Pflugshaupt
New member
Two weeks ago I successfully completed my crack build and it worked and sounded great. Now I tried doing the speedball upgrade, but I have run into big problems I need some help with.
When I completed the speedball initially, the checks were all okay. Some voltages were a bit high, but nothing crazy. I started using the crack with the speedball and initially everything seemed to work great until after some minutes I started hearing noise in the left channel. It was some kind of fade-in / fade-out browning noise that got worse and worse and I also heard some pops and then the big nightmare - white smoke started to come out of the vents. It had the typical burnt transistor smell. I checked everything many times and couldn't find an issue. I removed and reattached the larger speedball board in the process and so I though let's give it another go. I turned it on again flipped around and within seconds I saw smoke coming from the TIP50 closer to the smaller board. I turned everything off, search through the forums in search of an answer. I saw similar problems, but no smoke ever. I'm totally certain nothing is touching anything and that smoke definitely comes from the TIP50 and not from any resistor. Finally I thought maybe I just received a bad TIP50. So I ordered four replacements. I built the crack back to "partial speedball" with just the smaller board and I can confirm it is working just fine in that configuration.
Today I received the replacement TIP50s and I also exchanged the smaller transistor just for good measure. I made absolutely sure the TIP50 middle leg is soldered correctly and that there is no contact between the heatsink and the middle leg. I reflowed all points on the board as well.
When I wanted to measure the voltages with the new parts, I even got flames and smoke again. One of the legs of the new TIP50 started to glow and there was that smoke again. The only other thing I saw in the brief time it was on is that initially all eight speedball diodes lit up, but then the two on the section that is troublesome started to get more and more bright while the others become more faint. Then I turned everything off and now I have no idea what to do. I have 3 more tip50 I can burn, but obviously the problem seems to lie somewhere else and I need some help sorting this out - so please help and thanks in advance! I will now build it back to partial speedball just to be sure nothing else is broken.
When I completed the speedball initially, the checks were all okay. Some voltages were a bit high, but nothing crazy. I started using the crack with the speedball and initially everything seemed to work great until after some minutes I started hearing noise in the left channel. It was some kind of fade-in / fade-out browning noise that got worse and worse and I also heard some pops and then the big nightmare - white smoke started to come out of the vents. It had the typical burnt transistor smell. I checked everything many times and couldn't find an issue. I removed and reattached the larger speedball board in the process and so I though let's give it another go. I turned it on again flipped around and within seconds I saw smoke coming from the TIP50 closer to the smaller board. I turned everything off, search through the forums in search of an answer. I saw similar problems, but no smoke ever. I'm totally certain nothing is touching anything and that smoke definitely comes from the TIP50 and not from any resistor. Finally I thought maybe I just received a bad TIP50. So I ordered four replacements. I built the crack back to "partial speedball" with just the smaller board and I can confirm it is working just fine in that configuration.
Today I received the replacement TIP50s and I also exchanged the smaller transistor just for good measure. I made absolutely sure the TIP50 middle leg is soldered correctly and that there is no contact between the heatsink and the middle leg. I reflowed all points on the board as well.
When I wanted to measure the voltages with the new parts, I even got flames and smoke again. One of the legs of the new TIP50 started to glow and there was that smoke again. The only other thing I saw in the brief time it was on is that initially all eight speedball diodes lit up, but then the two on the section that is troublesome started to get more and more bright while the others become more faint. Then I turned everything off and now I have no idea what to do. I have 3 more tip50 I can burn, but obviously the problem seems to lie somewhere else and I need some help sorting this out - so please help and thanks in advance! I will now build it back to partial speedball just to be sure nothing else is broken.
. I did an emergency shutdown to prevent more damage before I could check. 
