Hey there!
I recently joined this super forum, and was blown away by the available DIY kits available, and the level of support and care shown by the people here. After building my CAPI312`s and DOA`s, I felt ready to start a new project. I quickly settled on the EZ1084 pcb`s from Bluzzi, as they were presumably pretty easy to put togheter. Anyways, the EQ `s use external power, so a separate power-supply was needed. I was recommended the FiveFish PSU, and I got a PSU-enclosure from CollectiveCases.
As a total electronics newb, I was at first a little intimidated about working with deadly levels of voltage, and was actually a little remorseful about my PSU purchase; maybe I should have left it to the pro`s and focused solely on my eq`s? Well... if you never decide to learn something, you never will. So I started reading up a bit on basic electric knowledge: AC/DC, grounding, shock hazards and how to avoid them.
The FiveFish PSU assembly guide is pretty thorough, but I had to get answers for a few things I was wondering from the FF guys, and they were very helpful. Anyways, I was thinking to just make a little build thread so other people can have a look at what`s involved (this will be far under most of you people competance, but there probably are a few scared noobs among you, like me, that appreciate all the info they can get)
Resistors and diodes soldered to board.
And ceramic caps and bridge rectifiers...
Going to use the chassis-mount LED in place of LED2; Since I then need to draw cables from the points on the PCB, they need to go under the board to not be in the way of the fuse. Tried soldering cables straight to pcb, but they didn`t like being bent the way they had to under the board, and snapped off. So I made a solution, using cutoff leads from the components twisted soldered to the cable, then inserted and soldered to the board from overside. Worked like a charm! Had to use a good bit of time to get the rests of the cabling and solder out of the hole on the pcb. Was a little worried I`d overheat the board at this point, but it worked nicely.
The wire-lead combo
finished soldering to pcb
fuseholders and chassis-led wires soldered from top, led`s soldered from bottom. The LED`s that are supposed to go on the PCB in the FF kit actually have the polarity reversed compared to other LED`s! So SHORT leg is actually POSITIVE. Chassis led is "normal".
Some electrolytics in place
Trimmers in place
And the rest of the electrolytics in place, along with the voltage regulators with heatsinks. The huge caps were a little pain to solder, I might need a bigger tip and more powerful station than the 40w weller that I am currently using. Was having a hard time warming up the connection sufficiently to make the solder flow beautifully, so they turned out a little "knurly" and rough.
Make sure the heatsinks on the voltage regulators don`t touch each other or any other part. I had to bend them a little after soldering, which was no problem.
Placed toroid and drilled hole in PSU box. Sanded down the coating by the hole I am using for grounding, and found the right bolt. The hole actually fits an M12, but the store only had very long bolts in that size, so I opted for an m8 that uses the same size washer as m12, just with a smaller hole. So it fits beautifullly!
Finished wiring, placed pcb on nylon standoffs.
Placed some electrical tape on the side of the PSU panel where the voltage regulators are, just to make sure that if it ever contacted they wouldn`t short out.
Finished PSU, lighted up and worked straight away! 8) Adjusted the voltages, and it`s ready to go!
Now to finish my EQ`s!
All the best,
-Magnus
I recently joined this super forum, and was blown away by the available DIY kits available, and the level of support and care shown by the people here. After building my CAPI312`s and DOA`s, I felt ready to start a new project. I quickly settled on the EZ1084 pcb`s from Bluzzi, as they were presumably pretty easy to put togheter. Anyways, the EQ `s use external power, so a separate power-supply was needed. I was recommended the FiveFish PSU, and I got a PSU-enclosure from CollectiveCases.
As a total electronics newb, I was at first a little intimidated about working with deadly levels of voltage, and was actually a little remorseful about my PSU purchase; maybe I should have left it to the pro`s and focused solely on my eq`s? Well... if you never decide to learn something, you never will. So I started reading up a bit on basic electric knowledge: AC/DC, grounding, shock hazards and how to avoid them.
The FiveFish PSU assembly guide is pretty thorough, but I had to get answers for a few things I was wondering from the FF guys, and they were very helpful. Anyways, I was thinking to just make a little build thread so other people can have a look at what`s involved (this will be far under most of you people competance, but there probably are a few scared noobs among you, like me, that appreciate all the info they can get)
Resistors and diodes soldered to board.
And ceramic caps and bridge rectifiers...
Going to use the chassis-mount LED in place of LED2; Since I then need to draw cables from the points on the PCB, they need to go under the board to not be in the way of the fuse. Tried soldering cables straight to pcb, but they didn`t like being bent the way they had to under the board, and snapped off. So I made a solution, using cutoff leads from the components twisted soldered to the cable, then inserted and soldered to the board from overside. Worked like a charm! Had to use a good bit of time to get the rests of the cabling and solder out of the hole on the pcb. Was a little worried I`d overheat the board at this point, but it worked nicely.
The wire-lead combo
finished soldering to pcb
fuseholders and chassis-led wires soldered from top, led`s soldered from bottom. The LED`s that are supposed to go on the PCB in the FF kit actually have the polarity reversed compared to other LED`s! So SHORT leg is actually POSITIVE. Chassis led is "normal".
Some electrolytics in place
Trimmers in place
And the rest of the electrolytics in place, along with the voltage regulators with heatsinks. The huge caps were a little pain to solder, I might need a bigger tip and more powerful station than the 40w weller that I am currently using. Was having a hard time warming up the connection sufficiently to make the solder flow beautifully, so they turned out a little "knurly" and rough.
Make sure the heatsinks on the voltage regulators don`t touch each other or any other part. I had to bend them a little after soldering, which was no problem.
Placed toroid and drilled hole in PSU box. Sanded down the coating by the hole I am using for grounding, and found the right bolt. The hole actually fits an M12, but the store only had very long bolts in that size, so I opted for an m8 that uses the same size washer as m12, just with a smaller hole. So it fits beautifullly!
Finished wiring, placed pcb on nylon standoffs.
Placed some electrical tape on the side of the PSU panel where the voltage regulators are, just to make sure that if it ever contacted they wouldn`t short out.
Finished PSU, lighted up and worked straight away! 8) Adjusted the voltages, and it`s ready to go!
Now to finish my EQ`s!
All the best,
-Magnus
