Hi everyone, I want to power a car amp at home but instead of finding a high current DC power supply to feed it (which is totaly inefficient) how about bypassing the smps in the amp. Suppose the amp had 35 volt rail voltages I would insert a supply with that requirement into the board. Now the amp will be just like a home reciever. The amp will still have to be powered by 12vdc to provide basic functionality, so I would not have to construct any secondary supplies. Has anyone ever attempted this and was successfull? Any design obstscles? Thanks for any input.
Why? It would be a mess (existing case would not be able to be used) and a bit of fiddling around. If you don't mind that then it should be easy enough unless the amp uses two tier rails or something.
If it's a simple amp and all voltages are produced by the main power transformer, it should work. One problem that you may have is the muting circuit. It's likely to be controlled by a circuit driven from the B+ and remote circuits.
If it's an amp that uses a secondary power supply to produce the low voltage (±15) and driver voltage, it will be more difficult.
If it's an amp that uses a secondary power supply to produce the low voltage (±15) and driver voltage, it will be more difficult.
Thanks Perry, BTW your website is amazing! I have frequented your site for years! It has probably the most info on car audio on the entire web. I think bypassing the smps might prove to be too much work. I was looking for a cheap way to build an active PA system.
It is a six year old four channel Pioneer, I think the model is GMX334. I also have a Legacy LA1020 (I know its crappy) that I don't mind experimenting on.
Both of those should be easy. If you want all of the muting and protection circuits to work, you may need to use a small 1-2 amp 12v supply to power B+ and remote. If you are not concerned with those circuits, they will be easy to bypass.
Just don't rely on the power supply capacitors in the amp to filter ripple at 60Hz. Make you understand the grounding of the amp, sometimes they can be funny. Some car amps ground signal to the chasis, and some don't.
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