Pump up the volume with this 20W stereo amplifier! This slim little board has a class D amplifier onboard that can drive 2 channels of 4-8 ohm impedance speakers at 20W each. Power it with 5-12VDC using the onboard DC power jack and plug the stereo line level into the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and jam out with ease. Since it's class D, it's completely cool-running, no heat sinks are required and it's extremely efficient - up to 93% efficiency makes it great for portable or battery-powered rigs.
We like the MAX9744 amplifier at the heart of this board because it is very easy to use and hasboth analogue and digitalvolume control capabilities. Use a single 1KΩ pot (we include one) to adjust the volume analogue style. Or hook it up to your favourite microcontroller and send I2C commands to set 64 steps of volume amplification.
Some great stats about the MAX9744:
Power from 4.5V-14V DC voltage
Up to 93% efficient (88-93% typical)
20mA quiescent current (or put into shutdown for 1uA quiescent)
Up to 29.5dB max gain
Use DC or AC coupled line-level input, up to 3Vpp
Filterless Spread-Spectrum Modulation Lowers Radiated RF Emissions from Speaker Cables
20W Stereo Output (4Ω, VDD = 12V, THD+N = 10%)
Low 0.04% THD+N
Integrated Click-and-Pop Suppression
Short-circuit and Thermal-Overload Protection
We took this lovely chip and wrapped it up into a breakout for you, with polarity protection, jacks and terminal blocks, i2c level shifting, and a spot to solder in a volume pot.
Each order comes with one MAX9744 breakout board with all surface-mount parts fully assembled and tested. We also include 3 x 2pin and 1 x 3pin terminal blocks, a 470uF power filter capacitor and a 1KΩ trim pot. To use this board, a little soldering is required to attach the terminal blocks and other components, but it's fairly easy and expect it should take less than 15 minutes.Check out our detailed tutorial for assembly instructions and overall usage
Note: The terminal blocks included with your product may be blue or black.
Revision History
As of August 23, 2024– we've updated this PCB with Adafruit Pinguin to make a lovely and legible silkscreen - you may get the new PCB or the older version with vector fonts - both are identical other than the fancy silkscreen.
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