Urei 1176 LN "D" - NOT "F" - Gerber FIles???

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Joined
May 25, 2017
Messages
7
Hi Everyone,

This is my first post, long time fan... I am building an 1176 LN, but I want to make my own board, and I cannot find any Gerber files for version "D". There is the pdf of the hairball boards A and D, and the gerber files for version "F" on gyraf, but that i all I can find.

Does anybody have gerbers for any of the versions up through D they could share, or can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thank you so much for the consideration, and I will definitely share as my build comes along...

 
I've never seen a Gerber for Rev D boards.  Mako Natsume has an excellent design that has been refined over several years, available to order on the Hairball Audio site. 
 
Exactly - I want the gerber files for the hairball version "D", if available. Or even an earlier version, like "A", which I also found pdfs of (but no gerbers).  I want to make my own board instead, and only for myself. I'll even pay for gerber files, or sign something... You know what I'm saying; Just throw me a bone - message me, or point me in the right direction or something.

I emaiiled hairball, hopefully I will hear back soon... Thank you.
 
If you only need a board for your build, Hairball sells a board you can make rev d on. I used two for a stereo build last year. No one's going to give you their Gerbers if they're selling a board, and it's sort of impolite to ask because releasing the Gerbers puts their product at risk and a ton of time went into designing a working board.

Eagle isn't too hard to learn if you practice with simple layouts and take your time. Might be overkill for just getting up to making a single rev d board, but it's a cool skill to have.
 
Hello,

Yes, I now understand that gerbers are apparently a big deal to these guys. I heard back from hairball and they told me as much...

I totally understand and respect that; but it does seem a little funny since this is not their circuit, and I would've signed a contract.

This whole thing started because I wanted to order a board with thicker copper and larger footprint. I contacted hairball to order a custom board, and they told me that it would take too many man hours, and neither were they interested in helping or charging me to do so.

I respected and understood that as well, and set out to make my own. That started me doing research and I found an American (+!) manufacturer who would be willing to work with me on building a custom board- so I went hunting for gerber files and posted here. 

And, here we are. I guess I am committed now, and will have to develop gerber files for my board. I tell you this much; now that I am going to all this trouble, I will probably have to offer whatever comes from this to the community - whether it be gerbers, or better quality boards, or whatever. That was not my initial intention, and I am disappointed that hairball was not willing to work with me. But again, I respect that.

If anybody has any ideas, or is willing to write me gerber files for $, message me. Hairball, you too. When I get a board, I'll post it...


 
So pay someone to make you the PCB layout if you don't want to do it yourself.

Hairball didn't have to design the circuit to spend hundreds of hours prototyping layouts to get the best performance and build experience. Their board is awesome and worth the price, but frankly if it isn't good enough for you then you're going to have to either learn the same skills they learned or hire a professional.

It's a large schematic. You can expect someone who's fast to spend about 3 hours drawing it. You can expect them to spend 3 times that doing a draft layout, and perhaps another 3 hours on top of that editing the board, and you can increase that total time by 25-50% if you have any special constraints like size.

Anyone worth their salt is probably going to charge you $50-100 (or even more -- I've seen as high as $150) an hour, because that's the going rate for this sort of work by a professional. So I've estimated 15 hours at a minimum, let's call it on the low end at $50, you're asking someone to GIVE you in excess of $750 worth of professional labor solely on the grounds that you would sign a contract.

Maybe you're not aware of details like the amount of time that goes into making layouts, in which case I'd encourage you to learn the skill and gain some insight into that. Maybe you aren't aware of the costs associated with hiring a professional to make a circuitboard layout. In which case you can be forgiven for being blindsided by the response.

On the other hand, if you had some idea of the cost and were simply trying to avoid it simply because you didn't like the products available to you (such as hairball), well, I'm not really sure how else to put it -- you were being rude and greedy.

Gyraf's release of the Gerbers for one of the versions is actually extraordinary. There are very, very few people willing to share Gerbers, and I don't blame them -- and I say this as a person who has released Eagle files, not just Gerbers, of boards I've designed and shared projects on OshPark.

Hopefully it's a bit more clear to you now what you were requesting.
 
Yes, I was completely ignorant of all that when I posted here. I saw the "F" gerber files online, and I saw how hairball offered the pdf for free (specifically to build your own board, I thought). After seeing how friendly and ready to help everyone was on this very website when hairball was developing the board they sell now, I ignorantly assumed that everybody on this site shared gerber files.

But let me be clear, I was absolutely NOT asking for anything for free, and I never wanted the gerber files initially. I first contacted hairball to order a custom board from them. That day I would've spent over $1000 if that is what they wanted - but they said NO. I totally respected that as well, and found an American company who is willing to work with me. I totally understand how sensitive gerbers are now, and claim ignorance.

That being said, I was (and still very much am) ready to pay for quality, professional work. I'm blue collar - I respect manual labor...

My issue is I have a recording studio, and I want a quality 1176. I have original transformers and components, and I just want a great board.

If anyone - hairball included - is willing to work with me, I just want to have this done. The whole plan is that I have an electrical engineer who I will also be paying to solder in NOS components, so the quality of the board is a critical issue to me here. I have a board manufacturer.

Message me if you make gerbers.
 
I mean -- why do you think that the Hairball board is insufficient? It's a thick board, and I think it might even be manufactured in the U.S. The thickness of the copper doesn't affect performance -- heavier copper can even make it harder to solder because for instance a more massive ground plane just disperses soldering iron heat without providing any additional shielding benefit (ground planes don't even have to be solid, much less more than "as thin as possible"). Traces far thinner than anything you'll find on a typical fabbed board around here usually far exceed the minimum required for even hundreds of milliamps. Their board is designed to speedily build a solid piece of studio gear, and it's a better PCB than the originals were built on, and it's a proven verified project. I would have highly recommended their previous iteration of the kit, but the new version is even easier to build, and you'll spend less on a kit minus the transformers you already have than you would on a new layout, and you won't have to worry about whether the board works because it's already been tested for you.

I guess I'm just unclear what you think the shortcoming of their PCB is.
 
Fair enough. In my experience with musical equipment, I have noticed a slightly stronger response and handling capacity from thicker traces, higher gauge wire, and higher quality of copper. I am not arguing the functionality of thinner wire at all, but I have noticed a slight improvement in performance and capacity with higher gauges. There is a limit, of course, and a point that becomes obtuse. Still, I am looking to overbuild whenever possible, with the end goal being a final quality of sound, lifetime functionality and serviceability. If I am going to be replacing capacitors and the like on a plastic board over many decades, I want it to hold up to that.

Additionally, there is a thread where it is explained that the smaller footprint of the hairball board is fine because components have become smaller over the years - a larger board is not necessary anymore. This is true, but I will be using vintage caps and resistors. We can solder the larger components higher off the board, but why not just make it larger? I would just hand wire an eyelet board, but that would lend itself to a mess, and is counterproductive electromagnetically. I've heard the originals have pc boards anyway.

In any case, I do not have anything inherently against modern board building techniques on a functionality level, just a quality level.
 
Have you handled any of the Hairball 1176 boards? They're pretty well build and I don't know how many times over the life of the unit you would plan to unsolder and resolder components for servicing. The Hairball boards seem to hold up very well to many solder attempts. Also, if you plan on using vintage capacitors I believe that would naturally increase the number of times one would have to perform repairs, although we all use vintage NOS parts on various builds for that something special.

Do let us know how you get on. This is place of learning and sharing knowledge and experiences and we all would definitely love to know what the end result achieves electronically and audibly.

Thanks!

Paul
 
Thank you, Paul.

Yes, I too am going for that something special with the vintage caps, and understand that regular service will be required. This is a big part of why I am trying to get a different board, since I will certainly need to continually service it over the decades. Long term.

HB's board is fine and works great, and will get the electrons where they need to go. I have no doubt about that, and I am only going down this rabbit hole based on a theory. How much it will really help is unknown and ultimately subjective/ relative. But I'm willing and able to compare the same components on each board, and then we will be able to find out what this theory is really made of. I do not care which way the result falls, but I am willing to find out. In any case, I am all for what hairball does, and have other various products from them that serve our studio extremely well. I use their 500 series stuff and find it very well made, and perfect for that.

I'll keep you guys in the loop. I'm already taking some online tutorials to learn how to use eagle. It might make sense to just learn it...
 
plumberstrummer said:
Message me if you make gerbers.

I suppose I should start by saying I'm one of the electronics engineers who inhabit this forum. I'm also one of the pedants who inhabit this forum.

"Make gerbers" is the wrong phrase. You are asking for someone to design a printed circuit board for you. We do this daily at the day job, and I've done many board designs for my personal projects. "Making gerbers" is what you do when the PCB design is complete and you need to generate data for the fab house.

Except for the most trivial of designs, PCB work isn't simple. You say down thread that you're "taking some online tutorials to learn how to use eagle." The thing is, "using eagle" (or any PCB CAD package) is easy. It's very easy to lay out a crappy PCB that won't work.  But it's worse than that ... parts selection isn't trivial. For example, do you want pots and jacks mounted to the PCB? If so, which ones? What about mechanical constraints? I mean, the jacks have to poke through the metal. That's all something that comes with experience. And that's why midwayfair quoted reasonable hourly rates for the work.

I can teach you how to place parts on a schematic in eagle in five minutes. I can teach you how to draw traces between parts in eagle layout in five minutes.  I can teach you the C language syntax in five minutes, too, but that won't make you a good C programmer.

oh, yeah, I'm also a negative nancy.
 
Andy Peters said:
I suppose I should start by saying I'm one of the electronics engineers who inhabit this forum. I'm also one of the pedants who inhabit this forum.

"Make gerbers" is the wrong phrase. You are asking for someone to design a printed circuit board for you. We do this daily at the day job, and I've done many board designs for my personal projects. "Making gerbers" is what you do when the PCB design is complete and you need to generate data for the fab house.

Except for the most trivial of designs, PCB work isn't simple. You say down thread that you're "taking some online tutorials to learn how to use eagle." The thing is, "using eagle" (or any PCB CAD package) is easy. It's very easy to lay out a crappy PCB that won't work.  But it's worse than that ... parts selection isn't trivial. For example, do you want pots and jacks mounted to the PCB? If so, which ones? What about mechanical constraints? I mean, the jacks have to poke through the metal. That's all something that comes with experience. And that's why midwayfair quoted reasonable hourly rates for the work.

I can teach you how to place parts on a schematic in eagle in five minutes. I can teach you how to draw traces between parts in eagle layout in five minutes.  I can teach you the C language syntax in five minutes, too, but that won't make you a good C programmer.

oh, yeah, I'm also a negative nancy.
Nah... "negative nellie" not nancy...  ;D

If you give a man a gerber he can make one circuit board, if you teach him to make his own gerber he can make a multitude of circuit boards.

JR
 
Are you interested in buying eagle brd file of a layout I did? It's basically the same as the mnats board excluding the power supply.
 
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