diyAB Amp The "Honey Badger" build thread

a sign of overloading?, toroids are seldom dipped in varnish like EI's...
if you can separate the secondaries in two and use two bridge rectifiers,
that may help, bussing can also be caused when the center tap is not exactly where it should be....
so when specifying a toroid, get one that has a bifilar wound secondaries...
fyi, i wind my traffos for ss amps with bifilar secondaries...


I am using 600VA 45V toroids in my build.

These transformers are noiseless when the psu is unloaded.

When loaded they mechanically hum.... the hum is not heard in the speakers, it is purely mechanical.

What tx manufacturer should I contact to have big toroids that do not mechanically hum ?

Best
Ricardo
 
I bought a power switch for the front of my badger amp and am not sure how to power the red LED in the switch...
The data sheet (link to digikey) says it has a forward voltage drop of 1.9VDC and max of 3VDC so i understand i need at least 2v or more to power it but how much is too much? Do you typically need to implement current limiting resistors to switch LEDs?
Can i just break apart a 9vdc wall wart and mount that in my amp and wire it straight in to the LED?
Thanks
 
I bought a power switch for the front of my badger amp and am not sure how to power the red LED in the switch...
The data sheet (link to digikey) says it has a forward voltage drop of 1.9VDC and max of 3VDC so i understand i need at least 2v or more to power it but how much is too much? Do you typically need to implement current limiting resistors to switch LEDs?
Can i just break apart a 9vdc wall wart and mount that in my amp and wire it straight in to the LED?
Thanks

if you have e.g. 12VDC available, then use an appropriate current limiting resistor.
R=(12-2)V/20mA=500ohm
Power=I*I*R= 200mW

I used a similar switch for a boombox project and works great. LED Power Logo Switch -Blue_Latching
 
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I've had good luck with Toroidy. Quality is good, and prices (incl. shipping to Switzerland) are okay.

I have not seen any substantial DC on the grid power around here. But things tend to be different in Valais... ;)

Thank you so much. I visited their site and see they do not normally ship to Switzerland. Will contact them by e-mail ...

Did build a mains DC blocker as per Mains DC and Transformers but it does not help much. Anyway I know DC offset is not very important when we draw a substantial current from the TX (my case) so I mechanically decoupled the TX from the amp enclosure and that helped.
 
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a sign of overloading?, toroids are seldom dipped in varnish like EI's...
if you can separate the secondaries in two and use two bridge rectifiers,
that may help, bussing can also be caused when the center tap is not exactly where it should be....
so when specifying a toroid, get one that has a bifilar wound secondaries...
fyi, i wind my traffos for ss amps with bifilar secondaries...

These trafos have two independent secondary windings so I am using two bridges.

Anyway if it is overloading maybe I should get bigger VA transformers... please advise.
 
Thank you so much. I visited their site and see they do not normally ship to Switzerland. Will contact them by e-mail ...

Did build a mains DC blocker as per Mains DC and Transformers but it does not help much. Anyway I know DC offset is not very important when we draw a substantial current from the TX (my case) so I mechanically decoupled the TX from the amp enclosure and that helped.
Did you use ESP Figure 8?
And at least double, or even quadruple the capacitor values?
A pair of back to back 10mF capacitors have an impedance at 50Hz of ~0.6ohms
Pass 1Aac through that and you will get 0.6Vac across the capacitors if the waveform is sine like.
That would be ~0.9Vpk across the caps and thus the dual parallel diodes would have ~0.45Vpk across each of them and should not pass any significant current.

The 1Aac of sinewave would be equivalent to the transformer passing 230VA to the rectifier.
You might be better using a pair of back to back 22mF caps for a big transformer. Or maybe a bank of 10off 4m7 to give similar capacitance. You don't want the diodes turning ON for normal loading.
 
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Joined 2006
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Did you use ESP Figure 8?
And at least double, or even quadruple the capacitor values?
A pair of back to back 10mF capacitors have an impedance at 50Hz of ~0.6ohms
Pass 1Aac through that and you will get 0.6Vac across the capacitors if the waveform is sine like.
That would be ~0.9Vpk across the caps and thus the dual parallel diodes would have ~0.45Vpk across each of them and should not pass any significant current.

The 1Aac of sinewave would be equivalent to the transformer passing 230VA to the rectifier.
You might be better using a pair of back to back 22mF caps for a big transformer. Or maybe a bank of 10off 4m7 to give similar capacitance. You don't want the diodes turning ON for normal loading.

Maybe that is the problem... I used two 9mF caps connected in series + to + and bypassed by four diodes in anti parallel.
 
2series diodes in each direction allows voltages upto ~1Vpk to not pass through the diodes. With 9mF+9mF giving ~4m5F you get an AC waveform upto 0.9Aac into your transformer.
Even at 600mA bias and quiescent when the music is silent (drawing ~60W to 100W from the PSU), I'd expect the diodes are not passing and the DC blocker should be effective.

I don't have the mathematical abilities to analyse the spiky charging pulses and what they do in passing THROUGH the caps to know what actually happens with non sinusoidal waveforms. I can't recall ever seeing a Forum expert discussing this type of analysis.
 
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