Two prong power cord to three prong

[Heywood_ja]

I have an older silver face bandmaster that still has the original 2 prong power cord (and death cap).

I am going to replace it with a 3 prong grounded cord and have a question.

I have a power chord from an old power washer that has a GFI breaker at the end. Is there any advantage/problem using it rather than a standard grounded cable ?

[lord preset]

A GFi does provide a margin of safety against amp faults but putting on the cord itself is less than ideal. GFIs fail and when it does your amp will be DOA until the plug was replaced. Since the GFI you want to use already has some age it could die sooner than you think.

If you are interested in ground fault protection you can make your own GFI extension cord or buy one. You can run other amps/PA through it which would protect against shocks encountered when you touch the other equipment. I made one years ago after getting a nasty shock off a mic connected to a faulty PA.

Still I don't see them used much on stage because it's bad to have it pop in the middle of a song.

[Structo]

When I worked in construction there was a mandate that came down that any outside work with power tools had to have GFI protection.

That's fine and dandy but it would only have to sprinkle lightly with rain and they would start blowing.

The worst part was the spider box with the GFI on it would sometimes be 50-100 feet away.
Many, many trips to the box to reset the breaker.

Eventually we learned to protect the couplings of the cords to prevent tripping the breaker.

I think if I were playing a lot of outdoor gigs that are threatened by rain it might be a good idea to have GFI but be prepared to have your amp go dark if it trips.

I forget the specs but they react to a very low current to trigger the breaker.

I would be more likely to take an outlet tester and verify that the hot and neutral are correct polarity and that the ground is good.

[ToneMerc]

I have an older silver face bandmaster that still has the original 2 prong power cord (and death cap).

I am going to replace it with a 3 prong grounded cord and have a question.

I have a power chord from an old power washer that has a GFI breaker at the end. Is there any advantage/problem using it rather than a standard grounded cable ?

I don't see much advantage nor a problem until that GFI cord fails, then you will be back in the same boat of having to replace the cord. If I was truly concerned about GFI, I would build a independant unit like LP mentioned. Also, like Tom said I would more inclined to use an outlet tester.

Personally, I would just use a standard 3 prong cord while rewiring it so the fuse is now on the hot side verses how they were originally wired with the fuse on the neutral, which no longer meets modern electrical code standards.


TM

[Heywood_ja]

Thanks all, I will just go with the standard 3 prong, remove the death cap from the circuit ( leaving it in place in case i ever sell the amp and make sure the fuse is correctly wired.