TPA3116 eBay/China Speaker Protection Board recommendations

[ebivan]

Hey guys,
I'm quite new here. I'm not to deep into audio hardware, so please forgive any mistakes. I'm always willing to read more
Oh, and I'n not a native speaker so please excuse my language

I am in the process of building a (budget) multi-room solution for our apartment using Raspberry Pis and the Logitech Media Server (aka Squeezebox).
For the livingroom I decided to go with the well known TPA3116. I already ordered a Yuan Jing black/blue board, which will be fed by a PCM5102 DAC connected to a RasPi. As power supply I am going to use an HP 18,5V 6,5A laptop brick.

I would like to incorporate some level of speaker protection (and power-on delay, to avoid speaker pop). There are some more or less common designs sold on eBay and Aliexpress but I really don't know which one to chose.
I guess it would be good to choose one, that can be driven on the 18.5 Volts my psu supplies, so i can rule out those 30V ones...

Does any of you have any experience with the one following boards and could recommend one for me?

Digital Amplifier Speaker Protection Board BTL Steady fo TDA7492 TDA7498 TPA3116 | eBay

Dual-channel Stereo Audio Amplifier Speaker Protection Board Component DIY Kits | eBay

Dual-channel Stereo Speaker Protection Board Boot Delay with Fan interface | eBay

UPC1237 Dual Channel Speaker Protection Circuit Board Boot Delay Verzöge Plate | eBay

UPC1237 Dual Channel Speaker Protection Circuit Board Boot Delay DC Protection | eBay

UPC1237 Dual Channel Speaker Protection Board Boot Delay DC Protection Assembled | eBay


I saw there are PCBs available in the diyaudio shop, but ordering a bare PCB for 25$ plus shipping to Germany plus parts (and shipping for parts) kind of defeats the purpose of making a budget build...

 

[mrWagner]

You should consider using the chips mute function.
Some amps have their "turn on" switch connected to the mute function.
So you plug it in, it is powered up without a pop, then you "turn it on" = un-mute it, again without a pop.
Then turn off is just mute. Then actually turn it off.

 

[ebivan]

Actually I'd like to habe only a mains on/of switch located before the power brick. If I we're to use the mute function, I would have to put in another switch or a circuit that closes the mute switch a few seconds after the amp powers up, right?

 

[mrWagner]

Something like that.
Would be nearly the same circuit, but it would switch the mute and not the outputs.

 

[ebivan]

Well, to be honest, I only skimmed the Thread about the necessity of DC protection for chip amps but if I were to incorporate another circuit/bord for startup-delay anyway, I figure, why don't I just do both with one of these boards?

 

[mrWagner]

That is a valid point.

I don't know much about the protection circuits, but you can see that there are some with 12-16V input and other that use a separate linear regulator to generate the 12V for the relay and others. You will probably need one of those as there are no relays between 12 and 24V.

 

[siddharta42]

I ordered the board from the first link and mounted it in my YJ TPA3116 amp which I bought as a kit directly from YJ. I replaced the relays and the no-name capacitors with Panasonic ones (the latter more for my peace of mind). Seems to work well enough and I don't have the impression the sound is affected. It's running off the 24V DC PSU that is powering the amp.

 

[superczar]

I too ordered the board in the first link for a TPA3116 build in my kitchen
All I could see on the board after I received it is 4 relays + optoisolator wired to a transistor +RC delay circuit.

I don't think it has any form of DC protection though - something that I did not realize from the description.

 

[Mortenhoe]

2 relays. A delayed one to disable mute after start up. One more relay in series to activate mute again when mains cut. This will aviod all turn on and off pops.

 

[Mortenhoe]

Could actually just use one 230v delayed relay. When the mains go on it will disable mute after a given time. When mains get cut the relay will enable mute again before the caps run out of juice.

 

[MKB]

Is the speaker protection truly needed with the 3116, or just to suppress power on/off pops? The TI data sheet for the 3116 chip claims: " Integrated Self-Protection Circuits Including Overvoltage, Undervoltage, Overtemperature, DC- Detect, and Short Circuit With Error Reporting".

 

[Kay]

" Integrated Self-Protection

yes,
but there is only a protection for loudspeaker, if the Fet's on chip are o.k.

Maybe the best solution, use a relais on the output, controlled by the FAULT-Signal