LM3886 Parallel Use

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hi

i sampled some LM 3886 for make a amplifier. but i only have a 50V 500VA toroid transformer, i haven't a symetric 25+25 transformer

the question is if i make a bridged amp with two LM3886, i can use single power supply with a floating GND? (virtual GND created with 2 resistors)

thanks

greetings
 
Hello.
You can not simply create a virtual GND with two resistors, as the currents involved make that impractical.
But you can feed the chips with an unipolar supply. (see Figure 2, "Single supply application circuit" in the LM3886 datasheet). That's usually avoided due to the necessity of removing the large DC component at the output, but in this case you can leave the big output capacitor out, as the Vcc/2 voltage at the output will be cancelled when wiring the amplifier in bridge mode.

You can also use a coldamp switching power supply as well ;-)

Hope this helps
 
hi

ssanmor: thanks for the explanation :D
i had seen the "Single supply application circuit", but i think that these modification is because the ouput is betwen output and GND.
i seen the "aplication note 1192, picture 5.2.1 Bridged Amplifier Schematic" and i think that the GND current in these mode is really small because all power conections is only between +- power suply, GND is only for input signal and some preamp part. the current is small, because that, i think that i can use two resistors (100ohm) for create GND. or i'm wrong?

greetings
 
Yes taro,

You can do this easily... You must use 2 resistors and each resistor must be in parallel with the lage capacitors for V+ & V-.

The resistors should draw about 10 to 20% of the total load current in order to maintain good balance between the + and - rails. It is actually the capacitors that form the virtual ground, the resistors are just there to dimnish the effects of capacitor tolerance/value. You should, of course use 2 identical capacitors from the same maker, date etc...

You will need some extra power (VA) from your transformer to waste heat across the resistors.

:)
 
Re: virtual ground

tiltedhalo said:
To create a virtual ground referenced from 50VDC+ and ground at the proper amperage would take some pretty heffty resistors,quick math around 40 watts or so per resistor to float a center and then it will suffer mid to plus sag, would offer poor performance.


What did your calculations use as the necessary current flow? 40W seems way too high for a bridged amp.
 
Say the rails are +/-35. In a bridges config this would put 70 Volts across a 7 ohm speaker load... 10 amps.

Be generous and allow for 10% of this, 1 amp, to flow through the bleeder/balancer resistors. OK 70 Ohms... 70 Watts... 2 resistors @ 35 Watts each.

Now, the bridge configuration offers the opportunity to greatly reduce the resistors because symmetric currents are drawn from the +/- rails. Maybe a 1% of total current through the bleeder would be OK... 680~700 Ohms... 3.5 (7~10) Watts.

I think I would want to use 0.1% gain setting resistors to ensure symmetric current draw.

Total capacitance from rail to rail should be about 11,000 uF for a 2 Hz break with 7 Ohms... 2 - 22,000/35V caps should do it.



:)
 
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