SB4000 Support Thread

[Terryb]

My power indicator LED connection has a loose lead and the unit won't power up.

 

[ratty_7]

Hi,

I'm in Melbourne, Australia and am helping a friend build an SB4000.

It appears getting hold a Sifam AL19 VU meter is like trying to find rocking horse poo.

Canford in England appears to be the only place we could find that sells a Sifam AL19  but has quoted a two month lead time as it is considered  'special order'.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

TIA

I bought my meter from Don Audio ......https://www.don-audio.com/Instrument-Meters
hope this helps.....Mike (MCS Recording Studio Melbourne Australia) 

 

[ratty_7]

Is your faceplace from Serpent?  If so, I've built 2 SB4ks and Hairball Audio has meters that fit.
Did you follow the chart on the schematic?  I don't have any solutions but wanted to mention the chart since a lot of people seem  to miss that part when building.

I bought mine from Don Audio https://www.don-audio.com/Instrument-Meters
Hope this helps Mike from www.mcsrecording.com.au

 

[ratty_7]

Resistors all look where they should be. I have just noticed a possibility though. C31,41,28,36 have this written on them.

U15J63

does this mean they are o.15uF? they are supposed to be 1.5nF so im wandering if this is the problem. unfortunately i dont think i have any 1.5nF lying around so i cant test it yet.

Actually on the schematic c129 and c139 are 150nf which is 0.15 uf  which is 150000pf (1.5nf is 1500pf)

 

[Audio_Ape]

Hello people,

now I just finished my first SB4000 but have some weird issues with my power supply.
Measuring the voltages of all 5 voltage rails, they are all correct when having the black probe on TP14. Putting the black probe on SG1 or the Star Ground itself, my multimeter does not seem to reckognize anything.

Afterwards I connected the main board to the power supply. Turning the unit on, smoke is coming from R182 and R183. So opviously I quickly turned it off.

Now, that might be two separate issues here but does anybody have an idea what to do here? Any help appreciated.
THANK YOU!

 

[tonyferrari]

Hi there,

I'm new to this thread and would appreciate any help I could get. I just finished building my SB4000 and I can't get the unit to pass audio. All of the voltage rails are correct, the gain reduction meter lights up fine, the two red pushbuttons light up fine. The only thing that doesn't function is the Led Meter. All Ic's have been swapped out for new ones, and are in the correct positions. I've tried switching the ribbon cable as well as trying different orientations with the ribbon cable. All was done according to the schematic but the unit won't pass any audio. The gain reduction meter wont reflect any gain reduction and when I press the Compressor in Switch the unit displays signal through my External VU meter's in the studio but doesn't output any audio?! Also, when I turn the SB4000 off, the unit still shows that this signal is present and being sent out of it's outputs, of course with no sound. I'm very confused and would love to get this compressor working properly. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

-Tony

 

[EUC]

Hi,
I've had the SB4000 for about 3 years now and all has been great. I recently moved and upon hooking it back up I'm getting some strange issues mainly volume spikes when changing any of the knob settings. For example if I touch the HPF knob and rotate it will cause a quick volume spike. Sometimes even if I just touch the knob or wiggle it without turning same issue.  Seems likes it's ratio attackrelease and  hpf knobs that I experience this with. Seems like a bad connection somewhere along the line any advice would help.

Thanks

 

[press]

Has someone experience with high quality audio condensers in the audio-path (styroflex, oil, ...)?

I really like that the labeling on the board says "audio-path" for these condensers, - additionally to the schematics, to see, which are the parts within the audio-path.

These are not many, so I would like to try to use high-quality parts for them, for having something sounding astonishing for the years to come.

Anyone has any experience?
Thx!

I also  want to build CnB rev6  here You can find info http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=61934.0
but i'm thinking to create a new board from this schematic. http://www.livingnote.com/prodigydocu/cnb/CnBSchematicR6.pdf

Livingnote is selling his Crush 'n Blend boards again: https://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=62360.0

 

[wahbadb]

It appears that the dropbox links have been taken down. Does anyone have a pdf of the BOM? I downloaded the build manual and it is safely located on my hard drive, but have been using the BOM from my browser.

 

[weiss]

It appears that the dropbox links have been taken down. Does anyone have a pdf of the BOM? I downloaded the build manual and it is safely located on my hard drive, but have been using the BOM from my browser.

i have a bom from 2012, dunno if it matches yours 100% but anyway, hope it helps

 

[wahbadb]

i have a bom from 2012, dunno if it matches yours 100% but anyway, hope it helps

Thanks weiss! It's not a 100% match, but I believe it will work

 

[wahbadb]

do you happen to have the schematic?

I just started installing the VCAs and realized that I have THAT2181Bs and I might need to adjust resistors values for optimal performance. I've been reading through the forum but all the links to the schematic seem to be down.

 

[skazophrene]

hi,

i'm looking for the build manual and the BOM of SB 4000 ( link of dropbox are dead).
Please, could someone be kind enough to share them with me?
thank you in advance 

regards,

[email protected]

 

[wahbadb]

hi,

i'm looking for the build manual and the BOM of SB 4000 ( link of dropbox are dead).
Please, could someone be kind enough to share them with me?
thank you in advance 

regards,

[email protected]

Here is a link to the build manual, a few posts above me someone gave me a link to a BOM from 2012, it doesn't match exactly to the most recent one, but it is helpful. I am hoping the links will be restored sometime soon. I emailed serpent audio directly about the dead link issue yesterday actually. Let's hope it gets resolved soon

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n6wemvi0pdfl22d/SB4000_ASSY_DOC_REV3.pdf?dl=0

I would download the file to your hard drive. I can't promise to keep the link of indefinitely cheers!

 

[papsigaga]

Hi,
I have trouble in calibrating my sb4000 and cannot find what's wrong. to do 5)ratio calibrating, I exported 1khz test tone  through unit and adjusted threshold to get 10db compression(2:1 ratio). And when I increased the level of test tone by 10db, my unit compressed more and output volume was very low. The more input level is, the more compression my unit do. I checked the voltage, soldering, polarity, ribbon cable, the direction of ic chips etc but couldn't find the problem. I built quad vca version and soldered jmp8 and 9 only. what should I check for this problem? Any suggestions are welcome.
Cheers 

 

[weiss]

The more input level is, the more compression my unit do.

That's actually what a compressor does...

 

[papsigaga]

That's actually what a compressor does...

Yes, that's what a compressor does, but what I mean is, if I increase input by 10db, output should increase 5db at 2:1 ratio compression. But in my case when I increase input by 10db, output decrease 20db or more....

 

[apzx]

.

 

[bacbacou]

Hello,
I need the schematics of the SB4000, It was easy to found it when I built it some year ago, but I cannot find it now... Maybe someone could send it to me ?

thank you !

Richard

 

[Sinkia]

Hello,
I need the schematics of the SB4000, It was easy to found it when I built it some year ago, but I cannot find it now... Maybe someone could send it to me ?

thank you !

Richard

Good Luck with that..
It seems that Serpent Audio don't have such a great support service