# DIY 1176LN Compressor



## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

If you are interested in building the DIY 1176LN compressor, I have had considerable experience with these. I've built several dual units which work brilliantly, the faceplates of two recent units are shown here. These compressors are still used daily on a whole range of sources and give a distinctive flavour to the track.

 
 

I have complete construction notes, troubleshooting and calibration guides on my site at
http://www.axtsystems.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=34&Itemid=62

These are based on the Rev J version of Mako Natsume's board and a handful of other boards I decided to produce for my own versions (power supply, gain reduction disable, switching etc).

If you need some help with construction or troubleshooting (yes there are a few tricks with constructing and calibrating one of these) then post a note to this thread and I'll try to assist.


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

That is extremely cool. 

Do you have PCB drawings? I am just getting into CNC, and want to try milling some PCBs pretty soon. (also front panels and cases)

What is the build cost - do you have a bill of materials?


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## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

Hi Jonathan,

Yes, there are circuit diagrams, BOMs and PCB layout drawings on my site that you can download.

I hope to re-lay the original compressor PCB to make it more compact and have less wiring some day, but I haven't got to that on my list of things to do! The compressor board I used was from Mako Natsume (Mnats Rev J PCB) which you can find on the prodigy forums (http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/) in the black market section. He sells these for cost as do most people in the DIY scene. 

The original PCB has a PSU on it, although it can be improved on quite a bit. This is why I built mine with a new, better PCU module (PSU-8). I also added two extra compression ratios which is why I made new switch boards.

You may have to customise your BOM to suit your local component suppliers. Most parts are able to be substituted for others and are pretty generic. One thing to note is to buy way more FETs than you need and to perform characteristic plots and matching to get the best pair for each module.

My front panels were ordered from Front Panel Express in the US. They are quite expensive, but they are engraved and filled aluminium panels and very good quality. You can probably reduce costs by milling your own if you have the equipment, which is very neat.

I used output transformers only (active input circuit) and used Lundahl transformers for this.


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## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

jonathanm said:


> What is the build cost - do you have a bill of materials?


As a rough guide, the dual unit with the Flashstar metering (wide meters) cost just under AUD1000 to build, with cases, engraved panels, all modules and hardware. This is a dual unit, so there are two compressors in the 2RU space. High cost items were the Lundahl transformer and front panel, both of which had to be orderd in USD and our exchange rate was about 0.65 then (it's 0.93 now).

-Geoff


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Found them, should have looked a little more closely before posting


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## bantam (Oct 25, 2009)

Guys,
Is the forum open yet? I thought we were still in test mode?\


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## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

bantam said:


> Guys,
> Is the forum open yet? I thought we were still in test mode?\


I guess we are. Consider this a test of a real post. The image uploads worked OK too


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Might as well start getting some content up here, especially good stuff like this :T

Having read through your site a bit more now, I gotta say it's a great walk through. Turns a relatively expert project into something an intermediate like me could pull off. (Especially with your offer of help  )

The FET matching bit is especially cool....

I might give this a shot in a few months when my cnc stuff is done.....speaking of which, what do you know about stepper motor chopper circuits? :dizzy:

only joking.......


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## bantam (Oct 25, 2009)

Great site!

im putting together my fourth 1176 now. a rev D. love those things for just about anything!!!


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

great info and website!

And man, those insects and spiders pictures are just amazing!!!:clap:


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## Kab (Apr 22, 2010)

I am really keen to build this project but i cannot find a pcb track layout for the main board (or can the pcb be ordered from somewhere?) i looked at every pdf on the project guide but cannot find that. Can anyone help


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## DrGeoff (Dec 27, 2007)

Kab said:


> I am really keen to build this project but i cannot find a pcb track layout for the main board (or can the pcb be ordered from somewhere?) i looked at every pdf on the project guide but cannot find that. Can anyone help


The answer lies in the posts here:

"Mako Natsume (Mnats Rev J PCB) which you can find on the prodigy forums (http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/) in the black market section."

The PCB's for the main compressor and standard switch modules can be ordered there from Mako. I created new PSU, bypass module and switch modules for my version to add a slightly different feature set.


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## Recordman (Apr 23, 2010)

Wow +1 on the site. This thing is killer! I'd love to give this one a shot. Not sure if you mentioned it somewhere and i missed it or whatever but how much would this build cost?


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