Last November I was playing a gig with my relatively new keyboard rig when my Furman voltage regulator (which was not only powering my gear, but the band PA as well) went up in smoke. I wrote about it a while ago.

I went back to using a four-outlet power strip for my gear during the first half of this year, with the voltage regulator sitting in my basement like a huge paperweight while I tried to figure out whether I was getting a replacement or just doing without it.

Then in early June we played a show on a restaurant patio where they ran an insanely long extension cord from another building to feed power to the band.  There was enough of a voltage drop involved that my keyboards kept spontaneously shutting down and restarting. Not cool at all, and definitely something that the Furman unit would have prevented.

So the next day I went to Furman’s website and tried once more to get in touch via the contact form there. I was happy to see a quick response from one of their product specialists (Mike) within a couple days.

Mike not only gave me an idea of what the necessary repair might be – he included links to the part itself so I could order replacements, and he sent along schematics and test procedures! This is the first time in my long history of owning and maintaining music gear that someone has apparently understood exactly what I was looking for and sent it directly.

Using the info he provided, I ordered a couple MOVs (one to replace the one that had melted, and another spare in case it happens again) and did the repair and testing once the parts arrived. It was a simple fix, and everything tested out perfectly after I was done.

So I didn’t have to scrap my ~$600 piece of gear and buy a replacement. Instead, thanks to some excellent customer service, I brought it back to life – for about $3.00.

Thanks for coming through Furman!