100 watt Guitar Amp Pedal

Continuing on my Stomp Amp theme; I have created a 100 watt (24V supply, 4 ohm load) guitar amplifier with FV-1 based DSP reverb and optional treble boost. It fits in a 1590b stomp box. Yes it really is a 100 watt amp!

red_scare

It has Gain, a single tone control, and reverb level control. The reverb room size is set by a resistive divider(R21 , R22) and can also be made adjustable. It utilizes a TPA3116D2 class D amplifier IC which can be configured for mono or stereo output.

Click Here for Large Schematic Image:

Stomp Amp 100_mini

The amplifier sounds delightful. The class D topology provides greater than 90% efficiency. This  eliminates the need for substantial heat sinking. The only penalty is that for guitar applications, pushing the amplifier to distortion does not sound so great. I use an overdrive pedal so I don’t care about this.

Update: I added a LED clipping circuit to make sure the input into the class D final amplifier is level limited(clips/distorts) before the final amplifier starts distorting

Link to Revised Schematic

 

pop_pcbred pcbHome brew laser printer resist circuit board

Completed Circuit Board 

Link To CAD FILES: https://www.adrive.com/public/QpRQMX/RED%20SCARE.zip

The single tone control is surprisingly versatile. It alters the level and center of a MID scoop. You can get really FAT all the way to bright twang all with one control. The circuit  can easily be modified to employ a more sophisticated tone stack if desired. The amplifier requires a 12-24V power supply with at least 4 amp sourcing capability. You can purchase a small lightweight switch-mode supply from Amazon for less than $20.00 that will work nicely. It is ridiculously small, lightweight, loud as hell, and sounds superb through a couple of 10″s or a single 12″  cabinet.

 

Quick Demo of built in Blue LED clipper limiter added to original prototype(you can see the LEDs flash as the input is clipped)

Great App Note on Ceramic Capacitors

Below is a link to a tutorial on how bad ceramic capacitors are regarding holding their capacitance value under voltage bias. Basically the smaller the capacitor (physically) and the larger the voltage across it, the less the actual capacitance will be. I have always know this to be true but I didn’t realize it was as bad as describe below. This was a good reality check for me to make sure and select capacitors for a design carefully!

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/5527