IT folk powered-up the above amplifier today, for the first time since it arrived 14 months ago. Five minutes later, it stopped working, "Any chance you can have a look. It's out of warranty."

Fuse at the back had blown. Replaced the fuse, and it seemed to work. Took it back for them to test. About three minutes later, "It popped." Found out a couple of days later, that it 'popped' very loudly, which I'd suspected, as the fuse wasn't just blown, but had coated the inside of the glass with metal when the wire had vaporised.

Next look was under the cover. All looks well in the above, but that wasn't the case underneath that centre power supply circuit board. Suspect the main incoming capacitor was going short-circuit, and some low value resistors connecting to it then had a very high voltage applied across them instead. That resulted in an extremely high current, that destroyed the resistors, may have damaged other parts (e.g. the rectifier), and blew the fuse. They decided to dispose of it, so I salvaged a couple of useful bits. (To be continued, and why the tags have been removed...)

Wasn't feeling well enough to cycle today, so caught the bus for the first time in six months. Weather was dire, with heavy rain - another reason for not cycling. Need to get mudguards for the new bike... sometime. Soaked during the walk from the bus to work.