On our Lions Santa sleigh we use an 850watt portable generator (a Suzuki 7000 I think) to drive some rope lights and an amplifier to produce a large amount of Christmassy sound (or rather noise) to bring the kids and their parents' money out into the streets. This year we have had major problems. Our trusty amplifier - hand built a good number of years ago by (according to a local electronics repair shop specialist) a 'real craftsman' and used with exactly the same set-up for about four Christmases, was set to one side in favour of a new amplifier. The new one broke down after two nights (2 x 2 hours) use. Our trusty old amplifier was substituted and this broke down after about 30 minutes. We then borrowed another new amplifier from the shop whilst our existing two (trusty and first new) amplifiers were being repaired, we also changed the speakers for two well tested ones. This latest configuration lasted for about an hour before the amplifier power light went out and silence was all around. The generator appears to be OK, it was used for three hours to drive a ghetto blaster (portable radio cassette player) directly from the generator bypassing all wiring in the sleigh whilst we were waiting for the last of the above (now deceased) amplifiers to be delivered. The source signal fed into the amplifier in each case is from a small radio cassette player extension speaker output. We are now musicless and losing about £300 for charity each night and disappointing a lot of kids. Any ideas of what might be wrong ........ we technically incompetent non-electroanoracks are at our wits end. More technical info I cannot supply other than to say the latest dead amp. says 250V 50-60hz input. Max output 125VA and 4 ohms. It also has lots of knobs which, as the man in the shop said were set at 12 o'clock (about 50% between 0 and maximum). Sorry it's a bit vague but any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome. Regards ........................... Arthur Naylor
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