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Darkglass AO500 went up in smoke. What to do next?


lewiswhitebass
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36 minutes ago, lewiswhitebass said:

 

The 410 HLF was used standalone so that wasn't the problem 

Agedhorse raised concern that prior out of spec loading had caused damage already. Going hard out into 4 ohm being just the last straw.

 

Given that you had the impedance wrong on the HLF it's not a stretch to having it wrong and hooking up 2 ohms previously.

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14 hours ago, stevie said:

How does protection work on an amp like this? I've always assumed that they all have some kind of protection against sub-optimal loads or short circuits. Am I wrong?

Most do have protection circuits, but it's important to recognize that protection circuits are not 100% effective against all faults and all fault conditions. Different designers and different companies place different amounts of importance on protection circuits since they add to the cost of the design while being almost impossible to market as a valuable feature to the majority of customers.

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2 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

I think most of the value would kick in as saved staff time pissing around on invalid warranty claims caused by user error. That would filter back to a slightly keener price.

Unfortunately, there’s little marketing value, but it does save massive costs to both the manufacturer and the player.

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10 hours ago, agedhorse said:

Most do have protection circuits, but it's important to recognize that protection circuits are not 100% effective against all faults and all fault conditions. Different designers and different companies place different amounts of importance on protection circuits since they add to the cost of the design while being almost impossible to market as a valuable feature to the majority of customers.

One of the reasons I would avoid 2 ohm operation. Its too close to a short for my liking. I also agree about protection, its  like contraception. Not 100% effective. My dad got an apology from the condom manufacturer when I was born

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On 20/07/2022 at 09:08, stevie said:

How does protection work on an amp like this? I've always assumed that they all have some kind of protection against sub-optimal loads or short circuits. Am I wrong?

No you are right, at least over voltage and over current protection. Some have under voltage protection too. over current will protect against shorts or sub optimal loads. One of the problems with some speakers is that they go under their quoted impedance at certain frequencies, so over current protection is vital.

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11 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

One of the reasons I would avoid 2 ohm operation. Its too close to a short for my liking. I also agree about protection, its  like contraception. Not 100% effective. My dad got an apology from the condom manufacturer when I was born

There is no problem designing for 2 ohm operation with identical reliability to an amp with 4 ohm minimum load operation. In amps I have designed, the reliability statistics fully support this.

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

No you are right, at least over voltage and over current protection. Some have under voltage protection too. over current will protect against shorts or sub optimal loads. One of the problems with some speakers is that they go under their quoted impedance at certain frequencies, so over current protection is vital.

There are many different protection schemes depending on the type and class of amp. These protection schemes include:

- AC line over-voltage protection

- AC line under-voltage protection

- power amp thermal protection

- power supply thermal protection

-output stage over-current protection

- output stage leading phase angle protection (illegal capacitve load)

- DC offset protection

- power supply over-current protection

- excessive HF content protection

- short cycle inrush current protection

 

Some amps have many of these protections, some have just a few. There is substantial cost (and design effort) to these but when you can reduce the failure rates to almost zero by including them, in general it's a good choice.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 21/07/2022 at 21:32, agedhorse said:

There is no problem designing for 2 ohm operation with identical reliability to an amp with 4 ohm minimum load operation. In amps I have designed, the reliability statistics fully support this.

I am sure you are correct but it is my personal preference.

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