Hey all, I'm gonna chime in with my experiences here. Thanks for reading and for any insight anyone is able to offer.
First, just a little overview of my build experience. I'm an amateur builder but have done many small builds and have recapped/troubleshot a bunch of vintage circuits successfully. I dealt with the headache of sourcing many missing parts in my kit (meter hardware, mounting hardware for the power pcb and voltage regulators, missing resistors, the 6pin molex pinouts/cabling, and the default extra pots that were mentioned in the note). I ended up spending quite a lot of money after shipping costs ...and after 'finishing' the build, my unit is having issues. With all this adding up, I'm pretty frustrated but I'm trying to keep focused so that I get this working. Thanks for all the useful links in this thread so far from other users and Gustav - many have been very helpful.
Hi James.
If you were not refunded for your missing parts report/acquisitions list, please let me know. Ill search through the mail archives to verify and make sure you are! I offered this to anyone missing parts. I am truly sorry about the missing parts. The lack of consistency in the kits is a big reason why I shut it down to focus on GOLY, even after finding a third party to pack them. Shipping out a missing resistor, just to get a mail about another missing resistor the week after, and a missing cap the week after that, is as frustrating and time consuming on my end as it is for the builder, so I have asked that people send me a final list of parts missing to avoid this part-by-part fulfillment.
Again, I am sorry if I did not make such an offer to you, and you should get in touch, if you were not compensated.
Input pot should be 10K log,
Output pot should be 100K log.
If they are not, it will certaintly throw off calibration using my instructions.
For the reference signal, you state that your signal is set to -10dB to reach 0. I dont know what that is without reference, but FYI, the meter should be set up, so 0VU =+4dBU.
For the schematic, if you are having trouble following it, note that the aux board "overlays" on the main board schematic. That should make it pretty easy to trace out.
I have built many of these, and seen many sucessfull builds, so I have no doubt the basics of it are solid - I have also built it using the 7912 regulator instead of the 7910, since that went obsolete, but - I slightly suspect there may be some ideosyncracy with the difference in voltage on that rail (like where the trimmers start out), that doesnt make me think twice, because I sort of know my way around it, but could cause problems for a beginner.
Maybe try to find a 7910, replace it, start over calibration, and let us know. .
You can also check to see if the ratio switch is stopped correctly, and if you have reversed the connector to the ratio board. If all voltages are correct, as well as the printed ones around the transistors, the most common errors are really cleared.
Also, what if you dial the Q-bias completely left instead of right at the outset? (I cant remember which way its set to be turned. This is something I just adjust and see) (edit:sorry, just checked the write-up for calibration, and if I specified it, it will be correct).
Did you make sure compression is out?
And please double check if you reversed the input and output pots by any chance (not just the auxilary PCB mount, but observing the orientation/mounting is upside down as shown in the build guide, so you dont have out on in, and in on out, or even the connectors to main crossed).
Gustav
