Car Amplifier Power Supply Question
Hello,
A friend of mine gave me his car amplifier because it stopped working. I told him I'd take a look and see if anything obvious was damaged (like a blown cap etc.). I found NOTHING burnt out inside the amp ... no burn marks, no blown components (including mosfets), so naturally I was puzzled. I thought maybe there were some cold solder joints on the board at the voltage source, so I re-heated some of the solder points but no luck.
Here is what the amp is doing:
When I connect the amp to 12 volts, the voltage at the input immediately reads 5 volts, and the green power LED lights up but it's very dim. After doing some googling - as I have never troubleshot any deeper than visually inspecting components and I completely lack those skills (in spite of taking two years of electronics including electrical calculus over 20 years ago) ... what I learned is that a lot of times, people just replace all of the MOSFETS on the power supply side of the amplifier. But before I do this, I wanted someone to at least confirm with me that I'm making the right choice or am I just stabbing in the dark hoping to solve the problem?
I did read some things about checking the MOSFETS but I admit that it was a little confusing and I'm not quite sure I'm doing it right ... so maybe some assistance with that process would help me confirm bad MOSFETS? Do they need to be taken out of the circuit before checking them ??? or ????
Anyways, thank you very much to anyone who can help me figure this out.
Sincerely,
Mike
A friend of mine gave me his car amplifier because it stopped working. I told him I'd take a look and see if anything obvious was damaged (like a blown cap etc.). I found NOTHING burnt out inside the amp ... no burn marks, no blown components (including mosfets), so naturally I was puzzled. I thought maybe there were some cold solder joints on the board at the voltage source, so I re-heated some of the solder points but no luck.
Here is what the amp is doing:
When I connect the amp to 12 volts, the voltage at the input immediately reads 5 volts, and the green power LED lights up but it's very dim. After doing some googling - as I have never troubleshot any deeper than visually inspecting components and I completely lack those skills (in spite of taking two years of electronics including electrical calculus over 20 years ago) ... what I learned is that a lot of times, people just replace all of the MOSFETS on the power supply side of the amplifier. But before I do this, I wanted someone to at least confirm with me that I'm making the right choice or am I just stabbing in the dark hoping to solve the problem?
I did read some things about checking the MOSFETS but I admit that it was a little confusing and I'm not quite sure I'm doing it right ... so maybe some assistance with that process would help me confirm bad MOSFETS? Do they need to be taken out of the circuit before checking them ??? or ????
Anyways, thank you very much to anyone who can help me figure this out.
Sincerely,
Mike
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