New Module by Lars Clausen

[Lars Clausen]

Soongsc: I have so far only tried with traditional power supply, but i guess SMPS will work fine too.

Today i have been working on implementing a new function in the modules. It's a Black Box function. Every minute vital data is stored in the chip, so in case of diagnostics are required, this data for the last 2 hours of operation can be downloaded into Excel, and used for service and support purposes.

[Bgt]

Lars, will you start selling these modules in a month or 2,3,4,5?
Just a rough estimate.
Bert

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by Bgt
Lars, will you start selling these modules in a month or 2,3,4,5?
Just a rough estimate.
Bert

This was answered earlier on

Originally posted by Lars Clausen
The current status is that the module is technically ready, and i am going into EMC and safety testing with some prototypes. This is for CE approval. After that the production starts in about one month from now, and so the modules will be available by mid or late August. There is also a summer holiday to enjoy very soon

[Bgt]

sorry

[soongsc]

Originally posted by Lars Clausen
Soongsc: I have so far only tried with traditional power supply, but i guess SMPS will work fine too.
..

Just wondering whether the switching frequency in an SMPS would be of any significance to matching with this module.

[Edward_L]

Originally posted by Bruno Putzeys


...It squarely claims every amplifier that uses a single voltage loop taking off at the speaker terminals. The reason why the patent attorneys who wrote it, felt confident to do so, is that before nobody had actually realised it was at all possible to use only the last state variable in the amp to take feedback from, so there wasn't any prior art...

...Anyone equipped with even the most basic of high school maths can show that the impedance equations of both networks are identical....

It's so funny!
Anyone, even without any basic of high school, knows that the last stage of the audio power amp is connected direct to the speaker terminals, otherwise or it's not an audio power amp, or it's not a last stage!

In the attached sch. single voltage loop took off NOT at the speaker terminals, but before the Pi-filter. Does this topoligy violate the Philips patent?

[soongsc]

I think it's very clear that taking feedback off the speaker terminals has been around for a long time just for simple concept demonstration. The 0.01ohm in the schematic above is the same as direct wire since lots of wire type would have the same resistance due to real conditions.

There are lots of patents that are out there that won't stand contestant, doing so is just giving lawers money for no really good reason. Since all are trying to reasonably improve designs independently with good will, it's just exciting to see products improve.

Really not worth a whole lot of discussion. It would be more interesting to hear what Lars thinks after his own listening tests.

[soren]

Originally posted by Bruno Putzeys


Well I might clarify that you don't need to infringe upon all claims in order to have a patent infringement. It is sufficient that every element of at least ONE claim is shown to be used. This is what so upsets people about the UcD patent. It squarely claims every amplifier that uses a single voltage loop taking off at the speaker terminals. The reason why the patent attorneys who wrote it, felt confident to do so, is that before nobody had actually realised it was at all possible to use only the last state variable in the amp to take feedback from, so there wasn't any prior art.

Not quite true, Bruno. US patent 4,041,411 from 1977 is a self-oscillating amp using only output voltage feedback.
The feedback is actually a UCD type compensation, allthough some smalll hysteresis is used in the forward path. However the hysteresis, could be argued, just has been put in in to speed up things.

[Edward_L]

You don't feel a very important difference - in this amp (like in all others) the feedback is taken from the last output stage, and in UcD it's taken from the speaker terminals!!!

[classd4sure]

Originally posted by Lars Clausen
Soongsc: I have so far only tried with traditional power supply, but i guess SMPS will work fine too.

Today i have been working on implementing a new function in the modules. It's a Black Box function. Every minute vital data is stored in the chip, so in case of diagnostics are required, this data for the last 2 hours of operation can be downloaded into Excel, and used for service and support purposes.

Hi Lars,

Despite your honest disclosure and upfront replies people still seem to have the idea that these modules are "intelligent".

I applaud your efforts in looking into such features, the big question at the end of the day will be... would they be worth it? I guess it depends what you do with it, even if it is just from a marketing perspective.

Speaking of which, storing the monitored variables once every minute seems extremely slow given the nature of the system.
So exactly what is being monitored, current, voltage, temperature? I'm trying to see how could that possibly be made sense of in terms of service or troubleshooting, especially when it's only being captured once a minute in a high speed switching power amp?

Also, will you be sharing this stored data with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or the RIAA?

I'm curious as to the clock rate of the Risc MCU, type of memory that's being used to store these black box variables, how often/fast are they being monitored in general use?

Maybe it could be made even more user friendly and certainly DIY friendly by using that extra room in the chip to offer such features as a built in PSU slow start or ...