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50W DIY Hi-Fi Audio Amplifier
50W DIY Hi-Fi Audio Amplifier
Circuitry
Have you ever built a super cool Hi-Fi Audio amplifier with simple components at your home? If not here is
your guide to do so, am pretty sure you are gonna love this. This article narrates about making your DIY
high fidelity audio amplifier with output transistor protection circuitry and 2-way speaker protection circuitry.
Lets discuss some striking features which might convince you to try making this amp.
The power supply consists of normal bridge wave rectifier. A filtering capacitors C1 and C2 was used in the
circuit. The values of these C1 and C2 should be no less than 10,000uF/35V. I always prefer to use
1500uF as cap value for every amp of current, this is the rule of thumb i follow. It is important to connect a
heat sink to the bridges, this will keep the bridge cooler than 50 degree Celsius at 10W dissipation.
PREAMP CIRCUIT:
Preamp circuit was built around op-amp to boost the input signal. It is nothing but a non inverting amp with
a closed loop gain of about 20. Variable resistor R3 is used adjust the gain of this preamp circuit. The
boosted signal is then goes to the next stage Power amp and Protection circuit.
The amplifier also incorporates two-way speaker protection. One of the protections delay the speakers from
enabling for 5s after the amp has been powered up. This is to negate any peaks that may strike the
speaker in the first few seconds, before all the regimes have settled down. This protects the speakers,and
stops a loud popping sound, when the amp is first powered up. Another protection comprises the relay ,
Q19 and the delay RC chain R35,C9. I designed it for a relay that enables at 8V. Any one will do, but the
turn on time will vary.
The second protection i came up with is quite interesting, and i personally havent seen it in any other
circuits. This circuit comprises the two most right op amps (they come in one package) and Q20 and
protects the speakers if any of the power transistors fail. Usually this will expose the speakers to the full
voltage of one of the rails (30V) , which may be catastrophic for speakers and diode bridges. So the bottom
line is that it should absolutely be avoided.
How it works, you may ask. The two op-amps work as comparators. One end is set at a voltage close to
the rail voltage. You can choose any voltage between 22V and 28V set by R38/R39 and R40/R41. I`ve
chosen a voltage of around 26V. So, since the output in a normal operation will never exceed 0.707 of the
max rail voltage (21Vmax) it is safe to assume, that during a normal operation, no false triggering will
occur.
Just in case if one of the power transistors fail, it most often becomes a short-circuit. That exposes the
speaker and the other input of the respectful comparator to a voltage higher than the reference voltage
(26V). This causes the op amp to trigger the Q20 transistor, which then fully discharges C9, the capacitor
that keeps the relay driving transistor on, thus cutting the connection to the speaker. This protection is very
fast (50-60ms) and is superior than a simple fuse protection, which may keep the short for up to 1s.
Temperature drift compensation by Q11 and R22 thermistor. Both should be mounted close to the heat
sink or somehow glued to it. The increasing temperature will cause the output voltage to drift around the 0V
offset, so the temperature dependence of the thermistor and the Q11 transistor, will keep the voltage
centered around 0V, or will partially null this effect. Usually a little more complex system is used, but this
amp is only rated 50W, so even this will do the trick.