PS 2A Failure at gig x2…. Fine at home?

Stage & Studio Power Station PS-2
1

I have had 2 instances where my PS 2A has been either inoperable or gone silent at a gig, but works fine the next day…

The first time was about a month ago when my PS 2A would not even start to make a sound on operate (but is fine on bypass). So had to do the gig without it.

The second was last night at a gig it worked great for 2/3 of the gig in the middle of a song my volume dropped to 0. I walked over turned the PS on bypass and my volume came (albeit too loud for the small bar)

I’m curious what may be going on. In both instances I tried a different outlet with no success but the next day when I set up at home it works perfectly fine.

Edit: Internal and external fuses are intact

2

Hi @DWSumms09 and welcome to the community,

Sorry to hear this happened, and twice.

Here is the full “no sound” check list. You have already done some of these, but just ensure you have done them all, and we can take it from there.

When is your next gig?

1 Like
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Looks like all those check out. Everything was working great using it last night for a little bit at home.effects loop connected and all. Don’t know if it was how long it was running (about 2 hours into 3 hour show) or possibly voltage from the wall? But all other gear was unaffected.

I don’t think we have a gig again until late April.

My guess is maybe a semi bad/finnicky tube? Had a similar issue with my SV20 awhile ago. Tubes glowed normally and worked sometimes, but cut in/out occasionally. No blown fuses. Replaced all tubes and no issues since. You all may know better than me though.

4

Hi,

So did you manage to reproduce this issue at home too now? I was a bit unclear.

How many hours do you have on the tubes? If we are really comparing like for like with your rig in gig-mode and home-mode, and you have reproduced it, then yes, I would start to suspect the tubes as well.

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Sorry if that was unclear. I have not been able to reproduce at home. It’s just been these two instances at gigs.

Probably about 40-50 hours on tubes just got it at Christmas so not too many hours on it.

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I don’t want to suggest a retube and it be a waste of money, 60 hours is not that much for tubes either, so unlikely. Cannot rule it out. If you can reproduce that at home then maybe we can pin in on the tubes.

Have you used exactly the same cables in the gig and at home? Could you have a bad solder joint in a cable? Try putting stress on the cable and connectors or open them up and take a look.

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Yea same cables at gigs and at home. This past gig all cables were still in use after the PS issue arose as I rewired to my amps effects loop and speaker cables to another attenuator. The only cable not in use after the PS stopped would have been the power cable attached to the power station.

I will try to reproduce the symptoms if I can and report back

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Another bit of information about the first time it happened. It would not work when switched to operate at all. But my keyboardists solid state amp was close by and when I turned the power on to the PS I heard a popping noise coming out of his amp. This happened with different outlets being used. Ground loop possibly?