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Sansui BA-3000 t/former testing & DBT fail

BradWil

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Recently did the full Leestereo restoration of a lovely BA3K for a customer. Unit was working perfectly for some weeks until it died.:(
Kudos to Ben for yet another invaluable resto reference! :beerchug:

Background: the unit was of unknown origin and service history. It's a global voltage model that had been set to 220V by someone in the past. It was sold to my customer within Australia so no idea how long it had been run on 240V but set to 220V. The native voltage here in Australia is 240V. Not overly uncommon to see this after units have been imported from Europe. Of course, I altered the jumpers to 240V as soon as it hit my bench. It was all original internally and no sign of previous work, all was factory.

Symptom: It blew the main fuse and after the customer replaced it, no power at all, no blown replacement fuse. No hard use, happened at power on.

Diagnosis: I removed the F-2511 protection board and found R01 (3.9Ω 7W) had gone high (470MΩ), R02 (3.9Ω 7W) was fine. I replaced them both anyway. Unit powered on but failed DBT instantly, even with the power amps disconnected. I suspected the bridge rectifiers but both sets D01/02 and D03/04 tested fine. Also, all the fuses on the protection board were fine. All semis on F-2511 are original and tested fine. Began testing the transformer for resistance and shorts to ground. Found the 46V secondary taps were both shorted to ground. That’s the blue wires from the transformer to pins 5 & 6 of F-2511.

Before I embark on a search for another transformer or doner unit at crazy money, wanted to sanity check with you folk and see if others have had similar experiences with the BA-3000?
 

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0.39Ω from each blue wire to ground. 0.63Ω blue to blue. Too low?
Might be OK :dunno: - however this is where a DBT or perhaps better a Variac would come in handy. But first completely isolate the transformer from all connections, other than incoming AC from a DBT and/or Variac, then measure/monitor secondary voltage behaviour.

I don't think there is any significance in the fact that your mains voltage is ~240V and the unit is set for 220V, IMO unlikely to cause damage to anything in the short or long-term. Also if it is a transformer primary fault (hopefully not), it would have shown up whatever the voltage setting.
 
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I have a variac with DBT (100W) attached. What would you suggest here John?
Excellent.

As above double check the voltage setting jumpers, and then apply just a sniff of AC to the Primaries, monitor the (completely isolated) secondary voltage - and increase the Variac voltage to see if the transformer is behaving correctly. Say 10% of 'voltage in' giving you 10% of the expected voltage out. You can increase the voltage and see what happens, if all is well, the DBT shouldn't light up at any point.

Try this and report back. - (NB: NO connections of any kind to any secondary - apart from multimeter).

Good Luck!

(I appreciate it may take a while for you to set this test up, I'll be watching this and will help you with checks until we confirm the transformer status one way or another ;) ).
 
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@BradWil The transformer will likely be fine. Isolate it and power it up unloaded as @Hyperion suggested.

Our "nominal" voltage in Australia is now officially 230V (with a wider allowable tolerance) and most of the time, you'll still see ~240V. Sometimes you might get taps adjusted by the power company where it's a bit high or low, but only after jumping up and down and getting a few data loggers hung off your poles, breaker board and a GPO two.

1788512154385.png

Depending on where you are and how much local solar infeed you have, the voltage can fluctuate quite a bit. Right now, with (7pm at night) I have 245V (+6.5%) at my lab bench and it's past peak usage time and it's dark (no solar).

WA often has higher voltages ~250V.
 
Folks, really appreciate your advice so taking it step-by-step.

PRIMARY

The primary connections are reversed compared to the SM. I had not altered this and the unit had been working fine.

PRIMARY.png
20260905_095816.jpg

PRIMARY LINE VOLTAGE SELECTOR

Correctly jumpered for 240V mains
PRIMARY VOLT SEL.png
20260905_095837.jpg

ISOLATED SECONDARY

Even though the primary connections are reversed compared to SM, I will proceed to isolate the secondary and test secondary voltages.
All secondary connections isolated, including the grey centre tap for the 46V winding. I'll put the resuls in a table with 4 different mains inputs from 60V, 120V, 180V and 240V using the variac, off DBT as primary passed DBT (no shorts) and there is no current draw with the secondaries isolated. Will revert soonest.


20260905_095420.jpg
 
@BradWil The transformer will likely be fine. Isolate it and power it up unloaded as @Hyperion suggested.

Our "nominal" voltage in Australia is now officially 230V (with a wider allowable tolerance) and most of the time, you'll still see ~240V. Sometimes you might get taps adjusted by the power company where it's a bit high or low, but only after jumping up and down and getting a few data loggers hung off your poles, breaker board and a GPO two.

View attachment 3829780

Depending on where you are and how much local solar infeed you have, the voltage can fluctuate quite a bit. Right now, with (7pm at night) I have 245V (+6.5%) at my lab bench and it's past peak usage time and it's dark (no solar).

WA often has higher voltages ~250V.
Many thanks for this. Today's line voltage here where I live is 243V and varies by up to 10V
 
Here are the results of the variac testing of the secondary windings @Hyperion . Looks like the transformer is fine - let me know your thoughts.

As I had previously isolated the driver amps and still failing DBT, seems the issue must be on the protection board. I'll remove and uninstall and test each transistor - I'd proviously tested them in circuit for shorts only. Any other areas to focus on?

variac transformer testing.png20260905_104202.jpg
 
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I’m sure you would have checked the foil side F-2511 but I know the traces are susceptible to damage in the event of a power supply short because there is no fuse protection in the voltage rails. I would focus my attention there, if you haven’t already given it a thorough check, before removing components.

also great to know the BA-3000 and AU-20000 have the same transformer - thanks

I believe 4002241 has single 100V primary
 
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I’m sure you would have checked the foil side F-2511 but I know it is susceptible to damage because there is no fuse protection in the voltage rails. I would focus my attention there if you haven’t already given it a thorough check.



I believe 4002241 has single 100V primary
Yes, completely resoldered during the rebuild. Interesting there are no fuses on the rails. I'll remove and test the transistors and the bridge rectifiers again. Seems like a shorted BR behaviour but I did check them in circuit.
 
Yes, they are rare. That bloke in Europe still has genuine Sanken stock $$$. Yes, check the mica. Guess it's a different footprint than T03 but we'll see. I can make custom ones from SilPad sheets if need be
 
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