Another thing of mine that's broken....

After a rather late night yesterday, this morning at about 11 I was rudely awaken by a loud buzzing noise, sufficiently loud to wake me up after coming in at 5.45 having drank the best part of a bottle of smirnoff.

In my stupour I managed to narrow down the buzz to my Trichord 500 powerblock, now given this has a toroidal transformer inside then its going to be a little noisy, and it has always made a very very quiet buzzing noise. But this was rather alarming.

Anyway, I unplugged the thing and moved it out from under my desk to have a mess with it, see if it was the case that was buzzing as a screw had worked loose or something, but when I plugged it back in the buzzing was gone but it tripped the circuit breaker for the ring main. I tried it once more but it tripped the mains, and the porter in my halls was probably getting a bit annoyed at having to reset it for me

Basically though there is a problem with my trichord mains block, does anyone have any experience of repairing these or is it (as I fear) likely to mean sending it back to trichord and getting them to sort it?

 

Dude, you have no luck at all...

I think WM is going to be your man.

 

ooh er.
have you checked the plug socket , plug lead etc?
you never know , you might get lucky.

 

I think we will have to call you lucky. I think Wm had one a few months ago so he is the the man.

 

WM certainly knows about such items for a couple of reasons...

 

Buzzing Power blocks eh?,

I would plug it in another socket on a different spur first see it still buzzes (is it still working?), then put a larger load on it, if still noisy, I suggest maybe a a call to Trichord re warranty claim. Wm

 

I've just had the lid off for a quick look inside, so far there's nothing glaringly obvious to report in the way of problems, loose wires and things like that, but then the transformer (bloody big one it is too) is completely covered in black ectoplasm or something so its hard to tell. Plug socket and the lead, nothing obviously amiss there either. The fuse in the plug hasn't blown.

I'll take a couple of pictures if anyones interested, just so you can see what the insides of these things look like...

 

The black stuff is called potting compound

 

Separate spur, can do that will report back in a bit.

Warranty might be a bit tricky, since I bought it s/h off ebay (£90 it cost me) so I don't have any real idea of age or what version of the powerblock it is.

 

Had the lid off mine once; there's impressively little in their bar the transformer . Or at least I assume there's nothing more complicating hidden in potting compound?

 

Mine buzzes plenty (particularly if someone in the building is using a washing machine), but the circuit tripping indicates a more significant problem.

 

Cheers for the suggestions tone

The powerblock is currently sitting in my kitchen (which is on separate spur) powering 2 60w table lamps, making no more noise than usual (which is to say, very little). Do you reckon running something else of it would be worthwhile, a bit more load to stress the thing more (120w is already more than it'd usually have drawn from it)?

The warden has just come round, and he was was quite understanding really (I thought he'd be annoyed since the rules here at uni prohibit me having an amplifier in my room), one thing he said was that the wall sockets are only rated for low current, and that the circuit breakers are incredibly easy to set off, as they've been tripped many times before and this makes them more sensitive.

He said I'd be better running the hifi and computer off separate wall sockets, as whilst all sockets in my room arre on the same spur it'd be less likely to trip as the current drawn through the double socket would be less this way (as the PC and hifi would be separate, spread over 2 double wall sockets rather than 1). I had planned to do this anyway though, once I got my hands on a long enough Olson extension lead.

Reckon the problem could be down to the way I have everything running off a single double socket at the moment, and the current draw of a modern PC and all the hifi kit could be setting off the breaker (which is easily done anyway)? The noise the trichord was making this morning was somewhat alarming, but could that be down to something that happened this morning somewhere else in my block (e.g. all the electric radiators came on at once or something). It seems to be working fine now...very strange.

 

Ahh, sounds like it's situation normal then. Don't worry about buzzing... mine can be heard across the room at times. It's just a question of what crap is on the mains. DC offsets in particular tend to cause buzzing. My listening room can get a little on the loud side when things are bad, with both the big toroids in the amp, the big one in the trichord and the little one in the DAC psu all buzzing away...

 

I must admit, I never had mine (Martin C's) to buzz at all. but sometime they do according to load (also some items that may be hooked up to them can 'transfer' the buzz they have to the iso-tranny) and shite that comes down the wire.

 

I have noticed a correlation with washing machine use and buzzing... And washing machines are well-known mains polluters.

 

I've never noticed it buzzing either tbh, whilst my pre, power and headphone amps all buzz quietly. In one of my previous flats my power amp did do the singing along with washing machines trick (worried me till I worked out what was happening!), but now I think of it I don't remember this happening where I am now. I'll have a listen next time I have my washing machine on .

 

He said I'd be better running the hifi and computer off separate wall sockets




I used to have a buzz once. Got rid of it by running amps from wall sockets at one side of the room, and sources from an extension lead from the other.

Sounds like you have the same problem, but perhaps made worse because its a computer.


Worth a try, definately

 

Well had a bit of an experiment today, and it trips out the breaker straight away if I plug it in on *any* socket in my room, even when nothing is attached to the block drawing power.

I would have had a bit more of a mess with it but I suspected the warden was getting a bit annoyed at me since everytime the breaker goes he has to come up from the office to a locked cupboard, open it up, and flip the switch for me....

Yet yesterday it was running happily enough in the kitchen, with no problems, for about 2 hours. Yet in my room it throws a wobbly despite (until saturday morning) it running perfectly happily since September

Gonna give trichord a bell tomorrow and see what they say...

 

Things have moved on - they allow hifis in prison cells these days do they?

Michael.

 

Will I'd say, I'd xheck the wiring, in the plug and on the leads, plus the earth post inside, if thats ok, I feel a core breach has occurred (que derogatory S/T jokes)