Servicing a Mesa Boogie Mark IV
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- Опубликовано: 3 май 2020
- Everything necessary to replace and undo the damage caused by two $2 capacitors. Terrible design as far as service goes.
Otherwise known as "why is my repair bill so high?" 
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I had to replace £1 worth of diodes in a MkV for a customer . I was so anxious about starting and then not being able tp get it wired back together correctly . But my lovely customer begged and encouraged me to have a go .At least he understood the nightmare that they are . Twenty photos and five pages of notes helped me get it all back and working again .
I billed for two days labour plus parts etc The buying public deserves to be aware of this before they purchase such equipment . There are lots of disposable amps out there sadly , but this MB is at a boutique price level and can.t just be tossed in the recycling center .
Imagine that, 30 year old caps needing to be replaced. Haha...yes, sometimes you have to pull the board and it's a hassle. Mark IV b's are more prone to caps that blow all over the board. But hey, just send the chassis to Mike B at Mesa and he'll get it back to spec for a very reasonable price. Catch him before he retires. $200-400.
I've got an old mesa nomad 45, only used at home, love it but the reveb has gone on channel three, my favourite, as suggested I've brought some spray to try on the controls, can't see it working but worth a go, otherwise could be uneconomical to repair.
The Benny Hill almost had me in tears!!!
Ahhh, that's what the comedy sketch music question was all about!
Would it be possible to make (cut out) a service panel in that bullshit chassis.... It has to be easier and can be used again
What a pain.... Thanks for the vid.
I've got one sitting here that blew up in the same general area - closer to the big resistor nearby - first time it was powered after being "serviced". I pulled the chassis and that's as far as I went. I'm thinking about gutting it and building something sane.
Contact me. I'll buy it "as is" if you still have it.
Oh man, I have an old 92 Mark IV which I was thinkin' of servicing, mainly a electrolytics change..I'm terrorized hahaha
Send it to Mesa. I sent mine and it came back new
@@5150forevermore What did that cost, if you don’t mind me asking?
@@NateThunder A little under 300 I wanna say. This was in 2020
@@5150forevermore That’s an easy decision then.
@@NateThunderFirst you call Mesa and they give you an RMA number. All you mail is the chassis. In a box with 6 inches of crush space. With plenty of bubble wrap and foam.
you need to invest in either an Air Ratchet or a Drill/Driver socket adaptor for working on those things! (for the disassembly anyhow!!!)
the Benny Hill, hits just right on this.
A little Yackity Sax never hurt anyone.
Oh Lord, look at that shit. Thanks for another great video!
OMG! Not for the faint of heart!
Those amplifiers are nightmare
I actually feel like telling the next customer that I refuse to work on them
It is hard to believe that this and the incredibly simple Apple II were designed within a 90 minute drive of each other.
The Audi of guitar amps.
What Amp manufacturers do you recommend that are not "poorly" built and easier to service?
How many hours did you put all in this? I have a mark iv b on my bench right now with a channel switching problem. The issue goes away whenever i clean the IC socket but keeps coming back after a while of playing. Im hesistant to undo all the wiring and check under the board knowing its a ton of work...
Oh God, like eight hours IIRC. It was a nightmare amp.
How in the freaking world did you know how to put that back together again the way it was.
Hopefully you learn a few things after doing a trade for thirty years. ;)
@@PsionicAudio Respect 👊
Hmmm...
I hope you chareged the owner of this mess appropriately.
Cheers 🍻
Oh My Goodness! And this is why Mesas are on my Do Not Fix List! You could never bill out high enough to recover that time. Plus you could have probably fixed 2 -3 amps in that time. Yes Sir there are a lot of eaiser jobs to make money on :-)
Gonna say it...Mesas are pretty easy to fix if you're a GOOD technician. They only scare off the amateurs, posers, and hacks. I don't have any problems working on them, but yes, sometimes it does take a little bit of time. Are you really that afraid of putting in some actual labor effort which you can bill to the customer? Lazy much?
@Turboy65 - Are you a tech?
@@Turboy65 Easy my ass. Did you not see what this guy had to do in the video?
Never heard a messy booger I liked!!
Mmmm, spaghetti!
Mesa Boogies. Great sounding amps if that’s the sound you’re going for. Just hope you never have to get one repaired. (Which we all know any tube amp will at some point need some sort of repair/service). Over engineered and crammed together.
Christ.. I have the same mk 4. It is good now but should I sell it? How much for a job like this one please?Is 600-700$ enough?
With parts this is about a $600 repair.
My advice is sell. You want a good multichannel amp? Suhr or Fuchs are in the same price range but you actually get a quality amp that's built right.
Psionic Audio thanks for your advice! It is a love/hate story with this amp.It has unique tones.The Mk4 is in mint A+++ condition with a Recto 212 cab.Like new.They never got out of my houses.I bought a Mk5 25 head and a couple of Mesa cabs open and closed back lately.I actually prefer the little Boogie over the Mk4.Weights nothing and esay to work with.
I have to admit my struggle for selling the Mk4.I could get good money for the kit but when I look at it,I see a work of art.
👉🏻When I see how hard this amp is for servicing,it is a different story.
I might sell it and get a brand new amp.Thanks for your attention and have a good life!
Hmmm Mesa Bennie (Hill)
Id rather get a Bugera. When it stops working, buy another one 😂
OK there is something wrong with me. I actually activly look for mesa servicing videos, knowing how hard they are to work on. Form some reason I enjoy listening to peole bitch about how hard they are to work on. I dunno why, it is just fun.
I hate to use the word, but this is insanely bad design. Literally insane. Did they grow up in an alternate universe at Mesa? Subframes!! For a start, all the F.P. controls belong on a subframe panel which could be mounted to the chassis with 8-10 screws with no downside at all. Ditto anything needing desoldering from the rear panel. There is just no reason in the world to build something to be virtually unserviceable. I regret selling my Mark IV, because it was a great sounding amp and a breeze to use with the Dzus fastened footswitch. Just a superb gigging and recording amp. Glad I never had to recap it.
The MK IV was the first amp in their line to look like a rats nest with those shitty thin PCBs. The MK II and III, use better components, heavier PCB with thick traces and an infinitely cleaner layouts
If you think Mesas are hard to service, it is likely that you have no experience working with general consumer electronics and a lot of equipment in specialty industries. Believe me, it gets MUCH worse with a LOT of equipment you've probably never cracked the covers on.
Talk to me after you've spent an entire day tracing out a problem in a 242 pound video projector that has 22 separate circuit boards scattered all around the entire chassis and the wiring harness alone, if stripped from the chassis, weighs five pounds and has in excess of 120 total connectors on it. And which carries circuit voltages as high as 2500 volts AC and 34,900 volts DC.
So you've got to undo a handful of jack nuts and remove 2 dozen knobs. Big deal. Next step, take photos and make diagrams of all the wiring and points where they meet the board. Unsolder what's needed to get back of board access, and refer to your notes when putting it back together. This may take some time and attention to detail, but it's not DIFFICULT. Just bill for your time. You should be able to get that board out in a half hour of billable time and put it back in, including wire dress and zip ties to original specs, in one more hour.
A Mesa amp needing service is a good test of who's a GOOD technician and who's a pretender. You ARE good, but you whine too much about the way the amp is built, but the way it's built is one of the reasons why Mesas are so reliable, much more so than their competition.
Valve sockets soldered directly to circuit board! No thanks, I'll pass on this one. If it isn't built like DR103 it isn't worth the coin.
When you look at that rats nest you must think thank goodness for hand wired amps lyle
half of the video is just autofocus going crazy
This is not a job for the faint of heart. If I open and amp and it look like this... I would probabaly shed some tears and pee.
Looking at this and various other Mesa repair clips I am think WTF would anyone ever buy one of these things? A simple comparison with something like a HiWatt should convince any rational person to avoid Mesas like the plague.
mesa boogie hired rats to wire their amps
From a servicing point of view, these amps absolutely suck! The Mark III and IV are the same. A friggin' nigtmare to work on..
I don't have a Mesa Boogie amp and I will never have one the inside is so busy full of crap.
What do you think electronics are made of?
If I owned a landfill I wouldn’t let that piece of junk in it.
Couldn't agree more!
You guys are idiots, the IV is one of the greatest amps ever!
@@danyeoOk, when Beck. Satriani, Frehley, Malmsteen, Frampton, Lynch, Gilbert, Slash, Wylde, Young, Perry and all the other greats trade in their Marshalls for one of those pieces of shit, I'll believe you!
@@johnmarshall3903 And the list of Mesa users is 10 times longer than what you just listed. And right now the only people who really matter who are making music are more often than not using Mesa. But go enjoy your new piece of shit made in Mexico, or Vietnam made marshall. Or which shit factory they’re pieced together in.
@@johnmarshall3903 You think classic Marshalls don't need servicing?
Ridiculous amp. What a horrible horrible design and a piss poor tone when it’s all said and done.
Like the Benny Hill theme. Nice choice.
Mesa amps are a joke. Hopefully Gibson will put them out of their misery once and for all .👍
There is a difference between a pain to work on and a joke. If high gain is your thing, Mesa delivers the goods. If you want a hod rodded fender, the mark I is great amp for that. It's just a lot of amp in a small spot, makes full disassembly almost a requirement for even simple repairs, but usually you only have to repair them every 10-20 years. Gibson will make a lot of money from the acquisition, and give mesa much better distribution.
Show me on the doll where Mesa hurt you!
Mesa is def a flawed company but they've made some of the best amps ever. Gibson is truly an awful company that has been on a steep decline for the last decade, and they've hung on solely by their name as their quality control has nosedived. This acquisition is quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to Mesa.
@@danyeo He's still butthurt over the whole Metallica switching thing.