DickFoster

Oh well. The cable is the cheap and easy first thing to check. It's best to cross your fingers when you try and hope for the best. Now it could be either the amp or the floorboard. The next thing to do is try to find another floorboard to try and see which. Yeah I know they are as scarce as hens teeth. If you were local I tell you to come try my long board but these things are too heavy and bulky to ship and I may never see it again plus it was hard enough to get my hands on this one. LOL Good luck with your search. I don't have a schematic for one but from what I remember when I took mine apart for a look see, there were only a couple of common and simple chips inside along with the slew of switches and LEDs. The fancy bits are in the amp so hope for a bad chip in the floor board and that's the next most likely problem.

Don't know for sure, no one does without the amp in front of them but unless you're into electronics, take it to tech and have him check out the power supply. Unless it's perhaps a bad pot/switch or something it sounds as if some caps in the power supply may have dried out. That would do it. The big caps in the power supply and power amp etc. are a type called electrolytics that use a paste dialetric and they tend to age, leak and go bad over time. A common failure for older gear.

According to the service info I have, yes the main borads are the same. Other than the lack of a headphone jack, the other difference between heads and combos is in the output power amp and the power supply powering the output amp. There is a flag bit to the processor letting it know which amp it is so I don't know what effect there is in the software regarding a headphone jack however there is a flag from the headphone jack to DSP1 that mutes the power amp when headphones are plugged in with the combos. Supposedly the software ignores this bit for head units. Outside of that, from the looks of it it's mostly a hardware thing involving a few parts, a couple of ICs U23, U24 one for each channel and their parts a few resistors and caps and the jack itself which is a stereo jack. The ICs are each a TL084 which is a fairly common quad op amp intended for audio applications. It is avaliable from several makers, TI, SGS and SG among them. Almost any distributor should have them but you don't have to use that chip as most similar chips would work just as well but the pinout should match if you're gonna use the same spot on the main board, the chips may or may not be stuffed already. Line6 could have put them in all the main boards regardless of which amp they are going into as it's not so costly a chip to bother with the differences. Take a look and see if U23 and U24 are on your board. If so you've lucked out. The headphone amp is fed by U14 which drives the Direct Outs.

I agree. Line6's support and support policy leaves a lot to be desired and is not conducive to repeat business. It's a penny wise but pound foolish attitude and is much like shooting one's self in the foot. Regards of what they say, any truly competent tech with the service info and common test equipment can fix most of what ails a busted Vetta. Age doesn't matter except for a few of the parts specific to that design which are difficult to source but those parts are not failure prone.

Wrong cable. It's been reported on here time after time after time that only use the M Audio Uno Cable should be used. Also MS OSs after XP have been reported to be a problem in the same area. Get an Uno cable and an XP computer and your problem may be solved. http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/uno

First thing to do is check the battery voltage then replace it if necessary and reflash the amp with the right cable and software if there are no loose cables to the display. This seems to fix most Vetta problems. Maybe get some help if you aren't into this sort of thing.

Glad to hear you got your amp back. I guess I'd never have seen your problem since I've stayed with XP all along. For email and a few message boards it's enough so no need to trade up to a whole new set of problems, which every new OS from MS seems to be. As soon as they finally get one OS fixed up, they dump that one and start all over again and do it all over again with a new set of endless problems and patches. LOL I've watched this cycle repeat over and over again from the DOS days so by now I know how they work. It's very reminiscent of how Washington and our political system works or doesn't as the case may be.

I have a combo so that's what I'm talking about. Don't know the details of the head units.

I concur up to the bit about giving you a new amp. They simply can't get some of the parts anymore to even build one because those parts have been discontinued by the makers, like the DSPs for example. However not providing what support they can is tantamount to taking aim at your own foot with a 45 and pulling the trigger, marketing wise. It simply boils down to an attitude problem and that much can't be forgiven or ever ignored.

It's a stereo amp with two channels. Whether or not it's in stereo or summed to mono depends on the patch and how you saved it. No the two internal speakers in the combo are not in parallel as they are each fed with a seperate power amp for stereo if you want it. The two external speaker outputs are in parallel with the two internal speakers. if you want to run all external cabs it's a simple matter to disconnet a wire to the internal speaker or speakers you don't want to use.

There are lots of cabs and amps in the list. I think there is still a list of them on the Line6 website somewhere. The list is also in the user manual that you can download from the support section. I think the Vetta is a very well made piece of gear and likely much better than anything they or anyone else makes today. The only trouble is getting repair work and support for them now. If you're an electronics type or know one and have the service docs then it's still an OK deal and a great amp. It was very much ahead of it's time.

It shouldn't be hard to do. Except for output power and a few other minor issues they are the same amp inside. I think the head amp has more final transistors and a beefed up power supply to feed them but the rest is pretty much the same. Basically you build a box. Then take the amp out of the combo box and put the amp in the new box and add some jacks and or termianals to connect the speaker cab/cabs.

I have no idea what it would cost. It depends on the person, the shop, the area and what not. Maybe you can find a friend who is into this sort of thing that could help you out. You can get the service manual by downloading it from the web if he needs it. But before tearing into the amp, swap out everything else just to be sure it is indeed the amp and not the guitar or something. Ya just never know. If it is the amp it should be constant regardless of the guitar or where it is or where it's plugged in. While it may be worse in some locations due to lighting and what not the hum would still be there if it's the amp.

I doubt it's your guitar cord and I doubt that a reflash would help this either. It's not a software type of problem. You could try another guitar cord since it's easy and cheap to do. just to see. BTW I don't put much stock in those so called monster cables. It's a lot of money for an imaginary problem mostly. Yes, after many years some electrolytic caps do tend to go bad. They are a very common power supply failure component and one of the first things a tech will check. Some will just replace them out of hand if they are old. It's an easy thing to check for any good tech, just hang a scope probe on each power supply lead and see how much 60Hz there is on it. If s a noisey one is found, start looking for leaky caps. It could be something else but that's a good place to start. Unless you're used to digging around in electronics gear or have the equipment for the job, I don't recommend that you try this yourself.

Unless you have a ground loop somewhere, it might be some power supply caps starting to dry out. Electrolytic caps can tend to do that. To reduce the possabilty of a ground loop, try powering everything from the same source and see that the returns form a star ground. See that the gear that pulls higher levels of current is powered by a seperate branch of the star. Also make sure that the single ground is really a good ground.

I think it worthwhile to point out that most update failures happen due to someone trying to use the wrong MIDI cable. It's just not worth it to put your amp at risk trying to avoid buying a 30 or 40 dollar M Audio Uno cable. I don't care if what you have works for something else, just get the cable for the amp upgrade if for nothing else and do it right or you'll only have yourself to blame for the consequences.

I'm pretty sure you'd find any switch in any amp or contorller to be soldered in some fashion either the wires to it or it will be soldered to a circuit board. Soldering isn't hard to do or at all complicated all you need is a good soldering iron, for something like this a 30 watt or so iron should suffice, maybe a solder sucker to help get the old solder gone and of course some solder wire. Ideal for electronics is 63% tin /37% lead resin core solder wire. Don't use acid core solder like you're apt to find in a plumbing section of the hardware store as it will corrode and ruin whatever you solder too. For electronics you want resin flux only, it's actually pine tree sap and is only acitic when it's hot. Once it's cool it's neutral PH. You should be able to find exact replacement switches on any electronics supply house website like Newark or DigiKey. It just takes a little looking. First look on the old switch for a manufacturer and manufacturer part number. That will make the parts search much much easier. Failing that measure one of the old switches carefully for it's dimentions. .

That's good news and very good to hear. Did you send it to the US or was the service done in the UK? Hi there! Surprisingly they've answered and acted really quickly to get the amp from me, repair it and send it back. They've just reinstalled the firmware and charge me £25 for it, so I was really happy on one hand but it's weird I couldn't do it myself through midi and monkey. There was no such option. Anyway, amp is working now and is for sale for £500 (plus long-board, Midi cable) cos I've already bought Mesa single-rec and I'm very pleased with it ;) Thanks

Pedal presence is actually a part of each patch seperately and is off by default.. You have to turn the foot pedal on then save each patch you want to use the pedals in seperately. Repeat for each patch in which you want the expression pedals active. I know this sounds crazy but that's how mine works. This is probably what is going on with yours. Some patches were saved with the pedals active and others not. I suppose it makes some sense when you think about it. PS those toe swicthes are sometimes very stiff so you may have to stand on it hard to get the pedal activated. Once you have it on, save the patch. Don't worry about hurting anything, the pedal board is built very solid and it's just a bit of rubber that you're compressing to get the toe switch to toggle.

Good luck. Since that part was likely made specifically for the Vetta longboard replacements are likely to be as scarce as hens teeth. You would probly have better luck finding another FBV Longboard. If you do, hang on to the old one for parts. I don't have service info for the Longboard so I can't help you with a part number. I wish I did but Line6 won't post service info on their site.

From what I understand Line6 doesn't do anything for the Vetta amps anymore. Total and complete lack of any support whatsoever so we're basically on our own. However they are not that hard for any truly competent tech with the service manual to diagnose and repair most problems. Most parts failures involve common generic parts instead of the hard to find or unit specific stuff. I think most of the techs in guitar amp shops these days are largely what we used to call tube jockeys and are not truly competent technically so I'd look elsewhere for a good tech. Your problem is likely due to a common power supply failure.

I agree, The Vetta is a classic in many respects. As that old saying goes, They don't make em like they used to.