Dashpuppy's Blog

Been working on this project for a few months now, just about to order the pcb. After months of working on this, I have come to the conclusion that it’s much easier and less hair loss when doing pcb designs.

However, to accomplish this near perfect “test” pcb, you need to make sure all pin out’s on the pcb for the components are proper IE ECB or GDS are all accurate and point to pint ! :p Let’s not go down that rabbit hole and explain what happens when you don’t 😛

Whats a “SSR” ? SSR stand’s for Solid State Relay, these are not anything new BUT starting to become really popular in amplifier designs instead of using relays. SSR’s are much faster & don’t wear out!

Picture of my schematic !

Here is a picture of my first Printed 1:1 on paper to make sure all the pins align & look correct for spacing !

And a picture of it in 3D mode from Kicad !

Hopefully next week I get a chance to order the pcb’s and start testing and making sure everything works !

Over the last few weeks I have been working on my Jean Hiraga amps, these are not the final boards but boards that work that allow me to do testing with.

First test was with a regulated front end circuit, this is done by removing the 2 22v zener diodes on the board, and installing a off board regulator circuit. The regulator circuit uses IRFP9610 / IRFP610’s, they do a very good job, and soon I should have my newet regulator boards using all SMD components, more on that later!

Next test is changing the output’s from 2SC2922/ 2SA1216 to MJE21196/96’s.Doing this change allowed me to test better outputs that are more common and easier to get, although the 24 BJT’s that i just got are obsolete now, and newer versions are out BUT hey, I got 24 free ones from a close friends so I will use them 🙂

Little hint, I’m currently working on a Full “SMD” version of this amp, since power resistors now’a days are quite capable of dissipating current in a SMD package, I am going to do it!

Id like to first say special Thanks to Eddie from KissAudio, this guy’s youtube page is just “AWESOME” been watching his videos and learning alot! Hat’s off to this guy for doing his vidoe’s and teaching people things.
Link to one of the videos he does that describes this post!

I reached out to Eddie and asked for his simulation file so I can learn about simulations of all the amplifiers i work on, and he replied back with the file ! THATS AWESOME! Now i can play and learn, the bonus part is, i know the schematic he sent with the simulation, and of course its my favorite person Nelson Pass. !

Id have to say most of my Class A amplifiers are all Nelson Pass designs from the Aleph Mini to the Larger Aleph 2’s and 0’s.

Do breadboards suck ? ( yes ) I mean they serve a purpose, BUT they are so 50/50. Some times the parts in the pin holes touch and make contact, sometimes they don’t.

Lastnight working on a long project of mine “The-SSR” and I had to check over the circuit may times to be sure. Im almost going to say designing the schematic in Kicad & pcb and ordering from JLCPCB.com is easier ? yeah ?

Anyways !

On the bench this day, I have a Jean Hiraga amplifier its a amplifier with 30watt RMS /8ohm output. HOWEVER mine’s a bit different. Running higher bias and dual regulated powersupply setup. Achieving 60watts RMS output @ 35V rails along with 22v super regulated front end circuit.

IN the pictures below you can see before and after pictures the red board on the side is the regulator circuit for the front end of the amplifier circuit.

After months and months of testing my Aleph Turbo Class “A” amplifier. Went through a few revisions and test setups. No smoke on any of them BUT I did have a few mistakes on the layout’s & wrong SMD pad sizes, live and learn.

One thing learning about SMD pcb designing is its harder to do. Why ? With through hole you can use top and bottom of the through hole parts to route traces, but with SMD you have to use via’s and place them in certain spots for them to not cause issues.

Picture of one Aleph turbo SMD running, at 45V rails I’m achieving 80watts RMS into 8 ohms. Does it make heat ? “SURE DOES”

In this next picture we can see that I’m running the amplifier under load, not full load but just a easy test load.

Well, I went back to Untangle, just can’t find any firewall on the market that I like. Been using Untangle for over 10 years now !

Picked up a Brand new Hp Dl20 Gen 10 box, with a Xeon 2224 with 16 gigs ram. At first the machine hated the m.2 slot, it ran fine had no issues but the fans would not ramp down, because not “100%” supported hp m.2 card.

So I ditched the m.2 and bought a pair of 256gig SATA drives ( cheap Samsung’s ) Installed them in Raid1 and off we go !

Id have to say, installing the AMSD driver on Debian10 was tricky but I got it working and installed & running.

So far the box is running stable & quiet, the odd Fan ramp up but its ok.

It’s all about the Audio Projects !