20kw amp, are u sure?

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i found this website claiming to be a 20kw class D amp design
http://www.geocities.com/pa_schematics/schematics.html
i came accross this design i think it came from a link somewhere in this forum actuly so maybe someone here has made one or maybe it's thier design
i'm just wondering is it for real? would it work?
i did a course last term at uni about amplifiers but we didnt go as far as learning too much about class D, more how the concept worked than the actuly circuits so this kind of thing is a bit over my head still.

i'm thinking of making my own amp but i guess that's possible a little bit ambitious for first amp
anyone know a good book(ideally a picture book) or a good starter project for someone with no money and lots of time over the summer? i'm specificly intrested in class D because i want to be able to make my own car amps and these are aprently the best type of amps to use in a car because of thier efficency.
 
With the current state of MOSFET technology, amplifiers above 5kW are best built using a multiphase power stage. If the control system is well planned you could actually make a redundant system. I've built a small multiphase amplifier in the past (8 phases). It put out over 300W at an efficiency of over 97%. All SMD power stage.
 
With given rails, an amplifier can only pump 20,000W into load of 0.25ohm. So peak current is going to be 400A :hot:
Probably too high for given 25 parallel output pairs, assuming secondary breakdown (and maybe heat dissipation)...
For such design more real data can be 5,000W into 1ohm.
 
I once found a web-page of a manufacturer making switching amps in the range of several tens of kW.
Those are mainly used for shaker tables or those large field coils like they are used on subs and minesweepers in order to compensate ships influence on the earth's magnetic field (to avoid detection or triggering of mines).
when I stumble upon it I will post the link here. Maybe they give a hint on topology as well.

Regards

Charles
 
:cloud9: ...hey, hey, hey....:cloud9: ......, Mr Glen Kleinschmidt had a dream and he wrote it down. The schematic has nothing to do with reality. I had correspondence with him when he was drawing this. All ideas were only in his mind and did never leave the computer. The 20 kW was short peak power at some minimal inspecified load. Those of you who can calculate know what load he was referring to.
 
phase_accurate said:
I once found a web-page of a manufacturer making switching amps in the range of several tens of kW.
Those are mainly used for shaker tables or those large field coils like they are used on subs and minesweepers in order to compensate ships influence on the earth's magnetic field (to avoid detection or triggering of mines).
when I stumble upon it I will post the link here. Maybe they give a hint on topology as well.

Regards

Charles
I had some correspondence with the engineer from that company once. They build 1kW plug-in modules with current sharing control. No multiphase operation. They have installed systems up to a megawatt, for sonar.

Small wonder you get whales landing themselves on shores to die.
 

GK

Disabled Account
Joined 2006
Some clarifications from the designer!

A few clarifications from the designer!


G’day!

I was just browsing the web and I came across this by fluke.
I see that a few clarifications are in order, viz my amplifier design:

1) The design is class AB with class H supply rail switching. The supply rail switching significantly improves the efficiency and means that far fewer transistor pairs are required the output stage for a given power output.
I have drawn a diagram to demonstrate the principle here:
http://www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/glenk/railstep.jpg

2) Alme is entirely correct; the design is indeed rated at 5kW into 1 ohm. This was the design specification I based the transistor load line calculations on.
I specifically wrote a program in visual basic to plot the load lines with the class H rail switching.

Here is the load line for 5kW into 1 ohm reactive (45deg):
http://www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/glenk/loadline.jpg

The green line is the SOA curve for the parallel connected transistor pairs – as can be seen, there is plenty of reserve. This design is not a joke or a fantasy!

3) The reason for the 20kW title is that this design is part of a 20kW project, in which I intend to use 4 of these 5kW ‘modules’, bridge configuration, to make a stereo amplifier rated at 10kWrms per channel into 2 ohms.

4) This beast is not to be powered from a GPO, but from a 24V lead acid battery bank with switch mode power supplies providing the required rail voltages.

5) Yes! I do intend to finish building it, but I’m not giving any promises as to when it will be finished or when I’ll get the webpage once dedicated to the project up and running again – I have to finish renovating my house and fitting out my electronics workshop first.


I hope this clears a bit of confusion !

Cheers,
Glen Kleinschmidt.
 
Hello Glen!

It has been a long time since I've heard anything from you. Your homepage which I had in my link list has been shut down since years. What about now?
http://www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/glenk seems not be there? Forgot the index.htm or maybe you haven't uploaded anything besides the pictures?

Just wondering: What are you going to use this amp for? 2 x 10 kW is pretty much to have at home.
 

GK

Disabled Account
Joined 2006
Hello P-A, I still remember you too!

Unfortunately, none of my amp stuff is currently on the web. I only uploaded those 2 pictures in my last post for this thread.

I can't believe that was 5 years ago already. I spent a small fortune on the output transistors, and they're just collecting dust in my shed.

As for what I'm going to do with the amp, I don't quite know the answer to that myself. I just wan't to built it, because I can, I guess.

Cheers.
 
Hi,
how did you calculate the SOA curve?
I did not recognize a slope change from second breakdown derating to a power hyperbolic curve.
For me it looks like a hyperbolic curve of max power dissipation, but moved to the right.
Upleft you have a current of 160 A and a Voltage of 33 V = 5280 W,
and at the right side at 160V a current of about 18A = 2880W.
How can this happen?
Onra
 

GK

Disabled Account
Joined 2006
Easy questions! :D


” how did you calculate the SOA curve?”


The SOA curve is taken directly from the graph on page 4 of the transistor data sheet:
www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/MJL21193-D.PDF


"Upleft you have a current of 160 A and a Voltage of 33 V = 5280 W,
and at the right side at 160V a current of about 18A = 2880W.
How can this happen?"



There are 25 transistors in parallel, so the current is multiplied by 25.


” I did not recognize a slope change from second breakdown derating to a power hyperbolic curve.”


You didn’t look closely enough!
The change in slope into secondary breakdown for these transistors is very slight – have a look at the graph on page four of the datasheet. Secondary breakdown starts at approx 80 volts. If you look closely at my graph, you’ll see a slight kink at approx 80V too – it is much less noticeable though due to the linear scale.

Cheers
 
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