freeze spray to trouble shoot?

[jamme61]

I've read here and other forums, about using Freeze spray, to troubleshoot tube amps. How does it work? if I was checking a plate resistor or a cap or whatever? Thanks for any help with this.

[Firestorm]

You're looking for problems related to overheating (some resistors go higher in resistance when hot; others go lower- positive or negative thermal coefficient). Sometimes noises, lack of power, gnarly sounds arise when the amp gets warmed up. But most often, you can get the same answers by measuring voltages and calculating currents.

[Structo]

Be very careful spraying freeze spray around hot tubes!

Usually if you are getting sizzle and pops, it may be a bad preamp tube or a bad carbon comp plate resistor.

So you give that resistor a little shot of spray, if it changes the sound you probably found the culprit.

[jamme61]

Thanks, what about checking ldr's with it? I think my tech mentioned that when he fixed a tremoverb. Also do you have to worry about the spray and high voltage in the amp? can it short something? Thanks again

[JazzGuitarGimp]

Another trick you can use: When you find a component that seems to respond to the freeze spray, you can immediately go after the same component with a heat gun to verify your findings.

As for "shorting something out" - freeze spray is intended to be used on active circuits, so I don't think there will be any issues with this.

[jamme61]

thanks so much for the help and time on this.

[memphis032]

I usually use freeze spray on SMT boards to find cracked components/joints - often the only way of finding an intermittent fault! I doubt that trick will work on leaded components though as there is too much give in the leads...