Problems/malfunctions with Crate new style V series amps anyone?

[Duff49]

This might be a great place to describe any problems or malfunctions that any of us have had with the "blow out", great deal, new style discontinued V series amps we bought.

My V fifty was awesome for about one month and then blew up; the power tubes catastrophically failed taking out the switching power supply and other parts of the amp circuit. I received a replacement amp from Crate: a V32 212 and love it.

Any other problems we should know about?

Thanks,

Duffy

[Ro3b]

I've been very happy with my V18 since I replaced the speaker and reverb tank. I've tried different tube configurations and ended up with the stock 12AX7s back in. Shrug. I read that Crate discontinued this series because they had a tendency to blow up like Duff's did, but I've been playing mine 10-15 hours a week with no problems.

[Spudman]

Strange thing is that this video shows the amp in a different light.

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[jim p]

I have a V50 that has only been turned on a few times and am worried about how they fail. Did they give any idea of what may have happened? I am thinking of lowering the rating of F1 the 1 amp fuse to 500mA or maybe 300mA to limit the draw on the high voltage supply in failure mode. Also worried it could have been the bias supply going out then both output tubes would be full on not a good thing. I could make a protection circuit to sense that if needed.
Another thing I might look into changing is the value of the current sense resistor in the primary of the switch mode power supply to limit the supply output current. But it would be nice to know if there is a known cause of the failure.Thanks