TDA2030A single-supply high-power amplifier

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I built the single-supply high-power amplifier from the ST datasheet for the TDA2030A. I stuck with the reference design but replaced the BD907/BD908 transistors with TIP35C/TIP36C transistors and switched the power supply capacitor from 2200 uF to 4700 uF.

The first iteration of the PCB had oscillations, but the revised layout seems stable. I've tested it with a 4.5 ohm load and a 31 V DC input voltage. It swings about 26V peak-peak with this power supply before clipping. Sound wise, it seems fine, but I don't have the equipment to measure distortion.

This was primarily to practice PCB layout, so I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.
 

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The blue resistors for R6 and R7 are 5 W in the photo, but I replaced them with a 1 W resistor, and that seemed fine. On the scope, I saw about a 1V drop max across the 1.5 Ohm resistor. R8, the pink resistor in the photo, is rated at 2W. When I put some test signals through, it didn't heat up when going to 20 khz, so a 1W would probably also work here.

However, when the test signal got close to 100 khz, it started to heat up substantially.
If you're going to be using audio signals, 1W should be fine, but be careful about putting higher frequency test signals through it.
 
You will want your speaker/output ground (R7, Q2, D2, C7 gnds) to use a separate conductor, to go back to the star ground after the last power supply reservoir capacitor. Also, the power ground (C5 and C3 gnds) should go back separately (or maybe with the speaker/output grounds) from the audio signal input ground reference (C4, R2, C2 gnds).

The main thing is to have the input section's ground be separate from the rest of them, all the way back to the star ground point. Otherwise, the voltages induced across the inductance (and resistance, to some extent) of the ground-return conductor itself will distort the input signal.

Also, the power and speaker ground will need a WIDE trace, all the way to the jack or terminal block, and heavier wire than the input signal ground return.

Ideally, you would want the input signal and input signal ground, from the RCA plug, to stay extremely close together (tightly twist the two wires, all the way from the jack to the board), and then keep the input ground trace extremely close to the input signal trace, all the way to the chip. You should spread the input ground around and under all of the input components, if you can't use a two-sided board. Then you want a separate signal ground wire to go from the board to the star ground at the PSU output. Note that the input RCA jack should not be electrically connected to the chassis, or to anything else except the signal and signal ground from the source and to the board. Otherwise you would have a ground loop, i.e. a big antenna for hum.

Also tightly twist every pair of transformer wires, ALL the way to both ends (3 or 4 turns per inch). And keep the pair of connections from the rectifier to the caps extremely close together everywhere, too.

Any space between ANY pair of conductors makes them a better antenna.

Also remember to keep your small-signal conductors as far away from any large or dynamic currents (e.g. AC or outputs) as you can.

Any passive component that connects to an active component (chipamp or transistor) should be mounted RIGHT AT the pin. Leaving any empty trace length next to a chip or transistor pin is really asking for trouble, like instability/oscillation, due to the parasitic inductance of the traces.

Your Zobel network should be connected as close to the last active device's output as possible, and should go directly to its ground, or the speaker ground, which should also be as close to the active device as possible.

The power decoupling caps (C5 and C3) should be connected as close to the point of load as possible. The smaller-value decoupling caps should be within a millimeter or two at the most, of the device pin, and should go directly to its load ground. Otherwise, you might have instability/oscillation. I would think that C5 and C3 should be as close as possible to Q1, with a separate +V wire to the power supply. That +V wire should also feed the chipamp's +V at pin 5, which should have another set of decoupling caps (maybe at least a few hundred uF up to 2200 uF, plus a small one in parallel and very close to the pin) from pin 5 to the output side's ground.

i.e. I would break the +V wire, on the schematic, between R1 and C3, and connect the cap gnds to the right of that point to the power/output ground, and also have a separate +V wire to the power supply for everything to the right of that point. Then I would add at least a small electrolytic cap, i.e. where R1 connects to +V, and connect that cap to the input side's ground.

Keep input side ground and output side grounds completely separate, on the PCB, and run a separate wire for each, all the way back to the star ground point near the last PSU cap's ground.
 
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gootee,

Thanks for the helpful feedback. I'll take them into consideration if I have time to do another rev of the board.

I did some frequency response measurements, attached are the results. This was with my 31 V linear regulated power supply and near clipping into a 4.5 Ohm dummy load. I calculated the dB as 20*log(voltage/max voltage)--is that the correct formula to use?
 

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Updated Layout

Here's another revision based on gootee's comments. Changes include:

* Separated signal and power/speaker ground
* Added C9 and C10 to pin 5 of chipamp
* Moved C3 closer to Q1 emitter pin
* Made the board size a bit smaller (now 1.7 x 4 inches)
* Removed on board connector pads for input--input will now need to come in through a header or air wires
* The cross hatch pour is unconnected

Vs is shown jumpered to R1 on the board, but it could be provided by a separate wire from the power supply.

The unfortunate thing about this layout is the jumper between the collectors of Q1 and Q2. I couldn't come up with a better way to connect them.

Is this an overall improvement in the layout?

I also found that the output capacitor C8 and input capacitor C1 are causing the rolloff in the low frequency response. Replacing C8 with a 4700 uF capacitor and C1 with 1 uf capacitor reduce the rolloff.
 

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fogq,
I believe that C3 is a bypass capacitor to smooth out high frequency noise from the power supply. C7 and R8 have lower impedance as the output frequency increases. Effectively, this limits the high frequency output to the speaker (it goes through R8 and C7 instead).
 
thanks for the info now what do ask for when go to purchase this since in the diagram i don't see a positive or negative i think its not just a regular capacitor so if i can get a pic so i can see it well that going an make it so much easy for me
i hav a few of these tda2030a i pulled out of a old home theatre system an being it was made in china it also had sum generic ones to the part # d2030a but i might only use these to first try an make a functional amp and then swap it out after also in the theatre only half of the parts i need i can see the rest i can't figure out how they used it hope to get more help me
www.eleccircuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/circuit-tda2030-amp-otl-15w.jpg
can you tell what each capacitor are here and voltage
this is my first chipamp my first diy project i don't know much but i do hav a good idea so can you give me the voltage of each capacitor and exactly what its is i am going to ask for when i go to the electronic parts store please
 
OK:
C1/C2/C4/C6/C7 are electrolytics.
You have +24V supply, so buying them to stand 25V is fine, although somewhat tight.
To play it safe, you might buy C4 to stand next higher, usually 40 or 50V .
C3/C5 are ceramics, usually rated 50V

Rather than the parts, I guess your main problem may be the PCB, how will you solve that?
Also: what PSU will you use?
Good luck.
 
Thanks man for the info can u also say being that this has a single volt input just a positive and a ground no negative input
can this be powered by dc like in a truck which has 24v dc
also just wondering what might be the minimum voltage this can be operated by
Also if can be operated by dc can i use a supply of 15vdc to get this amp to work
 
The "absolute maximum" supply voltage(s) are either +/- 22V or +44V.

It looks like this chip outputs less distortion when using 4 Ohm speakers, as compared to 8 Ohm speakers, according to the datasheet. But I could be wrong about that.

A single +24V supply with one TDA2030A would give about 6 Watts into 8 Ohms or 10 Watts into 4 Ohms.

You could get a switchmode power supply that would convert your 24_0 volt pair into, say, 36_0. Then you could get about 14.5 Watts into 8 Ohms or 22 Watts into 4 Ohms.

Or get one that converts 24V to 48 V and then use a three-terminal linear regulator chip to regulate it down to 44V or slightly less.

It looks like somewhat-reasonable distortion performance at higher power occurs if you use a 39 V supply and only run at up to about 35 Watts output power (into 4 Ohms).

You really do need to get the datasheet. The one at the ST microelectronics website has circuit layouts and component value recommendations, etc etc.

The datasheet also shows a bridged circuit, using two chips, i.e. one 2030A to drive each side of a speaker, which can give 34 Watts with 8 Ohms, from +/-16V supplies, for example.

http://www.st.com/web/catalog/sense_power/FM125/CL1503/SC979/PF65116

.
 
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Here's another revision based on gootee's comments. Changes include:

* Separated signal and power/speaker ground
* Added C9 and C10 to pin 5 of chipamp
* Moved C3 closer to Q1 emitter pin
* Made the board size a bit smaller (now 1.7 x 4 inches)
* Removed on board connector pads for input--input will now need to come in through a header or air wires
* The cross hatch pour is unconnected

Vs is shown jumpered to R1 on the board, but it could be provided by a separate wire from the power supply.

The unfortunate thing about this layout is the jumper between the collectors of Q1 and Q2. I couldn't come up with a better way to connect them.

Is this an overall improvement in the layout?

I also found that the output capacitor C8 and input capacitor C1 are causing the rolloff in the low frequency response. Replacing C8 with a 4700 uF capacitor and C1 with 1 uf capacitor reduce the rolloff.

Haven't looked in detail at the rest of it, yet, but C9 and C10 should connect to GND, not SGND.

Also, I would either connect the cross-hatch to ground (or something) or remove it.

I'm not sure how your SGND should be. There will be two signal wires coming in from the source device. One will be SGND. But then you need another wire connection in order to also take SGND to the star ground point (probably at the power supply output ground), which should be separate from the wire that connects GND (the power ground) to the star ground point. So you either need two SGND connections on the board, or, you need to use the one connection for both SGND wires, or you could splice the two SGND wires just before they reach the board.

Usually, when you have nice wide traces for power, like you do for V+ (Vs), you need to force the current to go near the capacitor pin. For example, for your C5, you would put two slits in the Vs trace, from the edge of the trace past one edge of the Vs pad to near one edge of the + pad for C5, and then the same thing for the other side of the Vs and + pads, so that the current coming into the Vs pad would have to go near the + pad of C5 before it went to the rest of the board.
 
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TDA2030A single-supply high-power amplifier
I built the single-supply high-power amplifier from the ST datasheet for the TDA2030A............. I've tested it with a 4.5 ohm load and a 31 V DC input voltage. It swings about 26V peak-peak with this power supply before clipping. Sound wise, it seems fine.......
that's less than 19W into 4r5 ! "high-power" ????
 
that's less than 19W into 4r5 ! "high-power" ????

Andrew, that's *nothing* :D
After all, "high" without putting numbers in it can be anything, it's just personal opinion ;)
In *this* thread http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/chip-amps/206591-tda7294-power-transistors-amp-tda7293-come-also.html numbers are mentioned :rolleyes:
Output Power: well lets just say that speakers that where 250/500W 2Ohm (RMS/MAX) where played to the max with NO DISTORTION AT ALL
I will call the output at 400W+ (MAX) and this is based on that the TDA itself adds ONLY 20-40W (because of the much higher driving Ohm), but the 5200/1943 are some GOOD POWERFULL transistors and going through the datasheet it will deliver peeks over 600W (short pulse pr Transistor), they supply 100W but this is FULL DC and there are no audio tracks to my knowledge that has that kind of "sound"
(sic)

What he's talking about?
A very similar schematic, just with a TDA7294 and an *unbiased* "5200/1943" pair ..... still with +/*-40V supply of course :eek:
How can this miracle happen?
Well, he's using "GOOD POWERFULL transistors" after all :rolleyes:

Crossover distortion is so high, that he notices a "jump" in music volume, whether he's below or above the knee:
Things to do when SYNC it is to listen to it, things to listen to are from very low volume (FROM a clean source) and go slowely up in volume, the POINT here is that it should just get louder like a normal amplifier would, if the SYNC is off then a normal thing will be that at audio peaks (like drums & bass) it will sound like someone is kicking your speakers because the Transistors kick in at a wrong volume then the amp is playing, believe me you will hear it, this needs to be corrected by changing the resistor else you will have an amp that only sounds good at very low volume and medium to high volume.
No kidding !!!!
Ever heard the words "bias"? and "crossover distortion"?:confused:

I won't even mention the "schematic" that was posted.
Or the "400W amp" housed in a PC PSU case.

Problem is, instead of having knowledgeable people jumping in to suggets corrections, ther's a ton of DIY noobs very excited trying to build that modern wonder.
Oh well.:rolleyes:
 
Noobs are like hungry watts mungers as long as the words easy , simple , cheap are used together with high *00 watts they go mad
so do i as i am a noob
well can the experts post a correct working pcb so we noobz can do it right
i also have interest in that tda 7294 Plus transistors amp so who will the noobz listen to here
the guy with a working amp or ppl who just saying it can't work
how about the experts jump in and correct it so us noobz can build working items and not waste money and time an losing interest
 
This is a killer one.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/167394-quasi-amplifier-beginners.html
Can be built from 500W which is power you never had nor have speakers to stand it, down to 60W which is recommended as a first time high power amp build.
Once it works properly, you'll be able to build the big one.
It's a beast normally used as live PA for Rock Festivals or *big* Club DJ; as I said before with speakers able to stand 500W RMS continuously.
Noobs despise or ignore it because of the "beginner" label ;) , but it's not beginner stuff at all.

Tried and true for many years, the designer built and installed around 60 (or was it 100?) of them and they still work flawlessly.

Once you have successfully built and *used* the 500W one, you can continue to
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/164208-500w-pa-amplifier-limiter.html
and after that to
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/162408-900w-h-class-pa-amp-limiter.html if you wish.

But please don't skip steps; each one teaches , say, 50% of what's needed for the next.
Imagine Japanese or Piano classes, you can't *start* by lesson #48 or whatever ;)

Good luck, you'll succeed :)
 
Yes, "High Power" is a relative term. I used the term in the datasheet in case anyone was searching for an implementation of this circuit. I did the original tests using a 31V power supply. I did some tests with a 42V power supply, which is near the 44V maximum in the datasheet.

With that, I get a voltage swing of 34.8V before clipping into a 4.5 ohm load, which is about 34 watts.

Below is what the datasheet lists:
35W d = 0.5%, RL = 4 Ω, f = 40 z to 15 Hz Vs = 39 V

Attached are some oscilloscope traces right before clipping. The yellow is the source signal and the cyan is the output.
 

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