HYPEX SMPS HELP- or lack of it

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I bought a pair of Hypex UCD 400 amps and associated SMPS supplies from Hypex at the beginning of March.
I had some technical questions regarding residual 4mv 1Mhz sinewave on the amp ground plane and at 40mv across the speaker output, and
one of the two SMPS supplies does not close down at switch off .It surges in decreasing voltage amplitudes with an on off cycle of about 3 seconds over a switch down period of about 25 seconds.
I received no circuit information from Hypex not even at Block Diagram level so I am driving blind.
My amp front panel indicator LED is wired across the SMPS aux +21v supply and 0v.,and it clearly shows the supply pumping after switch off.
Both amps are wired identically, as the spec sheets, and perform well sonically.
Anyone any Ideas?
Do I have a faulty SMPS ?


I have been unable to get any help from Hypex my first email went unanswered until I chased it. The reply did not address my issues so I replied to the email again asking for help. Still no reply I tried sending a request to the MD. I was told they are busy, lots of customers and lots of questions.
Still no reply to my requests for help after 4 weeks.
I didn't think becoming a Hypex customer I was buying from a company that appears to have no interest in helping customers after they've taken my money.

Ianmac
 
I bought a pair of Hypex UCD 400 amps and associated SMPS supplies from Hypex at the beginning of March.
I had some technical questions regarding residual 4mv 1Mhz sinewave on the amp ground plane and at 40mv across the speaker output, and
one of the two SMPS supplies does not close down at switch off .It surges in decreasing voltage amplitudes with an on off cycle of about 3 seconds over a switch down period of about 25 seconds.
I received no circuit information from Hypex not even at Block Diagram level so I am driving blind.
My amp front panel indicator LED is wired across the SMPS aux +21v supply and 0v.,and it clearly shows the supply pumping after switch off.
Both amps are wired identically, as the spec sheets, and perform well sonically.
Anyone any Ideas?
Do I have a faulty SMPS ?


I have been unable to get any help from Hypex my first email went unanswered until I chased it. The reply did not address my issues so I replied to the email again asking for help. Still no reply I tried sending a request to the MD. I was told they are busy, lots of customers and lots of questions.
Still no reply to my requests for help after 4 weeks.
I didn't think becoming a Hypex customer I was buying from a company that appears to have no interest in helping customers after they've taken my money.

Ianmac

Hi Ianmac

I am a little surprised at Hypex's attitude towards customer support.
Regarding the residual noise on the amplifiers output and ground plane.
This would be quite normal for most if not all SMPS and Class D amplifiers.
Class D amplifiers have quite low PSRR and would simply amplifiy the noise and contribute some of its own switching noise as well.

One of your SMPS may well have a fault, but I would suggest it has more to do the pumping action that the Class D amplifier does by default on any power supply.
However I would suggest you try and have a talk with Jan-Peter the MD at Hypex. he can be found on this forum under the same name, so do a search and you should be able to find him.

I hope this helps. :)

Cheers

Anthony
DIY Amplifier - Audio Amplifier Modules - MOSFET Amps - Audio Electronics - Power Amps
 
Anthony,
thank you for your reply.

I am pleased to report I have now heard from Hypex.

It appears that the problem with the SMPS is a design issue with some cards. I am told it has been rectified in the latest issue of boards.
No mention was made as to what is causing this or if it can be rectified by DIY tweaks.
I will provide hypex with the serial number of all 4 SPMS boards I have and await their recommendation.
I am building another two Hypex amps today for my second system so will get the chance to do some more accurate measurements

Ianmac
 
My previous experience with Hypex is that they are (were?) very good in both pre- and post-sales support. However, I also sent a fairly straightforward technical question to Hypex a few months ago, and have not received any answer yet. I think their business has been growing very fast, while introducing lots of new OEM products, so their technical people may be swamped with work. I hope that is a temporary thing, and that they do not forget their DIY market. (But, let's face it: We tend to ask more support questions per dollar of sales than any other market segment I can think of.)
 
I had a chance to look at my SMPS modules today. Both are the same version V6 and were delivered to me early March.
It looks like one module has a fault. On switch off the +-65 volt supply falls to almost zero then surges to 25 volts and repeats this for 30 seconds or so before falling to zero. I will contact them by email to night and await a response.
I have built two other Hypex 400 series SMPS powered amps over the weekend using V5 SMPS cards and both behave as one would expect. The sonic performance of the amps is absolutely superb. knocks my Cyrus monoblocks for six.
I appreciate what you say about them but a well run business never neglects its customers.--You can sell anything to anyone once-you dont have a customer until they come back a second time.
The modules for my second Hypex amps were not bought directly from them.

Ianmac
 
HYPEX support

My previous experience with Hypex is that they are (were?) very good in both pre- and post-sales support. However, I also sent a fairly straightforward technical question to Hypex a few months ago, and have not received any answer yet. I think their business has been growing very fast, while introducing lots of new OEM products, so their technical people may be swamped with work. I hope that is a temporary thing, and that they do not forget their DIY market. (But, let's face it: We tend to ask more support questions per dollar of sales than any other market segment I can think of.)


I had very good experiences with HYPEX support.
I have got answer to my email questions always quite fast, and when I had any hardware problem, they were very fast with the servicing, and always kind.

I hope if some of you had any bad expreirence, it was just an exception, that proves the rule :)

cheers,

Tamas
 
@asbjbo:
I checked with support and it seems that your most recent emails are dated from the 7th and 11th of July 2008. If you suspect that your email was lost in a spamfilter or was overlooked by us please give us a call and we'll figure it out together. We haven't forgotten the DIY community and we apologize for an occasional glitch in our support system.

@Ianmac:
From what I understand your SMPS is returned to Hypex for further investigation. We'll fix that for you. Very glad to hear that your setup is performing well ;-)

Cheers,
Jorrit
 
No problem, Jorrit. The question was of the long and rambling kind, and I just assumed that you guys were extremely busy, but the email may of course have been lost on the way. I'll resend the question, which was about the proper grounding scheme of an UcD400 with SMPS.
 
Good to hear you got a reply

I sent my faulty board to them on 19th April. It was delayed by the transport problems thrown up by the Volcano Dust Cloud and they did not receive it till around the 26th April. I chased progress yesterday to be told they had not looked at it yet because they were busy but should get round to it next week.

Looks like I will be almost a month without any music.

You can appreciate that I am less than impressed with their after sales service. A smart company would have had a replacement board in the post by return.

Ianmac
 
Good to hear you got a reply

I sent my faulty board to them on 19th April. It was delayed by the transport problems thrown up by the Volcano Dust Cloud and they did not receive it till around the 26th April. I chased progress yesterday to be told they had not looked at it yet because they were busy but should get round to it next week.

Looks like I will be almost a month without any music.

You can appreciate that I am less than impressed with their after sales service. A smart company would have had a replacement board in the post by return.

Ianmac

Who does that? One computer parts dealer that I know of, and only as part of their extended warranty rip off if you buy into it, but it's also part of the known buggy LCD screen sweetheart deals.

What do they lose for not being a smart company, thousand units a month client? If you didn't want to wait did you think to buy another and just return that one?
 
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