Creating a DC Power supply

  

Faculty of engineering, Alexandria university

Ahmed Amr Mah. Farid Electrical and Electronic Communications Dept. 3rd year Nov 2003

Ahmedooka@hotmail.com Ahmedooka@hotmail.com

Creating a 5 VDC power supply

I] AC to DC transformation:
In order to transform an AC supply (residential supply) into a DC supply (constant), there are many steps to turn an AC sinusoidal 220 Volts source into a DC source with the most common DC levels (3 5 9 12). First, the 220 Volts is not appropriate to operate on our simple electronic stuff, also, a 220 Volts AC or DC source is dangerous and need high care when using. So we must use a step-down transformer. The step down transformer is mostly a center-tap 220~12-0-12. This means that from one terminal to the other, we have 24 AC voltage. From one terminal to a center-tap, we have 12 AC volt. The voltage still has the same alternating nature but with a much lower peak. Now if we apply this voltage on a bridge rectifier. The bridge is nothing but a combination of four diodes, used to reflect the negative part of the sine wave into a positive part. In other words, if the input of the bridge is Sin (X) the output is |Sin(X)|. One can buy a small 4 terminal IC bridge, but I still enjoy making it with the four diodes.

II] Higher DC quality:

(a) Filtering Capacitor: The output of the bridge is assumed to be DC. But this is a very low quality DC source, since it changes its value from zero to the peak voltage. As we want the DC source to have a more stable nature, the first approach is to use a high capacitance capacitor. The capacitor will charge during the positive half cycle, once the voltage starts to fall, the capacitor tries to follow the

instantaneous change but with a much slower rate since it take more time to discharge the stored charges. This will result in a more stable DC signal equal to the peak voltage Vpeak. The recommended capacitor value is 2200 F 16 Volts or more if possible.

(b)

Zener diode: now what if we want to get another voltage level, say, 5 volts? If you measure the voltage after the capacitor, it will be more than 15 volts if you were to use 220~12 transformer. The idea is to use a zener diode. A diode allows the current to pass in one and only one direction. If the voltage is reversed, it acts like an open circuit passing a very small reverse current that is approximately zero. A zener diode act in a much similar way, but, if the reverse voltage become more than a certain value, it breaks down, like a wall that falls, letting the current flow. Hence, using a 5.1 zener diode will make the output voltage stable at 5.1 volts for a certain range of current. Note that one should use a resistance in series with the zener to handle the voltage difference between the supply and the zener. A disadvantage using this method is the loading effect, i.e., the dependence of the currents and voltages on the load.

(c)

Voltage regulators: the voltage regulators are now the most used for many reasons among which, the high stability at high currents, the PURE ripple free DC output The most used voltage regulators are the 78xx and 79xx. Lets take a look at what this stands for. 78 means that it gives positive DC output; xx is the value of the output voltage. Example: 7805 5-0 volts. 7812 12-0 volts. Now for the 79xx, it is the same. 79 mean it gives negative voltage, and xx is the value of that voltage. Example: 7905 0- (-5) volts. 7912 0 (-12) volts. The data sheets for the 78xx series and the 79xx series are available here:

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/ua7805.html [78xx description] http://www-s.ti.com/sc/ds/ua7805.pdf [78xx data sheet] http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/mc79l12.html [79xx description] http://www-s.ti.com/sc/ds/mc79l12.pdf [79xx data sheet] Note that there is a maximum current that can flow through each component. You should never try to sink more current than any component can handle. You should design your supply so that it does not supply more current than the least element in your circuit can handle. A good protection is to use an appropriate fuse at the output of the bridge for example or right after the transformer. The fuse will protect all the element that come after it in case the fault occurs there.

III] The most common circuit:

Now we want to create the 5VDC supply. The main source is the 220 VAC residential supply. For step is to lower the voltage level down to 12 VAC using a step-down transformer. Then the bridge rectifies the alternating input into a fullrectified wave. One can buy a simple DC adapter for about 10 LE. It is a better idea since only the transformer costs 6~9 LE. Also it gives capability of lower quality DC values (1.5,3,4.512). This replaces the transformer, the bridge, and the capacitor. But you should take good care of the polarity: there is a switch to reverse the polarity, so it is a good idea to put a diode at the input of the next stage to make sure the current will pass in the correct direction. The first capacitor is needed to stabilize the voltage to its peak (more than 12 VDC). The 7805 then makes the voltage highly stable at 5.0 Volts. The last capacitor is not necessary but it helps suppressing the noise and for sudden loading.

"

Here is the circuit:

Notes:
Remember that when u are powering more than a circuit, the ground should be the same for all the circuits. This will make infinite problems. TRUST me the first time it took me days of inspection, rebuilding the circuit from scratch etc. The value of the voltage output from the step-down transformer is 12 Vrms (Root Mean Square) which is related to the peak voltage and the average voltage ( DC ) with the relation: Vpeak = Vrms * 2 Vdc = Vaverage = 0.318 Vpeak

The capacitor discharge follows the formula: Where R is the resistance parallel to the capacitor and C is the capacitor capacitance. A higher capacitance ( 2200 F ) will keep the time constant relatively high even if a small load ( small resistance ) is connected. In the case of using a zener diode, one should choose the resistance R. properly. We should calculate the resistance in ohm and the power rating in watts. R = ( Vpeak Vf ) / I if we use a 1Kohm resistance, I will have to be 7mA.

Vout (t ) = e t / RC

&

1 Vav = V (t )dt T 0

'

Vrms

1 = V 2 (t )dt T 0

P = V * I = 7 * 7 = 49 mWatts. Note that this is a power loss, another disadvantage of using the zener diode approach. Here are some ratings of some of the circuit elements: Diodes:
diode Peak reverse voltage (volt) Average rectified forward current (ampere) Maximum forward voltage drop (volt) Maximum average reverse current ( A)

1.1 maximum

Voltage regulators:
Regulator Nominal voltage 5.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 15.0 24.0 output current Typical 7805 7905* 7808 7908* 7810 7910* 7812 7912* 7815 7915* 7824 7924* Max Recommended Input voltage Min max 7 25 10.5 25 12.5 28 14.5 30 17.5 30 27 38 Operating temperature Typical lead 260o at 1.6mm for 10 seconds

1.5 A

2.5 A

0-120 150max

* for 79xx please refer to data sheet for accurate values.

For any questions or help about this subject, mail me. If you find an error or have a comment, dont hesistate Ahmedooka@hotmail.com Ahmed Amr

1N4001 1N4002 1N4003 1N4004 1N4005 1N4006 1N4007

50 100 200 400 600 800 1000

1.0

0.93 typical

30 A