My First chip amp.

[mikje]

I completed my first Velleman chipamp this afternoon. I'm pretty impressed by the sound of it. I bought it through Parts Express and the whole thing cost a little less than $60. I have a $40 volume and tone control kit on order to complete this project. Then comes the case. I've got some nice wood scraps and some pieces of anodized steel in my garage that will work perfect for a case.
I used some speakers from a Packard Bell tube stereo console I picked up at a second-hand store. They need a little tweaking, but they're not bad.
All in all, I didn't know what to expect from an inexpensive little kit with minimal parts. However, I think I'll be doing some more chip amp kits, or looking for tweaks for this one. I'm pretty impressed by the output of this little guy. I'm looking forward to building the volume and tone control kit and seeing how much it adds to the amp.
This kit is the Velleman K4003. I'll be adding a Velleman K8084 for the volume and tone control.
I'm new to this stuff, so I hope I can get a few pointers. Do any of you DIY-ers have any suggestions for tweaks? Better caps, maybe??? Can anyone offer a quick explanation of how this thing works, beyond the rectifier.
I have a power switch to add, and I have a question about that. What do I need to do to keep the amp from "popping" when I turn it on?
Again, any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Mike

[DigitalJunkie]

Nice handywork!
Any hints on which chip it uses?

[mikje]

It uses a TDA2616. That's the one that came in the kit from PE; I think they might use others too, but that's what this kit had.

[mikje]

Well, I got the Velleman volume and tone control kit in the mail today and got it assembled. I don't know if this will work without the schematic, but I'll ask anyway. I was told by Skip at PE that I can wire both of the boards, which each use 12-0-12, off the same center tapped transformer. Can anyone shed some light on this? I can call Skip tomorrow, but I'm kind of anxious to try this out. I built some 3CR Tangbands that I'd like to hook-up to this amp, so I'm a little antsy.With that being said, I'm not in such a hurry that I'll risk damage to either of my projects. Thanks again all!
Mike

[Nuuk]

I was told by Skip at PE that I can wire both of the boards, which each use 12-0-12, off the same center tapped transformer. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Yes just double up on the connections.

[Paswa]

build or buy a good amplifier cabinet and put it inside it,,

[DigitalJunkie]

Here's the datasheet for the TDA2616.

[mikje]

DigitalJunkie,
Thanks for the info!!!
Mike

[Nordic]

I think you can overcome the clicks by using the onboard mute function.... it would be a resitor to the mute pin that brings the current down to the amount needed to trigger it...

the resitor will go through a relay with the resitor connected so that it is in circuit while the relay is "off"... on the coil side of the relay slap a small electrolitic in parallel... and one resistor in the line going to the coil, to slowly charge up the capacitor for a second or two...

the capacitor acts like a short circuit until it is charged up to voltage.

So when you power on the capacitor starts charging, but does not allow the power to get to the relay coil... during this time the resistor you set up in the first step is receiving voltage and provding the current needed to keep the mute function on.

When the capacitor is charged, the relay will switch and the resitor powering the mute pin will be disconncted form the power source...


RE HUM

Do you get the hum trough your amp only or is it also there if you connect a speaker or headphone to your preamp ?

Can you tell us how you made the power supply of the premap... intersted in how you split the rails or if you are just useing a single ended supply...

I think it is totaly solveable... in fact I have never been able to make a cmoy hum...

I have a few things in mind that could probably fall together to form hum as a total system ( amp + pre+source).

I would start with only one input connected, bring the circuit down to its most basic implementation. Fix the hum problem, now start addingthe other channels... compare mains powered sources to something like an ipod source etc.... see if hum stays the same...

[Nordic]

lol I seem to have posted in the wrong thread...