G1176 First power-up, issues.. help please!

So after mustering up the courage to plug in the mains on my very first DIY and then realizing to my surprise that nothing had blown up.. I noticed a few issues right off the bat, hopefully someone here can give me some advice.

my #1 concern was that i felt something hot.. it was the heat sync on my voltage regulator. Now obviously because it has a heat sync its supposed to get hot but hot enough to burn me to the touch? Is this normal?

#2 - my VU meter responds when I power on and switch between GR mode and output mode and bypass, but in GR mode the needle sits way below zero and neither of my zero adjusts on either the meter nor the PCB make any sort of change in where the needle rests.

3# no VU lamps.. Im pretty sure I have them connected right, but no light. I went from the VU Lamp outs on the Mnats Rev. J PCB to the VU lamps but they aren't glowing. bulbs should be fine, just bought them

Any ideas? I didnt bother sending audio through it yet, not until I have these errors worked out anyways

Thanks in advance!!

Andre

have you calibrated the unit yet?

EDIT:

Got the VU lights working, seems that one of the ends broke when I moved the PCB into place.. silly mistake.

The voltage regulator is still really hot, but even after being on for a few minutes it doesn't seem to get any worse, so maybe thats normal?

I havent calibrated the meter yet no, but im having another issue now that I have to fix before I can calibrate.

I tried feeding a microphone through a UA610 preamp then out into the compressor and into protools and all I get is a hum at my guess is around 60 cycles, i tried removing one of the grounds to see if there was a ground loop but that didnt solve it. Note that there appears to be no signal whatsoever, just hum. I tap the mic and hear nothing and see nothing on the VU. I double and triple checked my + 0 - on the XLR and PCB and they are fine, so its something probably a little more complex than that..

Any advice?

Thanks

There's alot of help in the G1176 thread, it's huge. I would move this over there.

For starters I would check soldering (shorts?), resistor values and component orientation. Make sure you got the PSU voltages right.