I said in the GAS Purchases thread that I'd do a thread about my 1176 Rev F build 
At this point, it's not finished, but the finish line is close. So... here goes!
I had looked into the possibility of building some form of compressor or preamp at the back end of last year and after a bit of reading and some encouragement, I decided that an 1176 was what I wanted to build. I'd played around with one that my mate has in his studio and thought that it would be a cool thing to have and as it's pretty versatile… well, it just made sense to me.
I read around on Prodigy Pro forums and found a guy selling 1176 boards, lots of different revisions, the Rev A really appealed to me, I think the original thing was what appealed to me, but having read about the Rev F/J, I just decided to go with that. I ordered the boards from Mnats and within about 10 days (he's in Australia… I'm on the north coast of Scotland) they had arrived.
I ordered a load of parts to populate the board from Mouser and waited patiently. I never intended to build this in a week or anything, I had always had it pinned down as a longer term project to keep me amused when I had free time etc. When the parts arrived, I'd realised I'd made a dick move and ordered the parts for the Rev G (D'oh!) and as it turns out, I've got a load of stuff sitting about for a Rev G. Quite a lot of the parts were the same and I spent a bit of time working out what was right and what wasn't.
To say I felt like a bit silly was an understatement, however, undeterred, I moved on and ordered all the bits and pieces that I needed from Banzai in Germany. Got all the bits in and filled in the board. Just needed the Lundahl input and output transformers and the board was done. Managed to pick them up off of eBay for a few pound less than what they retail for.
Board is looking like this just now…
My running bill to this point is (including shipping at all points)
£13 on the boards
£90 on parts to fill the boards including the bits that I didn't need!
£55 on the Lundahl transformers.
£158 so far
I still have the extra stuff, so if I build a Rev G, I have lots of stuff. I could probably cut this in half if I'd ordered the right bits. I read something in a hurry which is why I made this error. Read twice, order once is now my saying!
I was faced with a challenge of finding an enclosure to encase the guts of my 1176 in and after a lot of searching on eBay, and I really do mean a lot of searching, I came a across a company from Germany that sold enclosures at the reasonable price of £35. It had a removable front panel which was perfect for me as I planned to buy the front panel from Hairball.
I was going to provide a picture of my rack here… but, it's just a case
I ordered the switches, switch boards and the power transformer next, they came in at £26 which took me up to £219. I had the bits to fill these boards in, so this was quite a quick little venture. Mounted the switches to the boards and onward I went.
I think up to this point, I'd spent more time reading about the building than actually assembling the thing. Mnats has a great site which has been helping me along and if you're seriously considering building one of these, it's a good resource. http://mnats.net/1176.html
I think I'd spent maybe about 2 hours of actual time putting the thing together by this point, maybe a bit more. As I said, it wasn't really a quick project, so time wasn't really a concern.
Next up I had to get the cosmetic stuff (knobs and the face plate) as well as, probably the most important part… the VU meter. These bits were the most expensive and came in at £96, taking my total up to £315. I had to pay £23.95 in import tax for these bad boys and then it turned out that the screws and mounts for the switches weren't in the box. I mailed Mike at Hairball (after checking the box about 5 times like a mad man) and within an hour he'd replied, apologised and said he'd get them in the mail to me.
Looks nice!
The problem I had now was, that the case I bought had lips which restricted the space available to get the panel with the controls/switches etc on. He got them in the post and 5 days later, they were here!
So, I got some fancy cutting blades for my Dremel (not including this in the price as I'm probably gonna use the blades for a fuck load of other stuff!) and started chopping away at it. Admittedly, I was better on the second attempt as my cutting line was a lot straighter, but… It'll be hidden, so I'm not totally concerned. Trying to find a case for the thing was a nightmare, especially one that wasn't going to cost the earth.
At this point, it's not finished, but the finish line is close. So... here goes!
I had looked into the possibility of building some form of compressor or preamp at the back end of last year and after a bit of reading and some encouragement, I decided that an 1176 was what I wanted to build. I'd played around with one that my mate has in his studio and thought that it would be a cool thing to have and as it's pretty versatile… well, it just made sense to me.
I read around on Prodigy Pro forums and found a guy selling 1176 boards, lots of different revisions, the Rev A really appealed to me, I think the original thing was what appealed to me, but having read about the Rev F/J, I just decided to go with that. I ordered the boards from Mnats and within about 10 days (he's in Australia… I'm on the north coast of Scotland) they had arrived.
I ordered a load of parts to populate the board from Mouser and waited patiently. I never intended to build this in a week or anything, I had always had it pinned down as a longer term project to keep me amused when I had free time etc. When the parts arrived, I'd realised I'd made a dick move and ordered the parts for the Rev G (D'oh!) and as it turns out, I've got a load of stuff sitting about for a Rev G. Quite a lot of the parts were the same and I spent a bit of time working out what was right and what wasn't.
To say I felt like a bit silly was an understatement, however, undeterred, I moved on and ordered all the bits and pieces that I needed from Banzai in Germany. Got all the bits in and filled in the board. Just needed the Lundahl input and output transformers and the board was done. Managed to pick them up off of eBay for a few pound less than what they retail for.
Board is looking like this just now…
My running bill to this point is (including shipping at all points)
£13 on the boards
£90 on parts to fill the boards including the bits that I didn't need!
£55 on the Lundahl transformers.
£158 so far
I still have the extra stuff, so if I build a Rev G, I have lots of stuff. I could probably cut this in half if I'd ordered the right bits. I read something in a hurry which is why I made this error. Read twice, order once is now my saying!
I was faced with a challenge of finding an enclosure to encase the guts of my 1176 in and after a lot of searching on eBay, and I really do mean a lot of searching, I came a across a company from Germany that sold enclosures at the reasonable price of £35. It had a removable front panel which was perfect for me as I planned to buy the front panel from Hairball.
I was going to provide a picture of my rack here… but, it's just a case
I ordered the switches, switch boards and the power transformer next, they came in at £26 which took me up to £219. I had the bits to fill these boards in, so this was quite a quick little venture. Mounted the switches to the boards and onward I went.
I think up to this point, I'd spent more time reading about the building than actually assembling the thing. Mnats has a great site which has been helping me along and if you're seriously considering building one of these, it's a good resource. http://mnats.net/1176.html
I think I'd spent maybe about 2 hours of actual time putting the thing together by this point, maybe a bit more. As I said, it wasn't really a quick project, so time wasn't really a concern.
Next up I had to get the cosmetic stuff (knobs and the face plate) as well as, probably the most important part… the VU meter. These bits were the most expensive and came in at £96, taking my total up to £315. I had to pay £23.95 in import tax for these bad boys and then it turned out that the screws and mounts for the switches weren't in the box. I mailed Mike at Hairball (after checking the box about 5 times like a mad man) and within an hour he'd replied, apologised and said he'd get them in the mail to me.
Looks nice!
The problem I had now was, that the case I bought had lips which restricted the space available to get the panel with the controls/switches etc on. He got them in the post and 5 days later, they were here!
So, I got some fancy cutting blades for my Dremel (not including this in the price as I'm probably gonna use the blades for a fuck load of other stuff!) and started chopping away at it. Admittedly, I was better on the second attempt as my cutting line was a lot straighter, but… It'll be hidden, so I'm not totally concerned. Trying to find a case for the thing was a nightmare, especially one that wasn't going to cost the earth.
