"Fixing" a Broken Peavey Vypyr Input Jack - Updated

 I just bought a Peavey Vypyr VIP-1 (Fig. 1) with an "input that needs to be tightened or replaced" (per the listing) for a practice amp. Turns out the threads were stripped (I forgot to take a before pic, but you can kind of see them in Fig. 2) so it needed to be replaced. Fair play – I offered $10 less than the asking price and the seller accepted, so no complaints at all.

Fig. 1 Peavey Vypyr VIP-1 with stripped input jack and missing knob

Fig. 2 Stripped threads on the original input jack (pictured here after the 'fix')

When I removed the chassis, I saw that the jack is mounted to a PCB and connected to another PCB by a ribbon cable, which was pretty tightly coiled, presumably from the seller trying to tighten the nut onto the jack but just spinning the whole jack/PCB assembly inside. Past experience tells me that sometimes it's best to leave wires as is if they're not hurting anything (unbending wire can sometimes break it), so I uncoiled it a little bit, but not too much.

I found what I think is the right jack in a few places, all of which cost $8 to $10 or so with shipping. But I don't know much about these kind of jacks with the additional NC contact (that power down the amp when you remove the guitar cable). I didn't want to spend the $10 on what might be the wrong jack, or in a more likely and worse scenario, I didn't want to risk frying any of the tiny surface mounted components on the jack's PCB in the process of desoldering the five solder points.

Instead, I removed one end of a short effects pedal cable (Fig. 3), soldered that end to a new mono input jack and left the other end plugged into the original jack inside the chassis. I used a couple of zip ties to keep it from wiggling around and possibly touching something it shouldn't (Fig. 4). Update: Due to unwanted vibration and rattling on some notes, I had to open up the amp again and put foam tape under the input jack and metal part of the cable.

Fig. 3. Repurposed effects pedal cable with 1/4" mono jack

Like many of my hack jobs, it's not pretty, but it works. And with the amp back together, you can't tell the difference anyway, other than the input jack looking nicer than the original (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4 Original jack and cable zip-tied in place

Fig. 5. New input jack

Peavey Vypyr 75 Repair—Bad Name, Bad Design

I saw a non-working Peavey Vypyr 75 (seriously with the name?) at Guitar Center and couldn’t resist. These amps sell for $300 new and $150-$200 used, so I thought $80 was worth the gamble.

The main reason I took a shot was that it didn’t turn on. If something turns on, but doesn’t work, that can get pretty complicated, especially in a modelling amp. But if something doesn’t turn on, the possibilities are narrowed considerably.

And I was right—I quickly checked for anything obvious and saw the fuse, so figured I’d check that first.  I checked for continuity and there was none. I did not take an pictures, so here's a hastily made layout showing the location of the fuse. This diagram is pretty primitive, but there's not much to this amp, so if you can't find the fuse based on this, hie thee to an amp tech.

I quickly found the part I needed on ebay: 3-Amp 250-Volt fast blow fuse with axial leads for about $5, free shipping.

The only minor pain was that this fuse has axial leads that are soldered to the board. You can’t just pull it out and pop in a new one—you have to remove the board, desolder the old one and solder the new one in. Well designed amps—of which there are many—have a fuse holder that is accessible on the back of the chassis, affording the owner the luxury of changing a fuse in a half minute instead of a half hour.

However, since I sold the amp for $140 a couple of weeks later, the time spent on this poorly designed beast was worth it. To be fair, I played with the amp for a while and had a lot of fun with it. It's a fun toy, but Peavey needs to head back to the drawing board.