Bogen industrial amps.

[JG]

 I have a friend who wants to trade me some bogen amps for one of my amps. He says they are 250 with the ot transformer and about 150 without. They are vintage gray modals. I think I have seen those going for 50 bucks a pop at electronic parts stores.
Has anyone used those in there rig? No doubt it can pump out the power but what about the transistors. If they go bad would I be able to find replacements ?

[J M Fahey]

Try to post as many details as possible. At least the exact model.

[JG]

I wish I had more info on them but ,that is all I know for now. After doing some digging it seems like the amps I remember were only 50 watts. I guess I will just have to check them out, I have not seen them yet.

[J M Fahey]

I think any amp you get for free or, say, 10 bucks, must be grabbed first and checked later; all others must stand close scrutiny and background checks. Well, maybe not that much, but at least post what their identification plates say; a clean closeup picture might help. If they are "industrial", they very probably (most certainly) have transformer coupled 70V (or 50V or 100V) outputs, might even be transformer driven, not very practical for guitar use. I myself have a bunch of 70's vintage , rack mount 150W RMS Philips amplifiers, very well made, very heavy, which I never find the time to turn into something that can be sold. They´ve been gathering dust for almost 10 years now. They were the distributed sound system (PA/pager/background music) for an International 5 star hotel in Buenos Aires. I intercepted their trip into a garbage bin.

[JG]

"I intercepted their trip into a garbage bin."
Score! You could sell those any day of the week to a club or band why mod it?
they aren't free but they are cheap. I will check them out.
 

[JG]

Ok
So the amps are dukane 1b3250 .I ended up trading him for them. He gave me 4 dukans and 3 new power amp boards that he makes for his company. I could use the power amp boards and I may be able to use two of the amps. The amps need to be modified but he said he would help me with that.

[J M Fahey]

Hey. This guy says they are worth between 1500 and 3000 U$S !!!!!!!
What´s up? 
http://www.plccenter.com/buy/DUKANE/1B3250

[JG]

Yeah, I saw that one too. These amps are built for the industrial market and built to last decades of constant use. So new they do go for those prices. The guy I got them from got them for a song at an auction. He has one running a subwoofer at his house.
These amps are 20 years old but it's clear they still have a lot of life left. I fired one up today it sounded ok through my test speaker. If I like the way this one sounds I will mod another and go with a mono block set up.
I don't doubt you could run over it with a car and be just fine. They are heavy even with the output transformer removed! I need to find a local buyer for the ones I don't keep , I would never ship an amp like this.
I have only known of two people who modded these amps for home use. I did not find much on line. But I am going to try it. I am not digging my current amp so it's worth a shot.

[J M Fahey]

At 250 *real* watts each ( and I do believe them) they´re way too much for home use, they´re great for PA work.
I guess you can build a couple sound boxes and rent/hire them to local DJs and musicians.
You´ll have a "money cow" to milk many times.
Good luck.
J M Fahey
PS: I guess that for a guy building a multi-million U$S hotel or convention center, paying U$S 3000 for a *reliable* amplifier is peanuts.

[JG]

If I had more to offer I would say renting them out was a good idea but with only two amps I doubt opportunities would come that often. If I had speakers and a mixer I could drum up some clients but I don't want to invest my time in a project like that. Not when I could build amps!
There are guys who use massive amps for there stereos. I knew one guy who had a 700 watt pa amp for his home. If you want clean you will get it. I lucked out and found some KEF speakers at a thrift store and they take up to 200 watts. I have a Parasound power amp at the moment I got cheap off of craigslist and I don't like it as much as a Sansui 9090 DB I had.
If you pull the OT transformers on these you get about 150 watts. 

[J M Fahey]

Hi JG.
*If* you open them, please show us some pictures.
I think it will be very interesting (and unusual) to see equipment built to last 20 years or more under heavy-continuous usage with no crackdowns.

[JG]

The other two amps I have have different style backup board. I guess they are the first version because the layout on the board is better than this one.

[JG]

Ok I am done pulling the OT transformer and all of the battery junk and I am using the amps as two mono blocks and have to say I am pleased.
Now I want to relocate the power transformer. I want to mount it in the case. My only question is how far do I need to keep it from the preamp board to keep it from inducing any unwanted current? It's a 96v CT 5 amp transformer. I understand that it might not be doable.