UPS had a delivery for me today. My SCA pres have finally arrived. (4 a12, 2 j99, 2 n72)

I'll admit, i'm a little bit overwhelmed right now just looking at the bulk of soldering ahead of me.

Tomorrowm I'll probably start with the power supply/chasis assembly. After that i'll do the pres in the following order:4 a12, 2 j99, 2 n72.

I'd like to complete one pre a day.

Maybe I'll take a few pics along the way to show progress snd i'll likely post them somewhere on studio forums..maybe my own studio journal.

Wish me luck!

Do post some pics, take some during assembly too. Very interesting to have a resource like that.
Good luck & don't rush!

I finished the case wednesday night and I started an A12. I started bending the leads on the resistors. I pull out my DMM that I just bought..doesnt turn on. Needs a battery and its to late to get one. So i'm off to radio shack after breakfast and give the dog a nice long walk. Levi needs his exercise. It takes precedence over getting a battery for dmm right away today cuz he's my best buddy.

2 A12 finished.

Didnt get a chance on the week end. Live sound for 4 shows (1 friday, 2 saturday and 1 sunday)

The first A12 was a little challenging. I hard a time getting the solder to reach melting point for a while. I was using a new soldering iron i think the tip needed time to break in. and yes i did tin the tip.

I messes up a capacitor placement..i was paying attention to getting the polarity right (which is marked clearly but i didnt want to screw up) I lapsed for a second and put it in the wrong place but i caught the mistake as soon as I went to put in the next component. I was an easy fix. No issues.

Last night, the second A12 went sooo fast. I seemed more relaxed and confident especially since my soldering iron was working great now. THEN..im threading the screw hole on the input xlr connection and the damn tap breaks off inside the screw hole and its stuck. emailed SCA they are sending me another female xlr. And today i went to home depot got another tap used another connection from another A12 kit and bam! finished in no time.

I still have 2 more A12s to do. Ill start another one tomorrow night and i'll probably finish it in a couple of hours. ill have to hold off on the fourth till i get that female xlr conn. from sca. i'll just move to a j99 or n72.

But all in all its pretty easy to do. Just follow the instructions don't pull anything out till you need it to keep thing uncluttered.

I really haven't taken any pictures..if i did they'd probably just look like the pics on the online instructions...

Use a drop of oil when tapping the XLR jacks. It will make the process faster and utterly prevent the tap from shearing.

Learned it the hard way!

Stickers is right that the photos aren't of too much use because the ones in the 7th Circle Manual are very good. However, I did put together a little photo journal while making my N72 preamps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35001164@N00/sets/72157600915168261/

-Jp