Tonight I assembled one of the main SC-1 preamp boards. It was also cool to try out my new temperature controlled soldering station… *so* much better than the old Antex iron!

I did have one mishap though. I managed to snap the leg off a ceramic capacitor as I was pushing it home into it’s holes on the PCB… means I’ve now got to flipping well either drive 10 miles to the nearest Maplin store or order a single ceramic capacitor, probably costng no more than 10p, and incur a standard delivery charge! BUGGER!!

A few components were a little fiddly to install. The IC sockets and DIL jumper pins were a lot easier to solder once they had been temporarily held with the judicial application of some masking tape. Had to do the same when installing the 2 switches and the potentiometer. The main gain switch was particularly fiddly (the red bodied round one) as the pins had to be soldered onto some extremely small closely pitched PCB pads and it was necessary to solder them under a magnifying glass to ensure a clean and tidy job with no accidental solder bridges. The build time for this board was around about 2 hours… again I was proceeding steadily and double checking each component as it was installed.

The floor standing rack has also come along. It’s all assembled and painted now. I have also installed the rack strips and a Behringer rack light which has the very useful feature of 8 extension IEC sockets on the back panel all running from a master switch on the front of the unit… very nice, especially given that it’s a Behry! I now just need to finish the real wood top with hardwood edging to complete the rack.

As before, here are the all important pictures.