Watson A.Name - Watt Sun, Dark Remover wrote:
In article , mentioned...

Watson A.Name - Watt Sun, Dark Remover wrote:

I needed to drop 1V from a 6VDC 200 mA regulated wall wart, so I tried
a 3 amp rectifier, but it varied by more than .2V over a range of
loads. So I tried this: (view with courier font)

+ From
wall
wart --+
|
+---+------+
| |
| |
400 \ / 2SC2334 or TIP31
ohm / |/ NPN power TO-220
WW \-----| Heatsink optional
pot / |\
| E\
| |
| |
+----+-----+
|
|
+------ +
output
to load
- -------------- -
From wall wart

This has some advantages and disadvantages. It's simple and cheap,
and keeps the output at 5V within a tenth of a volt over a current
range. But it has a minimum current below which it loses regulation
and the output starts to go up to 6V, because the transistor is not
conducting and the current is being supplied thru the ww pot. This
circuit is sometimes used in the bias circuit for the output
transistors in high powered amplifiers. Also Win Hill showed us here
how to use a similar circuit to maintain the voltage steady for a
current regulator circuit used on four AA cell rechargeable batteries.

I'm thinking about putting a 5.1V zener on the output so that if the
voltage climbs above that, it just shunts the excess current. Oh,
yeah, I set the pot to various values to see what the output voltage
was with various loads. The two resistances were 120 ohms for the
upper and 280 ohms for the lower. I suppose the 400 ohms total could
be raised to a higher value, but the transistor needs enough base
current to do its job. There's only 1V available minus the .6V E-B
voltage, so even at 400 ohms, that's not a lot of current.



I've tried to do this on numerous occasions. If you need any amount
of current at all, the big lump of stuff makes it too unweildy, even if you
do bite the bullet and put in a complex circuit that works.

Now, for regulated warts, I crack the case and shunt a resistor inside
the wall wart. You can add a switch if you have multiple applications.
If you need both voltages at once, it's still easier to use two
warts than to have this lump of regulator stuff hanging about.

I'm a little confused by your requirements. If you even considered a
diode, you can't be too concerned about the actual voltage...but you're
concerned about the .2V variability. Sounds like there's something
in there that's important but not disclosed???
mike


Well, I started out in this or another thread with a RF modulator that
requires 4.75 to 5.25VDC, probably because it would be off freq if the
supply V got out of tolerance. I talked about the weird connector,
someone said it's a Belling Lee connector, AKA Euro or PAL connector.
Now I now what it is, and I bot an adapter at Rat Shack for four
bucks. But I wanted something simple that I could solder onto the
pins of the RF modulator, I finally resolved the problem by using a 6V
unregulated wall wart, which is more like 7 or 8V, and a 5.1V zener,
and 39 ohm resistor as a shunt regulator. It works just fine. But I
still wanted a way to drop a single volt, with reasonable regulation,
better than a 1N4003 diode which varies by up to a quarter volt. With
a 1N4003 the voltage could be as high as 5.3 or 5.4V.


My mistake. I read the subject line and the first line of the post
and mistakenly concluded that you wanted to use a regulated wall wart.
My baad.
mike