MODIFYING THE AMPEG SVT3 PRO

This is a manual to make some improvements to the SVT3 PRO. I’ll explain how I installed a better cooling, a real
mute, a soft start and changed the LED's. As you can see in its original state the cooling is not adequate to
handle 4ohm loads (that is: it runs unnecessarily very hot which shortens the MOSFETs life).

Don’t mind the white cable between the preamp & amp board, I’ll get to that later. As you can see I added a soft
start between the fan and the transformer. This will reduce the inrush current when you put the amp on, the 4
capacitors will be grateful to you !! It is NEVER a
good thing to power up a heavy transformer
without a soft start, because the capacitors have to
be charged from zero which results in a very high
load current. A soft start adds resistors in series
with the primary of the transformer which are
shorted by a relay after 1 or 2 seconds.

This way the capacitors can be charged with a reasonable

current without early aging. Any soft start circuit will do, I
found this one in a Electronics magazine. It can handle transformers till 2000W.

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Before you start you need to know that you have to disassemble EVERYTHING !! The next picture is to give you
an idea… Don’t forget to write down which tube
goes where, they’re different types !! Remember
where you removed the long screws.
VERY IMPORTANT: Write down which color/cable
goes where in the power supply circuit, this is a
international transformer for 100V / 110V / 230V /
240V.

Now let’s move on to the hardest part:

THE COOLING
A cooling element must transport the heat from the
component to the ambient with a as high as
possible efficiency. So the greater the surface of
the cooling element, the better it dissipates the heat.
This can be done by adding fins … as you can see
there are none !! What you need to do is put the 5W
resistors on the other side of the board, drill some
holes in the original “heatsink”, and install a real
heatsink … the bigger the better. But, there’s a but
… there’s a small disadvantage to this. If you
should have to remove the MOSFET’s for servicing
the power amp, you’ll need to desolder ALL the
MOSFET’s, than first remove the heatsink before
you can release the screws of the MOSFET’s. This will add 20 minutes of work, but hey, I’ve seen worse
scenario’s than this. On the other hand, with the added heatsink they wouldn’t have to work “on the edge”
anymore, overheating is a common failure in power amps. The heatsink dimensions should be no more than
60mm x 60mm x 120mm with LONGITUDINAL fins. This is to insure a good airflow through the fins and over the
MOSFET’s.

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Follow these steps:
Remove the power transformer (1 screw & all cables to amp board)
Remove the small board hanging above the amp board
Disconnect the 2 large connectors on the amp board
Remove the screws of the amp board and the 2 red marked screws in the heatsink, then take the amp
board out of the housing

Remove all the 5W resistors, you’ll need a good iron to do this, there’s a lot of copper that takes away the
heat !!
Remove the screws in red and with a small screwdriver gently release the MOSFET’s from the isolation
WITHOUT damaging it, I used a flat screwdriver as a wrench between 1 pin and the heatsink. They stick
pretty hard !!

Solder the 5W resistors on the other side of the board. Here you have to make sure the pins don’t stick
out more than 1mm on the other side, otherwise they will touch the heatsink and short circuit the output.
This might be a good time to check the other solderings, since you have the board taken out. I had
several bad ones, so I resoldered almost everything, just to be sure. Just wiggle a component on the
other side of the board and check if the pins move along with it … Bad solders are also a common failure
in power amps (especially those “made in China”- ones), and it happens always … on stage !!

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Next steps are for the mechanical part of the heatsink, this is what you’ll need to do this:
o 2 clamps
o Threading tool M4
o Lubricant
o drill M4
o drill M3.2
o countersink M4
o 2 pieces of wood
Because I don’t have industrial computer & laser
guided machinery, everything will be done by hand.

Follow these steps:

Put the heatsink in the middle of the frame, place 1 piece of wood on top of the fins and tighten it with a
clamp. You can see the 4 holes, they are drilled
just between the fins. In the next picture you’ll see
the backside. Don’t forget to mark the hole (M4)
for the thermistor as it sticks out when you
reassemble the amp board !! The other holes are
drilled with M3.2.

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Take the other clamp, tighten it to the other side and remove the first one. This to be sure that all the
holes will align perfectly. Drill the other 4 holes with M3.2.

After drilling the 8 holes, remove the clamps & heatsink and use the M4 drill with countersink on the
original heatsink, the screws must be countersunk when you reinstall the heatsink on the amp board.

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 Now you must drill the threads in the heatsink. Each hole has to be done with 3 drills. Be sure to use
lubricant on the drill, otherwise the screws wouldn’t fit tight. (yes you have to lubricate 24 times !)

This is how it should look afterwards:

Reinstall the original heatsink WITHOUT the new heatsink, tighten the 8 MOSFET’s (not the 2 drivers).
Desolder the 8 MOSFET’s, again a good iron is
needed due to large copper surfaces, and pull out
the heatsink with the MOSFET’s bolted on it.

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 Apply enough thermal paste on the original heatsink, reinstall the new heatsink and reinstall gently the
whole unit on the amp board. Resolder the MOSFET’s (don’t forget to tighten the 2 drivers).

Reinstall the amp board and you’re done for this part. Don’t forget to put some loctite on the screws,
because they tend to loosen due to vibrations after a while … mine were ALL loose after the first service !

NEXT STEP … The mute modification:

This amplifier uses a FET mute, it pulls the input signal to ground … but not completely. When you open the
master at ¾, you can still hear the sound, and when you’re playing through a PA, the audience will hear it too !!
I own 2 SVT3 PRO’s and they BOTH had this, must be a design flaw. So I decided to modify the mute circuit:
1) Mute the input with the FET
2) Release the speaker relay
Here’s how I did:

Take out all the buttons, bolts & screws of the preamp board. (the transformer must be removed)
Take out the board and remove the wire jumper JW27 (next to the double switch) and install a 10K
resistor in series with a 1N4148 diode (cathode towards the board). Be sure to install them on the
opposite side of the boards end (where the jumper was).

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Flip the board over and remove the traces

Add 2 wires as shown in the picture. This will NOT affect your sound, it’s just DC voltage supply to
“give” the relay the release signal when you push the mute button. Again, check for bad solders,
onboard jacks very often get loose connections !!

Replace the 2 green LEDs with blue ones (looks much cooler)
Reinstall the preamp board, with all the buttons & bolts, use loctite on the board screws.
Solder a wire from the anode of the added diode to R45 of the amp board. DO NOT solder the wire on the
other side of the resistor or it will not work !!

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 Reinstall the transformer, hopefully you wrote down the correct combinations of wires/colors.
YOU’RE DONE !!

Here’s a hint:
When testing a serviced amplifier, ALLWAYS test it with a light bulb (100W) in series at the mains. Errors are
human, and it would be very painful to see your amp go up in smoke after all this work, when you push the ON
button. If the light bulb shines bright … there’s a short circuit and your amp survived !! Otherwise it flashes
shortly, until the capacitors in the power supply are charged, then you’re OK. Here’s the schematic of a box I
build:

BY THE WAY …
The amp is rated 450Wrms @ 4ohm.
I tested mine (both) on the bench, they rated 554Wrms @ 100Hz & 1KHz @ 4ohm for hours and they did not
overheat !!

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