ARAN 600 Watt Solid State Amp Design Challenge

[kbØasq]

ARAN has been challenged (by me) to design and build a 600W Solid State Amp.  We are going to do this using this forum and our club meetings.  It is our intention to use this forum to hash out the design of the amp and then to have presentations at the club meetings to explain how each section of the amp works and to build the amp.

My specs for the amp are as follows:

• It should be based off of the popular EB104 design by Helge Granberg
• It should have automatic band switching
• The controls should be digital using an LCD display
• It should use an external switching power supply
• It should have a full set of protection circuits
• The control logic should be based on using an off the shelf Audrino board
• It should be built in a rack mountable case

The first stage should be breaking down the project into modules that we want to build.  The following is a list of links that I have found that we can use to research the project:

EB104 Enginneering Bulletin
G4APV's  EB104 Construction Page
High Power Solid State Amplifier - W6KAN
N6EAJ 600W HF Amp
EB104 amp project
Communication Concepts, Inc. EB104

Please review these pages and add some more if you can find them.  Then we can post a block diagram of our proposed modules.

[K0YNE]

It appears you have a lot of information needed to construct this amp. I just now am seeing your input for the first time and will click on the other information to see more. I will help in any way I can to help in it's construction. It should be funded by those of us who are interested in seeing it's completion. A good start Allen. K0YNE 

[kbØasq]

Paul,

Glad you are on board!!!  After you get through looking at all that information, here is a link to MW0UZO's block diagram of the amp he built: MW0UZO 600W - Block Diagram.

I thought we could start with that and create our own diagram and post it.

Also, I have found several Switching Power Supplies I can purchase, but before we go that route, I am wondering if we could find or design our own.  What do you think?

73 Allen
KB0ASQ

[kbØasq]

In looking at the various resources on the Internet I think we can break the project down into 6 modules if you will:

• Power Supply
• Control Board
• PA Board (Power Amplifier)
• Output Filter or LBF Board
• SWR Detect Board
• Case

Communication Concepts, Inc. sells the complete kit for the PA Board, so I don't think we need to re-engineer that one.  They also sell the LBF boards.  The drawback to those is that they are an individual board for each band.  I think it would be better if we combine those into one or two boards.  Easier to mount and less wires.

The other question is do we purchase or build the power supply.  We obviously need a 48v ps and we will also need a 12v ps for control board.  So we could use a 48v ps and then build something to convert that to 12v or we could just have two power supplies, one 48v and one 12v coming off of the mains.

Any thoughts so far?