is this realy stupid?

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I am planning on building a very high power class d amp. Would it be plausible to rectify direct mains? i have got a 270w, 1ohm resistor to prevent a 100000000000A surge when you turn the power on. This could prevent the need for getting a massive transformer.

I live in england so have a 240v RMS power supply with 340v peaks. This would mean that the supply rails would be at +-170V.

A current regulator could also be used to prevent excessive current at turn on.



Rob
 
100000000000A
Hardly possible
if you have 340V rails than peak current at 'normal' operation (not hard-start) would be +-21A for 8ohms and +-40A for 4ohms. This may require 3-phase mains.

And Yes
putting 1ohm restricts 80% efficiency for 4ohm speaker. Except you will probably need a varactor and high current chokes for clean enough rails.

For +-170 if your '0' has anything to do with physical earth or ground, than you're dead. A 'cold' wire in mains is often (in older hauses) the same as earthing. (I'm guessing you know about all these things better than me but many may read this thread). Bridge topology eith single rail may be a cure.

If you consider turn-on than it is absolutely OK to use soft start circuit. You may add a 10W transformer for it and a high current relay. That's not a problem. Problems are elsewhere. Fuses... protections... just think how hard it wll be isolate all these 'grounds' being 170V in your case.
 
330v single rail is what you get. Then you better go with full-bridge. As my 4.5kW project...

Safety issues become quite serious but it is possible with amplifier integrated to sub casing and using 4kV isolation spec line-input transformers(lunhdall, spell?)

woofer element needs also some special attention, consider woofer chassis to be part of live circuitry, ie separate metal grille in front of it etc. Horn/bandbass box desings are probably easiest to design safe so that toughing to element is not possible.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
Hi, actually I am an electrical engineer.

Basically you must protect electric shock as standard equipment. Even you use isolated transformer, leakage current for all equipment are to be considered. Of course if you care this issue.

Use current leakage protection to protect you. All metal shall be earthed. Live parts shall be isolated, including your amp input. Speaker including box that may be in wet must be grounded. Use speaker binding that prevent to be touched. Careful to charged capacitor.
 
Disabled Account
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You are right Tekko,

That's why I give suggestion that costly, more expensive than buy isolated PS.

I know also that this forum reject the discussion for direct connection to mains. My suggestion is for people who ready to take serious risks to connect their amp directly to mains at their home.
 
I was reading this and, although going directly to mains is not a great idea, could you run a Balanced AC circuit through the walls(balanced AC is 60v+/- for US vs single ended 110/120v) and plug the powersupply for a UCD 700 directly into the wall taps, along with the rest your equiptment. I know that they sell balanced AC rack units (which contain a very large transformer) and believe that they are available for an in wall installation that are up to code...
 
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kubeek,

I hope your other thread gets attention as long as your intention is to not power it directly from mains.
Every now and then we have to warn members and close threads like this. It's hard for us mods to determine if members have enough experience with this kind of applications. I believe few of us have.
Besides that, we don't want to waste our life for that one big-power project do we?

/Hugo
 
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