Cheap TPA3118D2 boards, modding them and everything that comes with it

Irribeo our long time supplier in Singapore (not China) claims they are Panasonic .
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/315/ABA0000C1021-947569.pdf
https://www.amazon.fr/condensateur-chimique-EEUFR1V471L-PANASONIC-heures/dp/B00AZKYUL0

Curious why you claim the "100% certain" by looking at the brochure ?



The Volt(+) marketing brochures box the two electrolytics and label them Panasonic. The electrolytics in the marketing brochures that are labelled Panasonic are 100% certain NOT Panasonic.

S
 
Does anyone know what size terminal blocks work with the sanwu boards. The ones I ordered from ebay turned out being too large.

This is what fits....
JST PH board mount set x 10, cable with tails for the audio input - eBay link
3.5mm board mount screw terminal for power and audio output. - eBay link

You probably got the 5.0mmm terminals. In some ways that may not be so bad. If you can bend the wires to fit, you have the advantage of fitting larger diameter cables. The 3.5mms allow tiny cables. You have to be very neat, tidy and accurate with the wires to get them home with a minimum of spare ends poking out.. :)
 
Thank you! I did get the 5.0mm terminals. I expected I needed the 3.5mm but wanted to check before I ordered again.

This is what fits....
JST PH board mount set x 10, cable with tails for the audio input - eBay link
3.5mm board mount screw terminal for power and audio output. - eBay link

You probably got the 5.0mmm terminals. In some ways that may not be so bad. If you can bend the wires to fit, you have the advantage of fitting larger diameter cables. The 3.5mms allow tiny cables. You have to be very neat, tidy and accurate with the wires to get them home with a minimum of spare ends poking out.. :)
 
please avoid using ebay 'grade' term blocks. 99/100 times they are not going to be nearly as strong or reliable as a mouser/digikey/etc sourced part.

I've gotton really horrible weak plastic and metal that works if you are very careful, but I would not choose to use such crap again and I stopped even trying to get parts like that from ebay/amazon. spend the extra and get the real parts when it comes to taking enough screw force to make a good connection. weak metal and plastic just will not work out for very long; sometimes it won't even take a single good tightening.

its tempting to get those cheap ebay parts, but guys, just DON'T do it. really. just don't.
 
Now i want to squeeze out every bit of sound quality i can get out of it.

Do you already have an input transformer for your TPA3118? If not, look into that. With only >1.5kHz to handle it will be very easy to make your own from a small ferrite core.

Seeing as you have 100dB+ efficiency you could also look at an output trafo to improve transparency and reduce noise. You'll not be needing more than 10W right? Or do you like to go very loud?:eek:
 
Last edited:

Attachments

  • vent.JPG
    vent.JPG
    112.4 KB · Views: 761
Once more i am undecided wether to use the 3118.
Yesterday i tried my newly built x-o.
I only had my old monitors at hand for a test setup, so highs and lows were fed into identical speakers.
First test was through the two channels of a sanwu 7498, which sounds great, but would be much better without the rca sockets and without the volume pot (...different story.).
Then i connected the 3118 pbtl for the highs and a TAS5630 pbtl for the lows.
The additional power of the 5630 was obvious, but the overall sound was not as pleasing as it was with the 7498.
Voices were shouty and the bass did sound some kind of incomplete.
I was missing something the 7498 has.
Maybe my opinion changes when hear the actual setup with the horntweeter and two 15inch woofers, but i dought that the horn sounds less shouty than the monitor.

I have ordered a TDA8950 and a TDA8954 from china.
I will not complete the build until i tried a combo of one channel of the 7498 for the highs, and a 8954 for the lows.
 
Last edited:
Do you already have an input transformer for your TPA3118? If not, look into that. With only >1.5kHz to handle it will be very easy to make your own from a small ferrite core....

Can you elaborate a bit more on this? Or know of any good reading? I tried a Google, and what I found I didn't really understand.

Am correct in saying its goes RCA or balanced > audio transformer > input on the board? How do you determine the size of the transformer?

Cheers
 
Hello everyone,
This is my first post here and I gotta say, I love these discussions and the enthusiastic spirit, this is the golden age of DIY, so thank you.
So I've been lurking here and following this thread and the TDA7498/TDA7492 threads. So I ordered the typical TDA7492 with orange caps, it had some sibilance, after playing with it and poking around with it, and before even trying the mods (only gain mod), it won't work until I flex it hard or push hard on the chip (heatsink removed, tried both with a linear 2*2200uf dirty supply, and a toshiba 19v 2a laptop brick, might be a grounding problem or trace), only scratched the R28 resistor trace to reduce gain so far.
I got a TPA3110D2 module too (I thought I ordered the TPA3118D2 one but to my surprise), this one : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/TPA3110-PBTL-30W-Digital-Mono-Amplifier-Module-Board-Power-AMP-DC-8-26V/32713435026.html

The TPA doesn't have a glaring sibilance (might try some mods on this one) or severe reverb like effects like the TDA7492 does in the HFs. My question is I'm planning to order another board, and I'm settled on the TDA7498 ones or/and getting two TPA3118 monoblocks. Which one do you recommend for a future 2.1 setup ? I don't wanna get the 2.1 TPA3116 boards because I heard they are bad, and so far the TDA7498 is looking good.
I have a 8ohm 200w speaker (future woofer), and some pc speaker, later on I'll get decent drives for R and L and remove the PC speaker.
What I'm thinking is getting just a TDA7498 (which one ? the RCA+lots of caps ones, or the blue one ) board and use the TPA3110D2 monoblock for the woofer, since I don't think there would be much difference in sound signature/quality between TPA3110D2 and TPA3118D2 monoblocks.
Power supply is a simple center tapped trafo (only using one winding) followed by rectifier , and 2x2200uf to get around 19.4V output.
And sorry for the long text. Again thank you.
 
The advantages of using an input transformer are independent of which particular board they're used with. The trafo provides three useful functions at the balanced input of any amp chip - isolation, SE-bal conversion and level adjustment. The first of these is perhaps the most attractive benefit when the amp chip is classD given the copious amounts of electrical noise being generated.