Mosrite Award BG 500 and BG 1000

[dubtrub]

Holy Smoke! That pilot lamp is metered at 35 volts? Are you using a standard 6.3 volt pilot lamp in a 35 volt circuit?

[jefe]

holy smokes is what i said. (well i acutally used a differnt word instead of smokes. my bad)
im not using any pilot lamp. i havent used one since i grabbed this amp from my father.

[dubtrub]

OK, let's try this again. Were you 'trying' to use a standard 6.3 volt pilot lamp?

Naturally it's gonna blow. Now if that amp truly uses a 35 volt lamp, that might be hard to come by. I'll look through some of my antique electronic supply catalogs and see if I can locate a source.

[rbonner]

Well this isn't necessarily a 35V circuit. Those lamps are for protection and are FUSES for the power amplifier. They would glow a bit and flash while playing. It wasn't the voltage but the current that would light the lights. I have NO IDEA what the values were for them. We had to carry a pile of them in the olden days in case the amp quit on a gig. Those definately were not standard #47 dial lamps thats for sure.

I still have the 2N3055's out of my amp in my parts bins here, I grabbed only what I thought was worth anything out of the amp before tossing it. The collection is a bunch of different transistors as the thing had BLOWN UP a bunch of times and repaired at WAGS / the factory in Rochester for redesign mods.

Jefe if you ever find your way up I-29 to Sioux Falls with your BG-1000 under your arm, I'm sure we could figure the thing out again. I kept mine around for over 20 years. Might be fun.

If they only built 19 you probably have one of only a handfull still in existance. It was not the best device out there and I quickly moved on to other amps that sounded better and were more reliable.

I have an old 8MM home movie of the amp and recorded audio of the practice and the first time the horn blew out from 1969 now if I just had a projector. BOB

[Nokie]

I have posted a comparison of the two amps on youtube: -Marty