes before You take the amp from the cabinet.

You don't know how gald I am to hear you say that, thats how I use to do it, so good, I can go back to that, much quicker, haha.

-Nick

 

[Me]

Hurrah! That's what I do. I figured with off it's best to let everything reach "standby equilibrium" for a few seconds. But couldn't see the point in waiting any longer since "off" would be more "off"!

If you have a rack power amp with a fan sometimes it can be best to leave that in standby for a while to fan-cool the tubes and blow the hot air all out before turning off though. That's kinda what happened in chernobyl! They turned the nuclear reactor off completely and didn't have the cooling left running, it boiled up and went pop 'cuz they shut it down too fast!

 

[Sam Laming]

:|::QBB:

:idea: :idea: :idea:

Thanks for your responce Peter! 30 seconds seems abit short from what I've heard most people say but I guess you made the amp n all

 

[Peter Diezel]

:|::QBB:

Hurrah! That's what I do. I figured with off it's best to let everything reach "standby equilibrium" for a few seconds. But couldn't see the point in waiting any longer since "off" would be more "off"!

If you have a rack power amp with a fan sometimes it can be best to leave that in standby for a while to fan-cool the tubes and blow the hot air all out before turning off though. That's kinda what happened in chernobyl! They turned the nuclear reactor off completely and didn't have the cooling left running, it boiled up and went pop 'cuz they shut it down too fast!

Chernobyl ......... Herbert ...........

 

[Sixstring]

:|::QBB:

Power on ...... let´s warm up for 30 seconds.............. Run

Standby ................ wait 3 seconds ............... Power off

Wait 5 minutes before You take the amp from the cabinet.

That's the way I've done all my amps ..... more or less.