DawnPatrol1990

New transformer arrived this morning. Good news? It's brand new and un-used. Bad news? Ha... you'll love this... Wrong size (far too big for the amp), wrong connector wires on 2 of the 3 wiring looms and wrong voltage. I've applied to the company to send it back. Awaiting a refund now hopefully. In the mean time, the amp is back in the garage and i'm sitting in a corner, rocking back & forth whilst crying incoherently haha. I JUST WANT MY AMP TO WORK Think it's time to give in with it and go for a new amp maybe?

No they didn't and with the rough prices i've seen them selling at on the net (just random transformers), I'd hate to think what they'll try and charge

Thanks to everyone for their advise and comments so far. It's actually been a lot of help. I've had the amp looked at by Hartke in MK and they say the transformer has completely burned out which is a great problem to have. I managed to find a replacement 3500 transformer on the net for £80 so i've bought that and am going to take it to be fitted by a local tech. Hartke wanted £40 inspection fee (which would raise to £51.50 if i declined the work they needed to do) followed by £60 an hour labour and then parts cost on top. For what it would end up costing for them to fix it, I could have bought another one so I've taken the easy route. If this fails then i'll sell the amp on for spares and look for a new amp. I'm just glad the amp's heating protection circuit has been working and not caused more damage. The pre-amp etc all sounds damn great so i really hope it works after this. Any other help would still be appreciated.

Ah damn this doesn't sound good =/ From what you've said, it is the power transformer. The big round thing that looks like a big ball of coils with all the wires coming off it. In all honesty, i haven't owned it very long but when I bought it, the guy I got it from said "it's never let him down" and "it's been a real work horse" so i took his word for it. When i have it plugged in, i've been playing my bass through it but I usually run the EQ totally flat with a tiny (and i mean tiny) boost in the high end. I have the pre amps on the 3500 set so the Tube pre is at 12 o clock and the Solid State is as 9 o clock just to blend some of it in so in no means am i pushing the amp. I'll see if i have any other small amps laying around that i can connect the line out and effects out to one of them to test it all. As it's currently 2am, i obviously can't do that until the morning but i'll give it a go once i wake up. In the 10 minutes it actually stays on for, the amp sounds great. The rear fan spins but blows out extremely hot air. I will check for the smaller fan on the inside that you're saying about though. Typically, i brought the amp from a guy in Bristol but live no where near there. The good news is that Hartke/Korg UK is only about 20 minutes away from where i live so I might drop it in to them some time soon. Thanks for your help so far though, any other advise would be appreciated!

Hey I've got a Hartke HA3500 and it seems to have a small problem... 10 minutes after turning it on, it completely turns off and doesn't come back on for ages, about 30/45 minutes ish. I felt the casing and the amp was extremely hot so it's obviously overheating. After removing the top of the case, it seems to be the big coil looking thing (excuse my technical terms) at the back of the amp that is overheating. The fan is spinning so it's not like that's not working or whatever either. I'm only running the cab in to a Ampeg SVT410HE 200w cab as well and not running any effects. Has anyone had this problem and is it any easy fix? Thanks in advance!

Hey guys and girls. I've just changed the head i'm using from an Ampeg B2RE to a Hartke HA3500 which has come as the full head unit type (so it has the wooden box around it). This has led me to think about whether i should change to a pedal board and ditch my rack unit or stay with everything rack mounted. My current chain is Bass (BC Rich/Jackson/Tobias basses) in to a Line 6 G90 wireless -> Korg DTR1000 tuner -> Alesis Midiverb II (for chorus) -> Sansamp RBI -> Hartke HA3500 (obviously it was an Ampeg B2RE until recently). All of this is powered by a Samson PB10Pro Powerbrite Rack Conditioner. After looking around, I've seen that i could easily just swap my gear for the items as follows - Samson Powerbrite - Dunlop DC Brick Line 6 G90 - Line 6 G50 Korg DTR1000 - Korg Pitchblack Pedal (I already own one too) Alesis Midiverb II - MXR Bass Chorus Sansamp RBI - Sansamp Deluxe DI/Darkglass B7K then send it all out to the HA3500 in the head unit which powers my 4 cabinets (2 x 4x10 and 2 x 1x15 Ampeg SVT cabs) and i should mention that i have a small foot set out front which is a 3 way selector to activate/de-activate my Sansamp & Alesis as well as a Tuner Mute. If I started using a pedal board, i'd probably add my Wah pedal to the board too. It's not like i have mobility issues with the rack case as it's all in a Gator roller case that has handles and wheels like a luggage case. I'm just having a case of gear boredom at the moment and don't know what to do... Any advice/ opinions on this would be greatly appreciated Cheers SJD!

Aye I know he only used it on Cowboys and that's my favourite of his tones. If an EMG pre amp or something similar would be close to it then i would go for that but i'd prefer to get the original to go with the original pick ups that i've got for it. And it's going in an old Jackson bass so that's why i want it to be "as close to original" so to speak. All i know from it is that they came as standard in the shop floor production model of the Charvel 3-B and Jackson Concert basses of the time. I didn't think they would be so hard to get hold of considering the amount of JE-1200 and JE-1500's available on eBay but no JE-2000's on there

I'm wondering if anyone has one of these laying around at all? I'm a big megadeth / pantera fan and recently did a lot of reading in to David Ellefson / Rex Brown's basses on some of my favourite albums. Turns out they both used Jackson / Charvel bases loaded with these pre amps so I want to get one to stick in my bass. I have already sourced the pick ups that were used and Before anyone says it, yes I know a lot of it is down to their hands, amps, cabs etc but as I'm aiming more for the Ellefson tone and have aluminium Hartke speakers, I know I'll be able to get something pretty close to what I want. Anyone know of where to get one of these pre amps or any information on them? Thanks!