Audio Power Amp

I have a favorite fractional-watt simple audio amp IC. I even find it abusable. That one is LM386.

As for 4-ohm loudspeaker load at 12 volt supply: I consider that abuse of the LM386, and I consider that to be abuse of LM386 according to the datasheet for the one by "National."

National Semiconductor does have other audio power amp ICs, such as ones in more-than-3-leads variants of TO-220. Many of those are good for automotive applications, where the supply voltage is anywhere from close to 12V to close to 14V.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I can vouch for that. I used to repair video games and pinball machines, and 386's were a very common choice for audio out.

Cheers! Rich

Don has pointed out the LM386. That is a remarkable chip for low-end applications. It is particularly well adapted to the 6 to 9V range. I would not recommend it for the 12V range unless say you were confined (as part of the challenge) to Radio Shack parts.

A step up for the 12V world, is the wide variety of low end "car radio" output chips. LM383/TDA2002 and the follow-on TDA2003 and everything in the same tradition. The sonic failings of the very low voltage (e.g. 6 to 9V) optimized chips are way more obvious than the

I am a big fan of the TDA1013B for 12V supplies. And less so (but still seeing merit) in the BTL-output lower voltage incarnation, TDA7052A. One common feature is that audio gain is set with a DC voltage in these, they are geared towards low-end microprocessor- controlled consumer applications. They are designed to handle various output short scenarios (although it is still possible to blow them up, meaning I've done so! Every time I kill these the plastic package goes kablooie.)

Don, in terms of misappropriating audio parts for power conversion applications, I think the TDA7052A output bridge has some possibility but have never actually used it that way. Whenever I use an H bridge (e.g. L298N) I always wonder whether I could have misappropriated a BTL audio amp chip to do the deed instead :-)

Tim.

National LM4950

Not necessarily cheap, but bulletproof and meets your other specs. Link:

Gain is programmable with 2 small resistors. Easy to work with. Easy to heat sink. And avail in thru-hole, if that is important to you.

-mpm

Ah,, you mean my stock load of LM380's and LM377's may be out dated as well? ;)

jamie

Don has pointed out the LM386. That is a remarkable chip for low-end applications. It is particularly well adapted to the 6 to 9V range. I would not recommend it for the 12V range unless say you were confined (as part of the challenge) to Radio Shack parts.

A step up for the 12V world, is the wide variety of low end "car radio" output chips. LM383/TDA2002 and the follow-on TDA2003 and everything in the same tradition. The sonic failings of the very low voltage (e.g. 6 to 9V) optimized chips are way more obvious than the

I am a big fan of the TDA1013B for 12V supplies. And less so (but still seeing merit) in the BTL-output lower voltage incarnation, TDA7052A. One common feature is that audio gain is set with a DC

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IME the 7052 has rather high quiescent current which can be a problem with battery powered equipment, the chip requires very sturdy Vcc decoupling with especially low ESR - the ripple current is twice the output frequency.

For inductive loads, servos & small motors, there is the 7072.

TDA200-something series is quite a big jump up from the 386. Next up from 386 is something like TBA820M, much better sound quality, a little more power and handles over 15v if needed.

NT

I agree with you, sir, and without combing through 35 years worth of purchase orders, I'd estimate that I've used roughly 10k of them over the years.

Again, I agree with you sir. I use them like popcorn where I have to drive up to 4 sets of 150 ohm headsets in parallel.

And that was the original question. I'm aware of "other" NS 5-pin devices and was wondering if anybody had a favorite amongst them or any other manufacturer. WHat would really rock my socks is to find one that would be pin compatible with two or three different sources.

I went to discrete design (the usual complimentary-symmetry stuff) when I wound up with half a thousand boards in inventory that used a particular design with an IC made out of unobtanium. I wound up finding a dead-bug source and only had to pay four or five times what I was expecting to pay rather than throw away 500 obsolete boards.

Thanks,

Jim

the -4 version of that part is rated to 22 volts abs max.

The "everything in the same tradition" is what I'm trying to master. There seems to be dozens of devices that will do my job; what I'm trying to pick is one that will be around as long as the '386.

Everything I do is capacitor coupled in and out. Hard to blow up something through a capacitor, but I guess it is theoretically possible.

Should have specified...one side of the speaker is grounded to the (-) negative battery supply. No choice to use a bridge configuration..

Thanks,

Jim

In this case the power supply is a 35 AH battery being supplied by a

Thanks,

Jim

Thru-hole mandatory.

Thanks,

Jim

Nah, I'm sure they'll still work. :-)

Cheers! Rich

Years ago, I used some LM377's in a bridge config to drive some Laser reflector mirrors. The mirrors were glued to thin spring steel and I had ceramic magnets on the back of the mirrors. The 377's drove the coil behind the magnets to angle the mirrors.

I had a ramp generator in there to move the angle left to right etc (555 timer) :)

Connected to a computer I used to project a small random light show on the side of buildings, via music and could spit out text, of course the text had to be short because of the limited speed of the mirrors. Actually, you could hardly even see the mirrors move, they looked more like a small vibration. It didn't take much to get that red dot to scribble on the country side ..

They may not make very good audio devices for which they were intended, but they do make good chips to doing little servo's and driving some current for a larger handling stage..

Jamie.