Voltage Regulation in Electronic Circuit : Theory For Arduino

In Twefthfth grade of science, we have not read electronic way of Voltage Regulation. Voltage Regulation in electronic in Electronic Circuit is an Important Topic For the DIY Electronic Enthusiasts Including Those Who Are Working With Arduino.

Voltage regulator is a circuit or component which keeps the output voltage constant if there is a change in input voltage, load current or temperature. Usually the input unregulated DC voltage pulsating ripple. We can obtain a constant DC voltage in many ways. Regulation is important to certain electronic components in the circuit. A voltage regulator may have a simple feed-forward design or include negative feedback, may use an electromechanical mechanism, or use basic electronic components. They provide very high degrees of regulation and low levels of ripple. Their levels of efficiency is much lower than another popular form of regulator called the switch mode regulator.

Voltage Regulation in Electronic Circuit

Voltage regulators commonly used in electronic circuits. It is possible to make voltage regulator circuits from both basic electronic components as well we can use IC regulators. IC regulators give high levels of performance using comparatively few components. From theoretical point, these are factors which affect the load voltage in a power supply :

1. Load current (IL)
2. Line voltage
3. Temperature

The performance of the overall power supply is judged by specifying some parameters called as performance parameters :

1. Line regulation
2. Load regulation
3. Voltage stability factor (SV)
4. Temperature stability factor (ST)
5. Ripple rejection (RR)

When we are using semiconductor devices like diodes, the output voltage is a temperature dependent. Temperature stability factor (ST) must be as small as possible and near zero for a power supply.

Types of voltage regulators:

1. Series regulator circuit
2. Parallel or shunt regulator circuit

Above classification is basic and all regulators will fall in either of them. For mode of operation, we divide in to :

• Linear voltage regulator
• Switching voltage regulator

Now we can also divide them in to Zener diode based regulators, Transistor based regulator etc.

Voltage Regulation With IC in Electronic Circuit

In our previously published another article, we discussed about using capacitor in electronic circuit. These kind of easy theory mixed practical articles probably suitable for the newbies to get an idea. There is an example usage :

One variant of the linear regulator called Low Drop Out (LDO). These are designed to operate with an input voltage much closer to the output voltage and suitable for filtering ripple. LP2985 LDO is a popular LDO for low current applications and great for Arduino circuits for the beginners. It is important to use a multimeter to measure the input and output voltage, current etc. If we web search with “3.3 V LDO Voltage Regulator”, we will get some result for 3.3 V range.

7806 IC is fixed linear voltage regulator – it maintains the output voltage at a constant value where input may vary within a range. 7806 provide +6V regulated power supply where input can be 5V to 18V. If we search with “3.3 V fixed linear voltage regulator IC”, then we will get some result for 3.3v range.

The above is very basic but easiest way to explain a beginner.