Installing On/Off switch and Volume knob?

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#41
Yea Mooly, I wired it up right. Even changed the wire thinking it was the wire. I do think the AMP may need more voltage for the speakers. But it has a microusb as a power adapter and I power it via a 5V apple adapter. It works great with 3w speakers, doesn't sound fantastic, but it gets up there in being loud, but I wanted quality over loudness, have not gotten there yet.

I'll check out those suppliers. I've been buying from parts-express but they have only one switch pot and its 500K and you told me to go between 10-47K, so I'll to those suppliers. Thanks.
 
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#42
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#46
Mooly said:
Your welcome.
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Mooly, quick question. I read from your earlier posts about faking the law of the pot with a resistor.

Is there any trickery I can apply with a resistor or some other gadget to the current POT i have to make it operate as if it was 10-50K? I successfully removed POT i have now, but it works so well I would hate to get rid of it, and by work well I mean I would hate to detach it from it's original state. I'm trying to be as non-destructive to the vintage radio as possible. Thanks.

My issue right now with the POT i have right now as mentioned before is the volume output only starts after the pot is turned 50% clock wise, then after that the rest of the balance of 50% travel only goes up so high volume wise. And I know the 6W I have can output higher volume.
 
#47
That's something that's not really possible.

The only realistic way would be to add a high impedance buffer stage after the pot but then you really are into the realms of diy and home construction of a circuit.
 
#50
Mooly, guess what?!?!? I got my hands on a 10K OHM POT. And the volume issue still exist. Actually, with the new 10K pot, the volume has to travel at least 75% before the volume activates. So now I'm thinking I have a 5K pot on the radio now that it produced volume earlier than the 10k POT, I don't know that's my rational. perhaps a 1K pot will do the trick lol. anyhow, I'm not giving up, but I'm moving on from this radio as I believe it's the amp that has a built in POT slot that is giving me the issue actually. This same amp is not producing ample volume even as is, I've switched speakers, switched pots now and still volume stays at an appreciable level, I just would like for it to be a bit louder as any extra terrestrial noise will wash out the sound from the speakers. Nonetheless, obstacle of this radio which is the light from the dial that i have to figure out how to illuminate. Thanks for all your help
 
#51
It would be worth measuring the 10k pot from end to end and confirm it really is 10k.

There could be a few things going on here... and without dangling a scope on to check the levels its all guesswork.

1/ Perhaps your radio is not putting out as much signal as is really needed to fully drive the amp.

2/ The amplifier input impedance might be quite low which would pull the level down.

3/ The radios output impedance could be high and that means adding a lower value volume pot is actually pulling the signal level down. In other words the radio can not drive the lower value pot.

4/ Your amplifiers "input sensitivity" could be quite high meaning it needs a lot of signal to develop full output.

You could perhaps "prove" all of this by connecting directly without the volume control and seeing if its really loud and distorted. If its not then there isn't enough signal to work with.
 
#52
Mooly said:
It would be worth measuring the 10k pot from end to end and confirm it really is 10k.

There could be a few things going on here... and without dangling a scope on to check the levels its all guesswork.

1/ Perhaps your radio is not putting out as much signal as is really needed to fully drive the amp.

2/ The amplifier input impedance might be quite low which would pull the level down.

3/ The radios output impedance could be high and that means adding a lower value volume pot is actually pulling the signal level down. In other words the radio can not drive the lower value pot.

4/ Your amplifiers "input sensitivity" could be quite high meaning it needs a lot of signal to develop full output.

You could perhaps "prove" all of this by connecting directly without the volume control and seeing if its really loud and distorted. If its not then there isn't enough signal to work with.
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I did connect all of "that" directly without the POT, and nope and controlled the volume wirelessly via bluetooth on the native music app and nope, pretty low still. I hope you dont think I'm deaf or going crazy or asking too much from an amp, but when a phone's native speakers are louder than twin speakers on a 6w radio, begs to question why even stream from phone to radio lol.

I did try out a 2x15w amp and that rocked!!!!! Everything worked out then, so I blame it on my Bluetooth amp that I blew $46s on. I'll still use it for it's initial purpose which was to stream lullabies for my newborn, which obviously doesnt need to be loud. Later on I'll circle back to it and improve it. Lesson learned though on my original amp though.

Thanks a million Mooly.
 
#53
It does all sound like the amp isn't sensitive enough.

A simple preamp could be a very workable solution 🙂 It should cost only a $1 or so at a guess if you got parts from a parts outlet and could be wired "dead bug" style.

Have you got a link to this power amp that isn't loud enough. Just wondered if there were any specs listed for it.
 
#54
Mooly said:
It does all sound like the amp isn't sensitive enough.

A simple preamp could be a very workable solution 🙂 It should cost only a $1 or so at a guess if you got parts from a parts outlet and could be wired "dead bug" style.

Have you got a link to this power amp that isn't loud enough. Just wondered if there were any specs listed for it.
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Here's the link Mooly;

https://thingylab.com/catalog/audio/bluetooth-audioamp-6w

I dont mind any suggestions you have. Definitely would love a recommendation on improving this guy if possible.
 
#55
Hmmm... a picture speaks a thousand words.

Its a stereo amp, yet the pot appears to be just a single gang. That means that the pot isn't working in the analogue domain but is more than likely altering a DC control voltage to the circuitry within the chip. Its called a VCA or voltage controlled amplifier.

Nothing you can easily do to that one I'm afraid.
 
#56
Mooly said:
Hmmm... a picture speaks a thousand words.

Its a stereo amp, yet the pot appears to be just a single gang. That means that the pot isn't working in the analogue domain but is more than likely altering a DC control voltage to the circuitry within the chip. Its called a VCA or voltage controlled amplifier.

Nothing you can easily do to that one I'm afraid.
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Wow, lololololol. So close yet so far. Thanks for the info too. And for the 100th+ time, thanks for all your help.
 
#57
I'll move on to building my own little AMP/Bluetooth combo for radio 2.0 and 3.0 with the help of the geniuses on this forum and hopefully better and a fraction of the cost so that it's a win win win in all aspects. Plus all of the knowledge I'm gaining along the way.
 
#58
Mooly, quick question. The USB Adapter I have now is rated 5v 1a. What if I used a 5V with higher A, like a 2.1A one? will that channel more power to the unit and thus helping the volume or does it not make a difference since it's still 5V?
 
#60
Just enlighten me on something... I'm loosing track of where you are up to with all the posts and links and different vesrsions 🙂

The Bluetooth amp you are working with and that is not loud enough. That is receiving its audio via a BT link ? If so, then are you feeding enough audio into the BT transmitter ?

Until I saw the picture in the link above I thought you were working with a conventional Class D amp.
 
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