Don Voth Electronics Co.
341 Hazel Dell Ave R2K 0R1 Winnipeg, MB, Canada

This is a Universal Audio LA-610 that no one could fix. I love the "no one could fix" units. When I see that I go. "To hell with it. I am going to fix this thin...g if it kills me." This unit was in the shop 3 times and it kept coming back with the compressor feature not working at all. The Store and the customer got so frustrated that the store gave the customer his money back and let him keep the screwed unit. Well I am going to be sure to keep shopping at that store. That is crazy customer support. Some how the unit finds its way on to my bench. Now Universal Audio products are a pain to work on because they are a closed house. You can not get anything from them for service. No parts, No service manuals, No schematics. But it does not matter because I am in FU mode over this thing and damn them if they try to stop me from fixing this unit. So in 3 hrs I had it fixed. I determined that someone somewhere along the line had replaced a resistor in the opto compressor drive circuit. They had installed 220 ohm resistor. I could tell from the way the circuit was acting that the value they had used had to be wrong. So I tried a 10K resistor and instantly the unit started compressing. But that is not good enough. For the unit to behave in a calibrated fashion this resistor has to be exactly right. So the owner contacted UA in the USA and they actually told him what the correct value of that resistor should be 22Kohms. I installed a 22K 3W resistor and WOOHOO it works again. See more

This is so cool. This is my computor screen of what I get from my new MOTU 896 MK3. I am testing a preamp.n On the upper left I have an X-Y pattern that is tell...ing me I have a stereo image that is balanced in output level. Below that I have an oscilloscope image of the audio wave form coming from the preamp. See more

This a Caterpillar A series excavator monitor panel. A very good friend of mine bought one of these excavators and found the monitor panel did NOT work. He cont...acted Cat and they wanted $2000.00 for a new monitor panel. So he asked me to look at it. I found the Microcontroller IC was constantly resetting. I also found this unit had the "Glue from Hell" all over the PCB. When this glue is first applied it looks like diarrhea but when it gets 20 years old it turns into the the Sh@# it really is. It becomes dark brown and starts to conduct and corrode. I removed all the "Glue from Hell" but the fault remained the same. So I tracked the Reset line back to a special IC that was controlling the watchdog function of the unit. Have you ever wondered why dedicated Micro units like this never lock up the way your windows computor does? That is because of the the watchdog timer. This circuit will try to reset the Micro every few seconds. To prevent that from happening the Micro has to tell the watch dog to stop just before it is going to send the reset. If the Micro locks up then it fails to send the stop message and the watchdog resets the micro. I cut some traces so that I could verify that the Micro was sending stop messages but these messages were coming in way to slow. So I pulled out the cap that set the timing of the watch dog and nothing changed. The timing pulse remained the same. How can that be?? Well it turns out the "Glue from Hell" that was over the timing cap had corroded the trace to the cap just enough to cause an open circuit. The cap was not connected to the watchdog. Jumpered the open trace and the Watchdog slowed right down so that the Micro stop messages would do their job. WOOHOO The unit works. My friend will not have to pay CAT $2000.00 See more

It is time to extoll the robustness of the GK 800RB. First we have to give you a detail about the 800RB. It has 2 power amps in it. A 300W amp and a 100W amp. You can use both these amps at the same time in full range. This amp was used in a shared practice space. While the amp was left there some Yahoo Bass player decided to use it. He decided to plug both power amps into one speaker box. SLAP him up side the head for pulling such a GISHBA move.(The sound your head makes wh...en you pull it out of your butt) The output of a power amp looks like a short circuit to the output of any other power amp. So these two amps were both cooking into shorts. In a very SHORT (Dad joke) time the 800RB got sick of this and died. The owner came to practice and saw what had been done and also quickly got sick with fear. This is where I come in. The amp came to me. The first thing I determined was the transformer had gone open circuit. GK does not make this transformer any more. We can get a good replacement from Mercury Magnetics but it will not be cheap. So I decided to do transformer surgery. I cut open the transformer and found the Thermal Fuse and YES it was open circuit. I sourced a replacement fuse and installed it with a thermal pad to improve thermal conductions and tested. WOOHOO the transformer works and the output voltages seem correct. Now we tested the power amp and found the 100W channel was shorted. We found some shorted output transistors. Replaced those with higher rated devices and tested. Now both channels work as well. Tested everything under load to clipping. It works great. Verified that all the output devices in the 300W amp were working underload. Everything is good and it did not cost nearly as much as I had at first feared it would. See more

I have a friend who 30 years ago got shot in the back by accident. He has been a paraplegic since then. Just recently he had is second stroke. So now his music ...and recording career is done. He has asked me to help him sell all his gear. What I need from you guys is to tell me what is the best platform to get rid of music/recording gear?? See more

Does anyone have a blackface ADAT I can borrow. I need to see how the Drum motor parts are aligned. Please call me 204-663-6776 Don Voth

Back in 2018 I bought a used 350Mhz LeCroy scope. Now less than 2 years later I am having trouble seeing the screen in high light conditions. It maybe my old eyes but it also might be a fading back light bulb. I thought I would just disassemble the unit and replace the bulb. NO SUCH LUCK. I could not figure out how to get it apart and no one on the web would tell me how. So I contacted LeCroy and they wanted $1200.00 USD plus freight to replace the bulb. I thought there must... be a better way. So I found this. A Hantek 4 Channel 250Mhz USB oscilloscope. It comes with a 75Mhz signal generator. I bought it and it works great. As you can see from the photo it has 4 traces that show up on my 27" computer screen rather than an 8" scope screen. How much did it cost? $400.00 CANADIAN. Now I have 6 scope traces on my main bench that I can use all at the same time. Way more for Way less. Works for me. See more

Today I want to talk about the Scratch Live and Prejudice. This is about someone else's Scratch and my prejudice. A few days ago someone called me and asked me if I could replace a USB connector on a Scratch Live. Sometimes a job like that is easy and sometimes it is a bitch. But what I was struggling with was talking on the phone with this person. I could hardly understand him. I was getting only half of what he was saying and it was like he was mumbling into the phone. I wa...s so frustrated I must admit I expressed my exasperation. To this customer's credit he remained persistent in the face of my exasperation. When I finally met him I was a little ashamed. It became clear that this customer was working with a disability and he was making more than an average effort to communicate clearly. Also it was clear this customer would not have an easy time finding good employment. So I decided he need a break. At least from me. So I installed the USB connector and verified the Power LED would light up and the computer went De Dil Lee,indicating that computer saw a USB device. Contacted the customer and told him it was ready-No Charge. This situation made it clear to me how easy it is express prejudice towards those who are different. It was also clear how those who are the receivers of that prejudice have to work extra hard to just get the basics from live and others. See more

A Grandpa called me and asked me to fix his granddaughter's Radio Controlled car. Normally I would have told him that it is smarter to just replace the car. But it turns out his granddaughter is autistic. From what little I know about Autism I have heard that routine is very important and chance is very hard. So I figured maybe it is important that this particular RC runs again. So I said he should bring it down. A big problem with Radio Controlled devices is that you are ne...ver sure. Is the fault in the transmitter or the Reciever? So I hooked up the transmitter to my 350Mhz scope and sure enough we were getting transmissions. Thank God for a 350Mhz scope. So now I dug into to the Car itself. I found a specialized RC car IC and was able to source a data sheet on it. From that I determined the voltage to the IC was way below normal. Traced the fault back to the 5V regulator IC. But this was a Chinese IC and the pinout did no match north American standards. Searched the web until I found a 5V reg that had the right pinout. Ordered and installed it and WOOHOO the Car works again. Way to go Grandpa for your determination to help your granddaughter. See more

So we are open again. The Manitoba COVID restrictions are being lifted. We still have to be careful about how many people are here at one time so please call first. That way I can make sure we never have more than one person here at a time. WOOHOO

There now we have a nice picture to post. The Manitoba Government says I must close my shop from April 1-14. That means no customers can show up at my shop during that time. Sorry for the inconvenience. Don Voth

The Manitoba Government says that my shop has to be closed from April 1-14. That means no customer can show up at my shop during that time. Sorry for the inconvenience. Don Voth

I have a plan! For those of you concerned about human contact right now I have a plan. By the way it is a good concern. From what I have studied on the week end: minimizing human contact is about the best way to limit the spread of Corona and there by reduce the strain on our health care system. So for those who want their gear fixed but do not want to come into contact with me this is what we will do. Call me and arrange a time for you to drop off your gear. Bring it to my door and leave it outside and then text me that it is here. I will take it in. I will fix it. And I will email you an invoice. You will E-Transfer me and tell me when you are coming to pick the unit up. I will leave it outside my door for you. This seems like a great plan. Does any one see any holes in the plan?

Why Coronas and Mics do not go together. This is the inside of a Large Diaphragm Mic. For time to time I get one of these in the shop where the mic is cutting out. This happens when a mic gets dirty and the gold skin inside gets coated with dirt. The way to test a mic for this issue is you get up close to it and breath hard on it. The moisture from your breath get through the wind screen right on to the diaphragm and together with the dirt causes the mic diaphragm to short ou...t and the mic shuts down. It takes about 3 or 4 seconds for the moisture to evaporate and the mic comes back on again. What does this have to do with Corona? Well, we now know that the water droplets from your mouth can travel straight through a wind screen to the capsule and we know those droplets evaporate in about 3 seconds. So what happens when you are on a stage and you are sharing a mic. I talk into the mic and less than 3 seconds later you step up to my corona infested vapor pool and talk into the same mic. We should have just skipped this step and I should have just spit into your mouth. So my conclusion is that, us in the music world, should be very careful about mic sharing for the foreseeable future. Corona and mics is a no no. Molsen Canada is another matter. See more

This JCM800 was modified by someone who had some interesting ideas but alas he was a butcher. The thing hummed and hissed like mad. First thing I did was draw out a schematic of the new circuits. That took 2hrs. Then I had to strip it down and redo the butchers work because I just could not work in the mess. That took 6 hrs. Next I had to figure out how to make this mod quieter. First I had to redo the ground structure. I separated the signal ground patch from the shield grou...nd path. Next I found there was hum coming from the V1 tube so I removed the AC filament voltage and replaced that voltage with a 6VDC switching supply to drive both the V1 tube and the Modification Tube. That made a nice different. Next I added a shield cap to the Vmod tube and installed a copper shield between the Vmod tube and the rest of the amp. Another notable difference. Now I still had hum coming in at the FAT/Lean switch. The only why I could fix this is if I moved the switch to another location away from the source of the hum. Another huge job and the clock is already going crazy. So the customer and I decided to eliminate this switch and hard wire the unit for the 12 Oclock position on the switch. Lastly I had to make sure that the metal bottom plate in the cabinet was making connection to the chassis to eliminate the last little bit of hum. Reassembled and tested WOOHOO. Hum free. This job was great fun but it took way longer that what I could charge for. I would love to do more of this kind of work but I would have to change the Company Name to Loose My Shirt Electronics. See more

This my shop guitar. The neck pickup fell out and the wires are to short to reconnect the pickup. So now I have a Holy guitar. But Holy guitars suck for Rock and Roll and that is all I know how to play. Does any one have a junker humbucker pickup that they will never use again and have been wondering why they have been keeping it. This is a perfect opportunity to help Don Voth make his guitar UnHoly. Dammit I sound like a church asking for donations.