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Post subject: Repeated Failure of Active Electronics in '99 Am Dlx P-Bass
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:45 am
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:17 am
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Sorry for the lengthy post, but I have some active gremlins that are really starting to drive me crazy and I am looking for some expert insight. Here is the saga:

So I purchased a used '99 American Deluxe Precision Bass which is amazing and perfect in all ways, EXCEPT:

- When I purchased the bass, I didn't have a chance to play it through an amp (but got a good deal!).

- When I got it home and plugged it up to an amp I found that the bass only made sound when Pan Pot pickup blender was set to the neck pickup. The output faded to nothing as I rolled the panner knob to the bridge side.

- Being handy with a soldering iron I opened the bass up to find that the pan pot had been replaced at some point with what was probably the worst soldering I had ever seen: cold joints, burned wires, melted jackets....oh yeah!.

- When I pushed wires around associated with the pan pot, I heard the bridge pickup cut in and out suggesting either a bad wire, solder joint, or something. So I removed all the wires from that pot, wicked out the old solder from the lugs, and redid all the wiring super cleanly.

- After doing this the bass worked as it is supposed to. Strong signal from both pickups and the pickup blender worked like it was supposed to.

- This worked for one and a half rehearsals, and in the middle of the second rehearsal the signal cut out on the bridge pickup again. Bummer. So I swung it to neck pup and it worked fine, swung to the bridge pup and it was silent. WTF?

- So I finish out the rehearsal on the neck pickup, and toward the end of the last song, the bass electronics just fail. No output at all. Nothing comes out no matter where the knobs are. (checked battery - it was strong; plugged up different bass - got sound; so ruled out other causes than bad P-Bass electronics) Huge Bummer.

- SO I buy a set of replacement electronics from a '99 Am Dlx P-Bass from Reliable Fender on eBay. The wiring harness included everything in the signal chain except the pickups. It even included the battery jack and the output jack. So I wire it up and it works like factory new. Great.

- The bass works great.....for one and a half rehearsals. WTF??? Works great for a whole two hour rehearsal, and then a couple days later it fails. Same failure as happened with the original electronics: initially the bridge pickup fails on the pan pot, and then the whole thing goes silent. Only this time there was only about 2 minutes between the partial and total failure (rather than about 30 minutes the first time).

SO, needless to say I am a bit stumped. I play into a '72 Ampeg V4B....so I am thinking maybe it is passing voltage to the bass because of a failing collection of caps and resistors in the ampeg or something? And this is causing the amp to burn up some components on the circuit board in the P-Bass electronics? (I will be throwing a DMM on the input jack to see if there is any strange electricity happenin'.)

Has anyone else run into this?
Is there anyone from Fender that might be able to point me in the right direction for what components in the P-Bass circuitry could be failing and causing the loss of signal? I certainly won't be spending another $130 to buy another round of active electronics. At this point I am about to wire up the neck pickup to a volume and tone knob and send that to the output jack.
I LOVE this bass, but only when its generating signal.


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Post subject: Re: Repeated Failure of Active Electronics in '99 Am Dlx P-B
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 6:26 pm
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Location: Albemarle, NC
That is a nightmare. A most unfortunate tale. I suspect something is seriously wrong somewhere. I'd have a tech go over the amp.


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Post subject: Re: Repeated Failure of Active Electronics in '99 Am Dlx P-B
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:20 pm
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Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:30 pm
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I have a faulty P Deluxe about the same age. My problem is different - it has a real weak output. I've heen putting off fixing it, I'm interested to see what your results are. I wasn't even aware there were replacement harnesses available, so thanks for that info.


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Post subject: Re: Repeated Failure of Active Electronics in '99 Am Dlx P-B
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:38 am
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Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 8:01 am
Posts: 2842
pickup grounding under bridge or in cavity ?


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Post subject: Re: Repeated Failure of Active Electronics in '99 Am Dlx P-B
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:10 am
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Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 am
Posts: 1226
Location: In the pocket north of Washington D.C.
The fact that you have replaced everything in the wiring harness and then experienced the same problem points to a failing IC chip. IMHO

I don't know if the chip in this circuit is replaceable or not, but that is what I would have checked or even replaced if possible.

Check out your amp too, but I don't think there is any way a tube amp can put voltage back into the input jack. I could be wrong though.

Good luck with your bass.

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