new gssl guide

The ”New” GssL

Components Placement Manual

https://pcbgrinder.com

[DATO]

THE NEW GSSL

MANUAL BY GUSTAV GRINDERSLEV HTTPS://PCBGRINDER.COM

READ THIS

A WORD OF CAUTION

If you a using this manual to build a unit, chances are you probably haven’t had much prior experience with DIY electronics. I have tried to make it as easy as possible for you to get started, but I really don’t want you to get hurt, so remember…

Electricity kills!

The risks involved in following the assembly guide to place the components are limited to burning your fingers on the soldering iron, falling off your chair and banging your head in the table, but you should consult a professional before adding power to any projects to make sure everything is safe.

THEN READ THIS

AND A FEW HINTS

Print the resistor chart located at the back of this manual and the board layout on the product site before getting started. You can check off resistors on the list when you have placed them to keep track of your work, and you can consult with the PDF board layout to make sure you do not leave any unwanted solder bridges as you move forward.

And with that, it’s time to fire up your soldering iron, meter and pliers (You do have a soldering iron, a meter and a pair of cutting pliers ready, right?)

https://pcbgrinder.com/


RESISTORS

The resistors are all marked on the PCB layout with rectangular boxes containing R, K and M values (ohms (R), Kilo-ohms (K) and Mega-ohms(M). Ignore the %-markings, unless you use vintage DBX202 VCAs

It’s pretty hard to screw up the placement, and they do not have to face any particular direction. What’s most difficult about the resistor is getting the correct value.

Values The bands are a colour coded, but I recommend that you use your meter to measure the value before placing them – it is very simple..

1. Set your meter up to measure resistance (Omega symbol)

2. Measure at each end of the resistor (Touching the component will add resistance and give a faulty reading, so a pair of alligator clips will come in handy)

3. Place it in the PCB, solder it in place and check it off on the list of values you printed before getting started

4. snip off the excess leg (and save those for later)…

an electrical component designed to introduce a

known value of resistance into a circuit


There are a few connections on the PCB that are simply marked by a line, which means you will have to add a “jumper”. You can buy some gold plated custom made jumpers when you have more money than sense, but for now, just use the excess legs you snipped off of the resistors. (Make sure to jump the HPF if you’re not using it)

JUMPERS


FORWARD FLOW

The diode is a directional component, and they each have a black ring in one end.

The ones provided with the “New GssL” kit are all 1n4148, so the value is easy to figure out. You just have to make sure you face it so the black ring points to the end with the line across on the silk screen as pictured.

DIODES

An electronic device that restricts current flow chiefly

to one direction


INTO THE GROOVE

The IC sockets are not a necessity, but they do make it easier to place or replace ICs if needed, and you avoid soldering directly on to the ICs.

If you pick one up, you will notice a small bump in the end of it, and if you look at the drawing of the ICs on the PCB silk screen you will notice a little bump in the end of it..

Guess what – You have to match those up!

IC SOCKETS


PICO POWER

The Ceramic capacitors are 10p, 22p, 33p and 100p. You might wonder why the 100p cap has 101 printed on it, but wonder no more - the third number states how many zeroes you should add to 10, which is 1, which makes it 100…

You should have no problem finding their locations on the silk screen, and they are not directional.

CERAMIC CAPS


NANO POWER

There is only one type of Polyester Cap in the kit, it is non-directional and you solder it in everywhere it says .1 on the silk screen.

N.B. I left out the VCA sockets by mistake. Figure it out yourself, and you’re worthy of a GssL (look at the picture)

POLYESTER CAPS

An electric circuit element used to store charge temporarily


DROP THE POWER

The Tantalum caps are directional, and you match the positive side with the plus on the silk screen. The two values (0.47uF = u47, 6,8uF=6u8) are written on the caps and on the PCB.

You can identify the positive side in one of two ways

1. The + is printed on the component

2. The longest leg is +

TANTALUM DROP CAPS


POWER SILOS

The Electrolytic caps are directional, and you match the positive side with the plus on the silk screen. The value is printed on the cap

The + side is easily identified by the longest leg, or you can see the minus symbols down the negative side…

P.S. If you’re building it in a 1 unit case, make sure to tip the highest elcos. (pictured in the top corner - (I almost forgot))

ELECTROLYTIC CAPS (ELCOS)


RECTIFIERS

THE “PACKAGES”

The value is printed on the components and the PCB, and you place them with their backs faving to the double line on the PCB. (It will make sense if you just take a quick look at them). These guys regulate the current

BRIDGE

There’s also a round bridge rectifier. It’s the round thing, and you put it in the circle and put the + leg through the square hole (Turn the PCB around to make sense of that)


SWITCHES

GUESSING GAME

Some switches have two poles in the centre.

Some of the switches have four poles in the centre.

It doesn’t matter which way you turn them, as long as you find the slot with the corresponding amount of pins.

You’ll have one switch left with 4 centre taps – Save that for later.


MOLEX CONNECTORS

ALMOST THERE

If you add the male molex connectors to the board now, it should look something like this


BUST OUT THE CABLE

The pots need to be wired, but it’s not that hard, and if you tin the wire before soldering, it will be as easy as pie.

I prefer to mount them on the back, but its best to wire them through the PCB

As you can see, these cables turned out a bit too long. You can always shorten everything and tidy it up when you’re done mounting the boards in a case.

POTS

Tool tip

I forgot to do it in this build, but if you lay out the case, you can cut the molex connectors for different color wires to mount the pots and the bypass


LED

Make sure to put the longest leg through the hole closest to the corner.

LED AND BYPASS SWITCH

THE BYPASS SWITCH

It looks like this

And should be wired like this


MAKE A CONNECTION

The 10 pin connector on the main PCB needs to be connected to the main board.

Make sure the letters on the main PCB are wired to the corresponding letters on the control PCB (Check the silk screen)

THE METER

Now all you need to do is add the wires for the meter (marked on the control board as M+ and M-), and the PCBs are done

CONNECTING THE PCBs


UNKOWN TERRITORY

Up till now, I have been showing you how to add the components included with the kit. For this next section, I will be using some things not included…

• I purchased a Case with XLRs, power jack and meter included from Frontpanels.de

(It is cheaper to buy a blank case and a cheap meter, but Franks service and quality is easy and great)

• A 2x15 Toroid and a fuse

• The odd screws, bolts, shrink wrap and some mains wire

Shopping list


CLICK CLICK

You have to “program” the switches to the correct amount of turns, but don’t worry – it’s purely mechanical. Put the center tap in slot that corresponds to the number of steps you need on the switch as pictured.

Ratio = 3

Attack = 6

Release = 5

Snip the anti-rotating pin on the switches attached to the control-board. They will be held in place by the PCB when you mount it in the front panel, and the pin would be in the way.

PCB SWITCHES


ON/OFF – IN/OUT

These switches and pots are running solo, so in order to avoid rotation when you turn them, you have to use the anti-rotate peg. Drill a small hole in the frontpanel to secure it (and program the bypass for two steps (in/out) )

METER Attach the M+ and M- wires to + and – on the meter

THE WIRES

You already attached the bypass switch and the pots at an earlier stage, but at this point, you can de-solder them one by one and trim the length if you’re into that sort of thing


LEGS AND PEGS

Drill 4 holes in the case for the main PCB (3mm) and one for the toroid (measure your bolt for diameter) and place the PCB using the PCB mounts.

(Sorry about the lack of focus)

MAIN PCB AND TOROID


MAKE IT SPEAK

If you look at the PCB and the XLRs, you will see numbers on the XLRs and markings on the silk screen.

Solder the +-pins from the PCB to the connectors marked with a 2 on the XLRs

Solder the – pins from the PCB to the connectors marked with a 3 on the XLRs

Leave the middle wire hanging for now

(Back in focus!)

XLR


LET THERE BE LIGHT

You can design a case with a hole for the LED or drill a hole for it, but I prefer to move it over to light the meter.

Snip off the LED from where you soldered it in earlier, add some wire and shrink wrap it (longest piece of wrap for the +leg!) and connect it back to the control-panel PCB same as it was before.

Please it on top of the meter with a small piece of glue, and you have a lit meter.

(Skip a few pages ahead and check the overview if you are confused)

LED


WARNING

Hire a professional EE or electrician to help check your work if you are not experienced with electronics. You risk getting shocked, injured or killed

CONNECTING THE TOROID (1)

SECONDARIES You should have a Toroid with 2x15 secondaries (primary will depend on your country), and you need to wire them in series.

The colors on the wires will vary, but they are written on the side of the toroid and refer to the start and end of each winding. (the trafo used in this manual says “red blue/Green brown”, as an example)

To wire them in series, combine the end of the first secondary with the start of the second secondary (blue with green). The combined wire goes to 0V on the main PCB, and the two remaining single wires go to 15 V pads on the sides (It should be obvious if you look at the PCB)


POWER JACK & TOROID TO POWER SWITCH

1. Connect two wires to the Power Jack and place shrink wrap over them

2. Place shrink wrap on the toroid mains wires and the cables from the power jack before you solder them to the switch.



POWER JACK & TOROID TO POWER SWITCH

3. If you set your meter to beep-mode (What’s that in English?) you can easily double check that you set up the toroid mains and the power wires so they both break in the off position.

4. Make sure to cover the connectors with the shrink wrap, and use your own or your girlfriend’s hair dryer to shrink it



GROUNDING

• Cut the middle leg on the molex for the output XLR and strip a piece of wire.

• Connect the stripped wire to all the ground connections on the XLRs (marked on the XLR with a 1)

• Connect the input ground to the wire

• Solder a wire to the ground connection (middle) on the power jack

• Drill a hole and connect a screw with a terminal on your back panel.

• Connect the wires at the terminal.

• Measure to check the connection.

Voila – you´re grounded.

N.B.(After taking this pic, I learned that the grounding should be as close to the power jack as possible…now you know too)

GROUNDING


ICs & VCAs

There’s a dot on the ICs and a mark on the VCA. You should place those in the dots and markings on the silk screen.

It’s probably hard to see those markings after soldering in the sockets, but you can check with the PCB layout PDF.

You should check your voltages before adding these– it might save you a fried component

CHIPS


IF YOU ARE NOT AN EXPERIENCED EE, CONSULT A PROFESSIONAL IF YOU INTEND TO POWER UP THIS UNIT.

HIGH VOLTAGES ARE LETHAL…

What I forgot to write in the manual. You do not want to risk the bolt holding the toroid touching the case, so make sure to cut the bolt to size, and consider padding the case to avoid contact. You


Resistors G

ssL

(+/- 1% tolerance/reading)

2pcs Resistor, 10 O

HM

META

LFILM

2pcs Resistor 22 O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 47 O

HM

META

LFILM

6pcs Resistor, 100 O

HM

META

LFILM


HM

META

LFILM


HM

META

LFILM


HM

META

LFILM

7pcs Resistor, 1K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 2K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 2.7K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

3pcs R

esistor, 5,1K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 8.2K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

6pcs R

esistor, 10K O

HM

META

LFILM

3pcs Resistor, 15K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

3pcs R

esistor, 20K O

HM

META

LFILM

8pcs Resistor, 22K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

3pcs R

esistor, 27K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 33K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

7pcs R

esistor, 47K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 56K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 68K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 82K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 91K O

HM

META

LFILM

2pcs Resistor, 100K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 120K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 180K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 220K O

HM

META

LFILM

3pcs Resistor, 270K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 470K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 510K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 560K O

HM

META

LFILM

2pcs Resistor, 620K

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 750K O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 1.0M

OH

M M

ETALFILM

2pcs R

esistor, 1.2M O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 1,8M

OH

M M

ETALFILM

1pcs R

esistor, 3.3M O

HM

META

LFILM

1pcs Resistor, 3.9M

OH

M M

ETALFILM

new gssl guide

Documents

jumpers https

direction https

circuit https

soldering iron

new gssl manual

pcb layout

gustav grinderslev https

known value of resistance