[KDspiv]

Ok, my wife wasn't too keen on the Berhinger amp sitting with the other components. She let me have the list in one long sentence with out a breath. It basically went "Ok, I dont like the signal indicators "winking" at me during movies, the super bright green pilot light, It looks very "industrial", and the fact that it sounds like a stupid leaf blower.


Here are my mods, I would like your thoughts folks.

So.... I:
1. Made a new face plate for it out of red cocobolo Wood, stainless, and a Blue LED. I installed it on the rack mount tabs so the face of the Behringer and its controls wouldn't have to be modified. And this also left enough room for the cooling fan air intake.

2. I replaced the on switch with a 12vlt DC x 15amp 125vlt AC relay and installed a 3.5mm mono jack. This so my Anthem could use its triggers to automatic turn it on during power up in using its delayed sequence. So all my wife has to do it power on the processor now and ACTION!

3. Built and installed a voltage divider circuit & fan control so I could run a 14dB 32cfm 12vlt PC fan. I did reverse the fan too to bring the cool air in through the front. This is plenty of air to keep things cool for movies but the amp starts getting [email protected] hot with music at Night Club loud volumes.

4. Installed a Blue LED pilot light on the fan circuit that lets me know the fan is running and to match my Anthems amps blue "On" light. I had to install a resistor pack to be able to put the 3.5vlt LED on the fan circuit so also installed a small pot as a dimmer to change the brightness.

5. And I forgot. I added some really nice feet to spice the looks up a bit.

And here are some quick pics I snapped last night. The flash makes everything look so I will have to take better pics during the day. Sorry, these pics are much [email protected] than I thought they were



Here is what the front plate looks like installed.

Here you can see all of the Behringer controls are intact and how much space the fan has to draw in Air.

Here is a top pic so you can see the added boards, relay, and mods done. I hope this pic is better

And pics f how it looks sitting there. Yeah amps and processor all sit on top for cooling purposes. The PS3, Xbox, and Krell Showcase DVD/CD all sit in the cabinet below. Doesnt looks the best but it keeps the WAF high in my house. Hence why the Behringer mods were needed.

The center channel is there only temporarily until we can agree on a component rack we both like.

 

[ccdoggy]

That is an awesome job! Very jealous of your EP.

I ended up taking a sharpie to my LEDs, which more or less just dimmed them down a bit. though looking back on it i should have put a pot on there and just turned it down.

Very good idea with the relay, going to have to figure out if i can somehow make it work with my setup. got any pics directly of that system for turning it on? Do you have a way of forcing it on without turning on the processor? also any way to do a delayed turn off to let it cool down.

I see another set of mods coming for it.

Great job!

 

[KDspiv]

The Anthem has three 12vlt triggers. Originally AVM 20 fired each trigger .5 seconds apart to keep the line voltage drop from being to high. But after getting the HD upgrade to the AVM 50 processors, the timer was adjustable up to 1.5 sec delay for each trigger. So I used a heavy duty coil relay since that was all I have needed.

I have used this mod in the past to turn on multiple amps with Receivers that did not have triggers before though. What I did was buy a heavy duty SOLID STATE relay (these can be purchased with built in delays for turning on or off) that had a 3vlt-12vlt trigger and switched 15amp 125vlt contact. I then tapped into either the display power or a power on LED to turn on the relays.

I didn't use a way to force the Behringer on because I didn't want to splice the power leads. (in case of warranty none of the original wiring has been modified) I can just as easily unplug the relay and plug in the switch if needed.

I can gets some pics of it tonight for you.

 

[ironglen]

Very nice and clever solution indeed. If my amps were easily visible, I would be copying you:bigsmile:

I will soon have several proamps in my stable and will need to stagger-start them, so I might be hitting you up for advice!

 

[KDspiv]

Just let me know if you are wanting to install a relay in each amp and I will give you part number for a relay to do it with. Or I can draw you up a schematic that uses an IC to control a bank of relays so you can build a powerstrip where each outlet has a delay.

 

[ironglen]

Thanks for the offer! I'll get back to you once I get everything lined up (gathering suitable used equipment for a bargain takes time).

 

[ccdoggy]

It would be great to get some info on that relay and stuff you put in it. This is very tempting as it would make turning stuff on so much easier and does not seem too hard to do.

would it be possible to also leave the current switch in there as a backup/force on? and maybe a delay turn off to let the amp cool down a little bit?

 

[KDspiv]

Here are some close ups of the relay. Yes it is a very, very easy mod to perform for simple on off operation. So if you have 20 min max, it is worth the time.

Let me go over the way I have done it on this amp first.

I already had on hand Mouser part #526-R14-11D10-12, NTE brand, general purpose relay, 12vdc coil, [email protected] ***Yes I know the circuit breaker is 15amp but the EP1500 power draw is 6.7 amps (I think the EP2500 is still only 9 amps) so the 10 amp rating is fine.***

NOTE.....My trigger source is 12volts DC so you will have to select a relay with the proper coil voltage rating for your trigger source!!

The relay is around $8 USD

Keep in mind my whole goal was to make no permanent alterations to the amp so I cut no wires and drilled no holes.

1.I attached the relay to the rear of the chassis using industrial grade, high temp, hot melt glue.

2. I pulled the power wire leads from the main power switch. It uses simple crimped pressure connectors so just pull them off using pliers to pull the connectors and NOT to pull the wires.

4. Plug these two power wires onto terminals 4 and 6 of the relay. It doest matter what wire order.

5. Solder or use crimp connectors your trigger wires to terminals 7 and 8. Again wire order doesn't matter.

6. At this point I solder a 3.5mm mono headphone jack onto the opposite ends of the trigger wires. This is what my Anthem uses for its trigger plugs so I stayed with it for consistency.

At this point, you are done with the amp itself if you wanted simple on off capabilities.

I need to go look what the part #'s are for the Solid state relays I used with the built in 1.5 sec turn on delay. The install is exactly the same for the solid state relay as for the general purpose relay minus the terminal #'s on the actual relay.

You can leave the power switch hooked up to leave a way to force the amp to the turn on simply by splicing into the two power wire that lead to the switch instead of unplugging them from the power switch.

I can draw up a circuit to allow turn on delay and cool off delay but I need some specifics. How long you want the cool down period to be, if you want the cool down time to be adjustable, and if you simply want the amp to stay on after the source is switched off or are you wanting a fancy circuit to just keep the fan running for a little while after the amp switches off.

Are you guys really seeing problems that are requiring a cool down period for this amp?

 

[ccdoggy]

http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/752201-relay-pwr-dpdt-15a-12vdc-k10p-11d15-12.html

How does this one look? My receiver does 12V out trigger. How do these react to over-amperage short term (for example like a slow blow fuse, not that it would break but short term surges are ok as i plan on maxing out this amp on occasion)

I understand how they work just the number of pins throw me. so a little clarification on where there is 6 pins on that one would be much appreciated.

as far as a delay off it would be nice (more or less) just to let the amp cool down a bit, not that it gets hot at all unless watching war of the worlds or something. just if it was easy with say a capacitor or something in line with the trigger i would be more then up to it. but if its anything more complicated then that then its really not necessary.

thanks for all the help and info.

 

[KDspiv]

That relay looks fine.

As far as over-amperage goes.... In my experience. general purpose, coil triggered relays are usually pretty forgiving for short term power spikes. The typical material the contacts are made from can usually handle short term spikes (within reason) but degrade when heat of constant over current draw occurs.

The DPDT relay contacts will look like the image on the left. DISREGARD THE IMAGE ON THE RIGHT!

Terminals 3&5 and then 4&6 are engaged when voltage is applied across the coil terminals A&B.

Terminals 1&5 and then 2&6 and engage when the voltage is removed from the coil terminals A&B.

So what I usually do is run 120vac power to terminals 4&6 and 12vdc to coil terminals A&B. This turns on the amp power when your Receiver switches on.

Then back in the day I usually ran a separate light like a red LED across terminals across 1&5 that switches on when there is no power switched on at the amp but there is still AC power TO the amp. So if there is no more sound all of the sudden......:yikes: I can look over and see the red light on and know that if I accidentally switched the amp off.

No lights meant I popped a breaker or a power strip. :flex:

And if the amps pilot light was still on but no sound it meant I probably let all of the magic smoke out of a component in the amp!:bigsmile:

 

[Moonfly]

Top job there, and the effectiveness of something as simple as your new face plate is great.

 

[Lonely Raven]

That's some great work right there! And smart thinking with the relay setup. My Monster power conditioner does something like that, but I've been too lazy to set it all up. I just walk up to my gear and click, click, click...just like Wash powering up the Serenity.

 

[ccdoggy]

That's some great work right there! And smart thinking with the relay setup. My Monster power conditioner does something like that, but I've been too lazy to set it all up. I just walk up to my gear and click, click, click...just like Wash powering up the Serenity.

Ya know i do feel pretty cool when people are sitting down and i have to walk up and click on 3 large important looking devices. though when laying in bed i really dont wanna get up to turn everything off.

That mod got me on a tangent and am now thinking of building a 15amp relay into a surge suppressor. Now i understand how it works and what the connections do i feel pretty confident i can build one to plug my ep2500, Art cleanbox, and SVSoundEQ into. dont need any of those devices on when the receiver is off.

Also pretty sure i stripped one of the small heatsink screws on the top of it. so its going to be allot of work to get that off of there.

 

[Reese]

I like the idea of automatically turning on the amp automatically.

Is it possible to do the same thing by connecting the electrical lines from the Behringer to a reciever in such a manner that when you turn on your AV reciever it completes the circuit turning on the amp as well????

 

[brianepatrick68]

With the behringer's power draw I do not think you would want to do that.