SB4000 Quad VCA part III : Preparing the enclosure and assembling front panel

- My enclosure was a Modushop one. I had to drill the exterior pilot holes on the front face to make it fit. For every holes in metal, you have to increase size of holes step by step to have the hole precisely where you need it. You also have to punch the position of the hole before (for this one it was pre-drilled but for all the back face and the rest of the enclosure it was important). The most important drilling is the first one. You have to use a bit as little as possible. During my drilling I broke the most little bit, I had to use one just a little larger, and it was a pain in the ass to not have the driller move.

Also for all this work you HAVE to have an upright column driller, or it will be impossible to make a good work.

After this it was OK.

But as the screws used are supposed to fit IN the face, I decided to enlarge the first half of the hole with a larger bit and then use the dremel for finish :

Aaaaaaand much better :

That's when I've seen this (but it was advertised in Ruckus documentation anyway) :

The front lips of the enclosure are too high for the VU-meter place. So, Dremel in saw mode again.

- I was now able to put the front panel board together

As I have ordered the same pots than Rucks, I used the adapter boards. Soldered three leads on them :

Assembling the led bargraph on its sockets

First assembly without soldering

Making that fit in the face, putting the mounting screws on pot to hold them tight. I verified the position of the switches did fit the front face marking by putting knobs on them and trying the positions.

And then soldering :

In my case the led bargraph sockets barely touched the IC board. I was able to solder it anyway :

But then for the next step of soldering the controller socket, I had a really hard time, as on the opposite side the sockets did go very high from the board, as my Iron almost didn't fit between the two sockets. Anyway, I managed to do it without damaging the sockets that much.

I assembled all of the front face items then.

I noticed the Lorlin switches were a bit too long for my knobs, so I trimmed them to the same length as the honeywell with my wire cutters

- On the next part is where I really screwed up on this build.

I determined the position of back face elements roughly. My IEC socket hole was too little for the BOM IEC I ordered (with fuse apparent) so I had to enlarge it, and also to enlarge the screw holes a little to make them tighter to the IEC hole, as the existing holes were too far from each other to fit my socket.

And after a lot of drilling (many little drillings around the socket positions, increasing size of bits) and a lot of bad dremel job (was my first real dremel job and I ripped off A LOT) here you go :

Actually this side was supposed to be the inner side (not visible), but I screwed up the other side so much (you won't see it :D except if you look a little bit after) I decided to switch, even if the progressive holes for mouting will be not usable (I will use standard screws instead, not really a problem).

This part was for me the most exhausting and frustrating, and it took me a while (something like 4-5 hours just for doing the back face). I think my neighbours hate me (I live in a flat).

I verified the hole I made for the ground was having good contact between the inside of the face (without alodine) and the screw I'll fit in (I enlarged it a little with a file to insure good contact). For this I used my multimeter on continuity mode again.

As you can see I used TS jack for Send/Return. The rackmount neutrik TS jack females I got were not fitting nicely, the back face of the rack being too deep. The two parts of the jack sockets were unable to lock together. So using cutters I trimmed a part of them :

On one of them I trimmed too much so it was not locking enough anymore and the parts were loose (manipulating the jack a lot would have permitted to break the inner soldering). So I used small parts of gaffer on the inner face ("If gaffer can't fix it, nothing can"©) to add some distance between the two parts and after that they did lock nicely.

- Finished the drilling

Verifying the mounting board adjustment :

I noticed the transformer screw had a too thick head, will find a replacement :

Insuring a good ground connection between all parts (validated with my multimeter in continuity mode)

That's when I noticed the PSU board biggest capacitors were quite touching the top part of the enclosure (the top part is quite bending).

I'll have to find a way to ensure they won't touch.

That's where I am right now !! Worked on this for  2 evenings and 2 complete days.