Positive power supply rail at a different potential than negative rail?

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Re-check R909 as was suggested. Do this with nothing connected to the amp. You should read 2.7k between the primary ground and the non-bridging speaker terminals.

Do you have a signal source plugged in while making these measurements?


Thanks for chiming in Perry.


R909 reads 2.345 Kohms and the resistance between the battery ground and non-bridging terminals is almost exactly the same.


I didn't have any source plugged in whilst making these measurements or the power supply measurements on the previous thread.


It was in fact your prompting about using DC coupling on that other thread which made me find this, I was looking for noise on the DC rails and realised they were different in magnitude with the DC coupling on.
 
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But in post #12 you measured bot equal?, I'm getting lost :-(


Apologies Osvaldo, I was not very clear.


the original sets of measurements, the ones showing differing rail voltages, were referenced to the battery or primary ground.


The measurements I referenced in post #12 were taken using the speaker terminal grounds as oer your request in post #11.
 
When you are measuring anything on the secondary, it's best to ground the scope (or black meter probe) to the secondary ground. The only time that this can be a problem (rare) is if you have a shorted transformer (primary shorted to secondary). This is typically obvious because the secondary ground will be precisely the B+ voltage above ground.

For amps like this where the secondary is essentially isolated, the RCA shields of a standard signal source (like a head unit) will ground the secondary and bring it to 0v DC (unless the shield ground is damaged), assuming that the head unit is connected to the same supply as the amp.

The 2.7k resistor should be pulling the secondary to 0v on its own but sometimes there is a protection circuit or something similar that can pull it off it 0v. I don't see anything like that in this amp so you may have a leaking (electrically) insulator or some sort of contamination causing the offset.
 
When you are measuring anything on the secondary, it's best to ground the scope (or black meter probe) to the secondary ground. The only time that this can be a problem (rare) is if you have a shorted transformer (primary shorted to secondary). This is typically obvious because the secondary ground will be precisely the B+ voltage above ground.

For amps like this where the secondary is essentially isolated, the RCA shields of a standard signal source (like a head unit) will ground the secondary and bring it to 0v DC (unless the shield ground is damaged), assuming that the head unit is connected to the same supply as the amp.

The 2.7k resistor should be pulling the secondary to 0v on its own but sometimes there is a protection circuit or something similar that can pull it off it 0v. I don't see anything like that in this amp so you may have a leaking (electrically) insulator or some sort of contamination causing the offset.




Thanks Perry, that makes sense.


The board itself looks fine, do you think it could be the capcitor that seems warmer than the other?


It heats up even at idle and with no signal in.



It's C909.
 
I have clean, straight +- 32 v at those points, albeit not under any load.

Having taken the board up from the heat sink to take the measurements I think I might have found a dry joint at the centre leg of D903. I'm going to try and re-solder it to is if it just that.

Thanks for your help Perry.

Edit: Re-soldering the diode leg did not fix the issue.
 
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