Lecture # 10 &11

REGULATED POWER SUPPLIES

Prepared by
Engr: Sarfaraz Khan Turk
Lecturer at IBT LUMHS Jamshoro

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 REGULATED POWER SUPPLIES
Key Points from This Presentation:
 Regulator.
 Ideal Power Supply.
 Unregulated Power Supply.
 Regulated Power Supply e.g.(Voltage Regulator)
 Zener Voltage Regulator.
 Emitter Follower Regulator.
 Three terminal voltage Regulator.
 Adjustable Three Terminal Voltage Regulators.

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 REGULATOR
 A regulator is any circuit that maintain s rated output
voltage under all conditions

 Either no load(open circuit)supplying no current or

full load supplying an out put current.

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 IDEAL POWER SUPPLY

 An ideal power supply

maintains a constant voltage at
its output terminals under all
operating conditions. The
output voltage of a practical
power supply changes with load
generally dropping as load
current increases as shown in
fig. 1.

fig. 1
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 IDEAL POWER SUPPLY(CONT)
 The terminal voltage when full load current is drawn is called
full load voltage (VFL). The no load voltage is the terminal
voltage when zero current is drawn from the supply, that is, the
open circuit terminal voltage.

 Power supply performance is measured in terms of percent

voltage regulation, which indicates its ability to maintain a
constant voltage. It is defined as

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 IDEAL POWER SUPPLY(CONT)
 The Thevenin's equivalent circuit of a power supply is
shown in fig. 2. The Thevenin voltage is the no-load
voltage VNL and the Thevenin resistance is called the
output resistance Ro. Let the full load current be IFL.
Therefore, the full load resistance RFL is given by

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 IDEAL POWER SUPPLY(CONT)

The The venin's equivalent circuit of a power supply is

shown in fig. 2. 7
 IDEAL POWER SUPPLY(CONT)

 It is clear that the ideal power supply has zero output

resistance.

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 From the equivalent circuit we have

 And the voltage regulation is given by

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 Example-1
QS A power supply having output resistance 1.5Ω supplies a full load
current of 500mA to a 50Ω load. Determine:
1. percent voltage regulation of the supply
2. no load output voltage.
Answer
• Solution:
• (a). Full load output voltage VFL = (500mA ) (50Ω) = 25V.
• Therefore,

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(b). The no load voltage

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 UNREGULATED POWER SUPPLY
 An unregulated power supply consists of a transformer (step down),
a rectifier and a filter. These power supplies are not good for some
applications where constant voltage is required irrespective of
external disturbances. The main disturbances are:
1. As the load current varies, the output voltage also varies because
of its poor regulation.

2. The dc output voltage varies directly with ac input supply. The

input voltage may vary over a wide range thus dc voltage also
changes.

3. The dc output voltage varies with the temperature if

semiconductor devices are used.
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UNREGULATED POWER SUPPLY (CONT)
 An electronic voltage regulator is essentially a
controller used along with unregulated power supply
to stabilize the output dc voltage against three major
disturbances
1. Load current (IL)
2. Supply voltage (Vi)
3. Temperature (T)
Fig. 3, shows the basic block diagram of voltage
regulator. where
4. Vi = unregulated dc voltage.
5. Vo = regulated dc voltage.
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UNREGULATED POWER SUPPLY (CONT)

Fig. 3, The basic block diagram of voltage regulator.

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UNREGULATED POWER SUPPLY (CONT)
 Since the output dc voltage VLo depends on the input
unregulated dc voltage Vi, load current IL and the
temperature t, then the change ΔVo in output voltage
of a power supply can be expressed as follows

 ∆VO = VO (Vi, IL, T)

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REGULATED POWER SUPPLIES

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 VOLTAGE REGULATOR
 A voltage regulator is a device designed to maintain the
output voltage of power supply nearly constant. It can be
regarded as a closed loop system because it monitors the
output voltage and generates the control signal to
increase or decrease the supply voltage as necessary to
compensate for any change in the output voltage. Thus
the purpose of voltage regulator is to eliminate any
output voltage variation that might occur because of
changes in load, changes in supply voltage or changes in
temperature.

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 ZENER VOLTAGE REGULATOR
 Zener diodes break down at some reverse voltage
 can buy at specific breakdown voltages Vin
 as long as some current goes through zener,
it’ll work
R1
 good for rough regulation
 Conditions for working:
Vout = Vz
 let’s maintain some minimal current, Iz
through zener (say a few mA)
Rload
 then (Vin  Vout)/R1 = Iz + Vout/Rload sets the Z
requirement on R1
 because presumably all else is known
 if load current increases too much, zener
shuts off (node drops below breakdown) and
you just have a voltage divider with the load.

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 ZENER VOLTAGE REGULATOR(CONT)
 The regulated power supply
may use zener diode as the
voltage controlling device as
shown in fig. 4. The output
voltage is determined by the
reverse breakdown voltage
of the zener diode. This is
nearly constant for a wide
range of currents. The load
voltage can be maintained high slope is what makes the
constant by controlling the zener a decent voltage regulator
current through zener.
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 ZENER VOLTAGE REGULATOR(CONT)

fig. 4
The zener diode regulator has limitations of range. The load
current range for which regulation is maintained, is the difference
between maximum allowable zener current and minimum current
required for the zener to operate in breakdown region.
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 ZENER VOLTAGE REGULATOR(CONT)
 For example, if zener diode requires a minimum
current of 10 mA and is limi­ted to a maximum of 1A
(to prevent excessive dissipation), the range is 1 -
0.01 = 0.99A. If the load current variation exceeds
0.99A, regulation may be lost.

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 IMPROVED ZENER REGULATOR
 By adding a transistor to the zener regulator
from before, we no longer have to worry as Vin Vin
much about the current being pulled away
from the zener to the load
Rz
– the base current is small
– Rload effectively looks  times bigger
– real current supplied through transistor Vz

 Can often find zeners at 5.6 V, 9.6 V, 12.6 V,

Vreg
15.6 V, etc. because drop from base to emitter
Z
is about 0.6 V so transistor-buffered Vreg
Rload
comes out to 5.0, 9.0, etc.
 Iz varies less in this arrangement, so the
regulated voltage is steadier

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 EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR
 To obtain better voltage regulation in shunt regulator,
the zener diode can be connected to the base circuit of
a power transistor as shown in fig. 5. This amplifies
the zener current range. It is also known as emitter
follower regulation.

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EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)

fig. 5 The Basic Emitter Follower Regulator

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 EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)
 This configuration reduces the current flow in the diode.
The power transistor used in this configuration is known
as pass transistor. The purpose of CL is to ensure that the
variations in one of the regulated power supply loads
will not be fed to other loads. That is, the capacitor
effectively shorts out high-frequency variations Because
of the current amplifying property of the transistor, the
current in the zenor dioide is small. Hence there is little
voltage drop across the diode resistance, and the zener
approximates an ideal constant voltage source.

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EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)
Operation of the circuit:
 The current through resistor R is the sum of zener current
IZ and the transistor base current
 IB ( = IL / β ).
 I L = IZ + IB
 The output voltage across RL resistance is given by
 VO = VZ – VBE
 Where VBE » 0.7 V
 Therefore, VO= constant.
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 EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR (CONT)
 The emitter current is same as load current. The current I R is
assumed to be constant for a given supply voltage. Therefore,
if IL increases, it needs more base currents, to increase base
current Iz decreases. The difference in this regulator with zener
regulator is that in later case the zener current decreases
(increase) by same amount by which the load current increases
(decreases). Thus the current range is less, while in the shunt
regulators, if IL increases by ΔIL then IB should increase by ΔIL
/ β or IZ should decrease by ΔIL / β. Therefore the current
range control is more for the same rating zener.
The simplified circuit of the shunt regulator is shown in fig. 6
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EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)

fig. 6 The simplified circuit of the shunt regulator

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 EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)
 In a power supply the power regulation is basically, because of its
high internal impedance. In the circuit discussed, the unregulated
supply has resistance RS of the order of 100 ohm. The use of
emitter follower is to reduce the output resistance and it becomes
approximately.
RO = ( Rz + hie ) / (1 + hfe)
 Where RZ represents the dynamic zener resistance. The voltage
stabilization ratio SV is approximately
SV = ∂ Vo / ∂ VI = Rz / (Rz + R)
 SV can be improved by increasing R. This increases VCE and power
dissipated in the transistor

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EMITTER FOLLOWER REGULATOR(CONT)
Disadvantages of the circuit are.

1. No provision for varying the output voltage since it

is almost equal to the zener voltage.

2. Change in VBE and Vz due to temperature variations

appear at the output since the transistor is connected
in series with load, it is called series regulator and
transistor is allow series pass transistor.

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 THREE TERMINAL REGULATORS

POSITIVE fixed regulator NEGATIVE fixed regulator

 DC power regulators are readily available, both fixed voltage and variable
voltage types, and for either positive or negative power supplies.

 These regulators need decoupling capacitors located close to the devices.

 Low, medium and high power versions are available.

Note that a negative power supply can be made with a positive regulator chip, so
long as decoupling is carefully considered 31
 THREE TERMINAL REGULATORS(CONT)
 The most common voltage regulators are the LM78XX (+ voltages) and
LM79XX ( voltages)
– XX represents the voltage
• 7815 is +15; 7915 is 15; 7805 is +5, etc
– typically needs input > 3 volts above output (reg.) voltage

beware that housing is not always ground

 A versatile regulator is the LM317 (+) or LM337 ()
– 1.2–37 V output
– Vout = 1.25(1+R2/R1) + IadjR2
– Up to 1.5 A
– picture at right can go to 25 V
– datasheetcatalog.com for details

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 THE THREE TERMINAL VOLTAGE REGULATOR IC
note zeners

 Can trim down ripply voltage to

precise, rock-steady value
 Now things get complicated!
– We are now in the realm of
integrated circuits (ICs)
 ICs are whole circuits in small
packages.
 ICs contain resistors, capacitors,
diodes, transistors, etc.

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THREE TERMINAL REGULATORS (CONT)

The output voltage from a three terminal regulator can be increased by the
circuit shown above. Supposing you want an 8V supply, but only have 5V
regulators to use.

In this case, make the Zener diode 3.3V (nearest preferred value) and run it at a
current of around 5mA via R (the regulator chip requires around 0.5mA) so R =
5V/5.5mA = 909 Ohm. Here a 1k resistor will work just as well (the Zener
current will then be around 4.5mA). Don’t forget Cin and Cout 34
 ADJUSTABLE THREE TERMINAL REGULATORS

POSITIVE variable regulator NEGATIVE variable regulator

These regulators function by maintaining a fixed level of 1.25V between the OUT and ADJ
terminals and by ensuring that the current drawn by the ADJ terminal is very small.
Provided the current through the potential divider from the output to the ground rail is large
compared to the ADJ terminal, then the regulated output voltage is set by the resistors used
for the potential divider. The recommended maximum resistor value between the ADJ
terminal and the OUT terminal is 240W for the positive version (220W is OK) and 120W
for the negative version.

You want +12V out. R1 = 220W, so current through R1 = 1.25V/220W = 5.68mA

V across R2 is 12V – 1.25V = 10.75V, so R2 = 10.75V/5.68mA = 1.892KW which could be
1.8kW + 100W = 1.9kW. This will give an output of 10.792V + 1.25V = 12.042V.
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For student references:

 Chapter 17 Regulated Power Supplies (17.1) (17.1.1)(17.1.3)(17.1.4)

(17.3.1)(17.3.2) from the book Electronic devices, circuit and systems
(Micheal M cirovic)

 Chapter 21discrete & integrated voltage regulators (21.1) (21.2)(21.3)(21.4)

from the book introductory electronic devices and circuits by author
(Robert T .paynter).

 Wikipedia and world wide web

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