TPA3116D2 Amp

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#12,063
I've been using a $5 TPA3116 implementation (black, "Wuzhi-style" Chinese 2.1 TB-21 amp) for a month now with a 19V 4,7A power adapter, carrying it with me on extended periods away from my usual TPA3255 amp. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I don't miss the 3255 all that much.
It's a bit weaker in most aspects though, like the soundstage, which can be blurry and undefined at times. Same goes for voices.
The BT implementation is downright horrid (max bitrate of 16-44.1KHz aside). Someone must have screwed up the grounding or what because BT connection creates a ton of "mosquito" noise in the sound. Using AUX instantly makes things better, though the analog signal is apparently routed through the BT chip anyway.
The general noise floor is not too great. Turning either the treble or total volume pot over 60% and the amp's a noisy mess. I have to turn my source to 100% volume and then adjust the volume on the amp, which is a good thing anyway, because it's LOUD. The 2 TPA3116s make good use of the 90W PSU, powering 2 4-inch FR satellite speakers and a 12-inch, 6-ohm subwoofer.
Despite all this, I agree with XRK, and can confidently say there's still a lot of life left in the TPA31xx lineage, if properly implemented of course 🙂
 
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#12,064
My first TPA3116 design started in 2014. Since then I enjoy these driving small guitar amps with 6 inch drivers. This is my actual pcb, providing some features useful for battery operation such as under-voltage lockout and an automagic watchdog shutdown.
 

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#12,065
I'm trying to add a separate line out to my DIY TPA3116 amp, and I'm having trouble.

Since these will be used for a powered subwoofer, I'm tapping into the same wiper and ground pins that connect to the amp. For some reason, doing so cuts out one channel of the amp. Is it not possible to control the voltage to the amp and to a line out with the same potentiometer?

The RCA's with the green wires are the added line outs.

Thanks, Mike

thumbnail_IMG_0213.jpg
 
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#12,069
Bass is 99% of the time mixed mono. So you can just use the one channel that works. I dont know what the value of the volume control is or the value of the input impedance of the subwoofer amp is. Does the subwoofer amp have a high level and a low level input or does it take the bass signal for the speaker terminals?
 
#12,070
The subwoofer has both high and low level. I'll try the high level. What I don't understand is why my mod causes one channel to the TPA3116 amp to go quiet. It's like the pot is sending all the voltage for one channel to ground yet the other channel's voltage gets through to the TPA3116 🤔
 
#12,071
Karlsonate said:
I've been using a $5 TPA3116 implementation (black, "Wuzhi-style" Chinese 2.1 TB-21 amp) for a month now with a 19V 4,7A power adapter, carrying it with me on extended periods away from my usual TPA3255 amp. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I don't miss the 3255 all that much.
It's a bit weaker in most aspects though, like the soundstage, which can be blurry and undefined at times. Same goes for voices.
The BT implementation is downright horrid (max bitrate of 16-44.1KHz aside). Someone must have screwed up the grounding or what because BT connection creates a ton of "mosquito" noise in the sound. Using AUX instantly makes things better, though the analog signal is apparently routed through the BT chip anyway.
The general noise floor is not too great. Turning either the treble or total volume pot over 60% and the amp's a noisy mess. I have to turn my source to 100% volume and then adjust the volume on the amp, which is a good thing anyway, because it's LOUD. The 2 TPA3116s make good use of the 90W PSU, powering 2 4-inch FR satellite speakers and a 12-inch, 6-ohm subwoofer.
Despite all this, I agree with XRK, and can confidently say there's still a lot of life left in the TPA31xx lineage, if properly implemented of course 🙂
Click to expand...
My TPA3116 amp board has a 5.0 BT and the Amazon music player in UHD says it’s playing at 192kHz 24bit on tracks that are encoded this high.
 
#12,073
Thanks @Turbowatch2 but I'm not sure what you mean. It appears to me that this amp is only using the + side of the differential inputs. I assume the middle input G goes to both L and R - inputs.

I believe the amp is going into protection mode for some reason. When I connected the speaker outs to the subwoofer's high voltage inputs in parallel with the main speakers, one side of the amp quit working as well. Weird.

320-6554_ALT_0.jpg
 
#12,078
Turbowatch2 said:
@mboxler
It looks as if you left the second ground on the amp PCB open. These amps need ground on both input channels. as they are 4 channels bridged (BTL) into 2 (or 1 in PBTL).
Have a look at the schematic of the TPA3116 page 13 and 26
Click to expand...
Actually you may be on to something. I wonder if I'm connecting LINN to ground and converting the amp to PBTL? I have an idea this isn't meant to be 😢
 
#12,079
If you look at the PCB, you will find two ground connections near the signal input. One for each of the two channels this amp board has. You connected only the ground on the left, so the one on the right is floating and the channel will not work.
How you route ground on an amp PCB is nothing to be taken easy, it will have a huge impact on noise.

You may be able to convert the board to PBTL, if you look into the schematic and are able to find the right connection points. This only makes sense if you half the speaker impedance to 2 Ohm, on the same 4 Ohm driver output power will be identical, BTL or PBTL!
 
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