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My 31 cent fix for Spider IV HD150 sound cutting out/cycling on and off/finally dying with lcd all black


nbaird
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Gentlemen,

I recently dusted off my dead Spider IV HD150 that had been sitting for a few years and brought it back to life with a 31 cent part.

In '16 I bought the amp directly from Line 6 (refurbished) but they sent a bad unit that would intermittently cut out and when it was on for an hour or so would start turning on and off repeatedly (LCD would blink on and off and would make popping noises like when the amp is powered on). I was travelling when I ordered it to my house and didn't find out about the problem until it was out of warranty.

The first thing I tried was adding a small heat sink to the voltage regulator at U13 because it was super hot to the touch. This about tripled the usable time of the amp until one night I left it on and the next day came back to a dead amp. The display was just displaying all black pixels with no backlight.

It ended up in my dead gear area until recently I decided to try fixing the Line 6 products that accumulated over the years.

I traced the problem to the ST LM317T voltage regulator located at U2, soldered on a new one, and it's alive again! I even took off my added heatsink from before to test the reliability and it's been going strong all day. 

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I forgot to mention that I also added a heatsink to the 7805CT 5V regulator at U10 because this one was way hotter than the 8V FBV regulator.

 

When I tested I just kept the factory heatsink (the screwed in standoff) and the default bare 5V regulator. I don't know why it didn't shut down this time at all

 

I added back my heatsink on the 5V regulator to hopefully avoid any thermal shutdown issues.

 

Partev,

 

What do you think caused the 1.2V regulator to go bad? Do you think the new one will fail too?

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There are a number of components involved, not just that regulator, so yes, it will fail again.

How far down the road I'm not certain. Part of it is thermal, part of it is a possible corruption

of a couple IC's due to thermal issues. Would require service here (we have tech with a set-up

for this), or at a Line 6 authorized service center. Good idea to log a support ticket in your account

and get with them regarding options.

 

1.2V regulator,... there are other elements involve than that. That's as deep as I can get.

 

You won't be able to get the parts needed, as some of them were made for us, so self repair is

not an option for a complete repair job on it.

 

 

 

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I tested the "bad" 1.2V regulator out of the circuit by connecting the adjust pin to ground and input to 3.3V and it produced ~1.2V on the output so something else was wrong. I think the way I desoldered it (hot air) reflowed other parts of the board and that's what made it work again.

 

It may not be a complete repair but I haven't noticed any operational issues yet...

 

The reference voltages I know of are stable. I don't know what +VL should be.

 

I don't really want to invest too much in older tech so I think I'll just let it fail in the future however long it lasts.

 

It's been a joy working on it though!

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