Amp: Maverick Audio TubeMagic A1.
Earlier today I replaced my amp's faulty potentiometer. As a novice, I was worried something may have gone wrong and the amp wouldn't function, but thankfully it worked, and sounded better with a fully functional gain pot. So with renewed confidence I decided to replace a couple capacitors. After unplugging it, I made sure to cycle the power button a few times and manually short the caps so they were fully drained before beginning, yet during the solder removal I experienced some scarily loud sparks on a completely different part of the board, and again while putting the board back on the standoffs.
Now that I have the new caps in place and everything back together I'm afraid to turn it on. I don't see any blackened components though I know that makes little difference. Is there any chance it could have survived those shorts?
Well that amp is suitably named, "Maverick" it is. You followed sound procedure. So obviously this is a poorly designed piece of junk.
However that unit obviously has some high voltage caps that do not have bleeder resistors, which is bad lazy design and a safety defect. In a properly and safely designed unit all caps should drain down after a few minutes from installed bleeder resistors.
Now as to whether the unit is ruined, works or safe I can't say. I don't know the circuit and I don't know the location of the caps that discharged during service. I think however all this violent sparking is not a good omen.
However the proper procedure after an event like this is to bring the unit up slowly with a variable voltage autotransformer known as a Variac and observe closely with instruments as the voltage is slowly increased.
As a matter of interest why were you replacing the caps? I hope you were not fixing what wasn't broken. Since the unit was working I fear this is the case, and I suspect the biggest lesson for you from this event.
