Welcome to this page on how
to build your own simple Voltage regulator for 5 Volts or 12 volts.
Now if
you would like to see the above devises working then visit my You Tube page
here.
1). On this page we
will be looking at why you may want to build your own fixed voltage regulated
power supply for a fixed voltage.
2). The benefits of voltage
regulators is that you may want to build some electronic circuits and you need a
fixed supply of 5 volts or 12 volts using a simple regulator is a good idea.
3). The difference between regulated and
unregulated is say you have a circuit that needs to be powered from 9 or
12 volts with a out put of 5 volts with a regulated power supply it will be 5
volts fixed out put.
4). Now with a unregulated power supply say you
need a 9 or 12 volt supply and your circuit needs 5 volts out put with a
unregulated power supply even so you set the dial, on the power supply to 5
volts it is often more than this and if you use IC Chips most have a max of 6
volts if the voltage on the out put to your circuit is 7 volts then this will
destroy your circuits Micro chips.
5). One way you could look at regulated and
unregulated is like this Regulated is stable with no higher voltages on the
line.
6). The way you could look at Unregulated is that
it is not stable and it can give higher voltages that you don't want in most
cases Digital electronics needs 5 volts this
is very common so we build the regulator circuit in to our design or the
designer may say use a regulated power supply.
7). You may say some thing like use a regulated
power adapter the designer of the circuit may have not built a regulator in to
his design to save cost.
8). Designs that can use unregulated power
supplies are often analog electronics, analog electronics is often things that
don't use micro chips so the voltage does not need to be regulated.
9 ). Now most people
may have come across Voltage regulators in power adapters or bench power supplies
the regulator is used often in electronic designs
to supply a fixed voltage to a circuit.
10 ). Now say your
project tells you to use 9 or 12 volts input most electronic designs that have regulators
will drop the voltage to a fixed level.
11 ). The simple
design below can be used with any 5 volt or 12 volt input devise or you could use it in
your own electronic designs.
12 ). The parts are
off the shelf parts so you should have know problem getting them on Ebay or your
local electronic shops or stores.
Please note if you have any problems then I am happy to help
just send me a e-mail: Anthony@anthony-dacko.net
www.anthony-dacko.net