Article no.

1: 5V Power Supply

How to Construct a Simple 5V DC Power Supply
Edited by Neil, Dave Crosby, Tom Viren, Harold R and 7 others
For the electronics enthusiast, having a 5 volt DC power supply around in your workspace can be very useful. Many op
amps, micro controllers, and other digital ICs {integrated circuits} run off 5 volts (although most now take a range of 3-
15 volts) . Here is how to build a very simple 5 volt DC power supply that can deliver up to 1.5A of current. You will need
to solder together the various components.

1. Consider one wire from the AC adapter the positive terminal. Consider the otherwire ground. At this point it does
not matter which one you choose to be positive or ground, but remember which is which from now on.
2. Connect the positive wire from the AC adapter to the side of the diode without the stripe marking on it. You are
connecting the positive wire to the anode of the diode where current will flow through the diode in only one way to
charge the capacitor you will connect later.
3. Locate the lead on the side of the capacitor that has a stripe. Usually this stripe is white and has a minus sign on it.
This is the negative side, which you should connect to the ground terminal of the AC adapter.
4. Connect the remaining terminal of the capacitor to the terminal of the diode with the stripe. That is, connect the
positive terminal of the capacitor to the cathode of the diode. The diode allows the current from the transformer to
charge the capacitor while stopping the capacitor from discharging back through the transformer on the negative cycle.
5. Connect Pin 1 of the voltage regulator IC to the node where the positive side of the capacitor and striped side of the
diode connect. Pin 2 is the ground reference, also called the "common", and should be connected to the ground wire of
the AC adapter. Pin 3 is the output. There will be 5 volts held between Pin 3 and ground.
Reference: http://www.wikihow.com/Construct-a-Simple-5V-DC-Power-Supply










Article no.2: Power Supply
Most of the circuits need a smooth DC power supply in order to function correctly. Some other circuits,
particularly those using digital ICs, also need their power supply to be regulated. In this article and the
articles that follow in this series you will learn the meaning of terms such as ' smoothing' and 'regulation'
and find out how to build a simple power supply for your circuits.
What is AC and DC?
A representation of an Alternating Current (AC) supply is shown in figure 1. The voltage (and current)
alternates between positive and negative over time and the resulting waveform shape is a sine
wave. In the case of the UK mains supply, the frequency of this sine wave is 50Hz, or 50 cycles per
second.

A Direct Current (DC) supply, shown in figure 2, stays at a fixed, regular, voltage all of the time, like the
voltage from a battery. A DC supply is needed by most circuits as a constant reference voltage. Also,
some components would be damaged by the negative half-cycles of an AC supply.






The Parts of a Power Supply
Figure 3 shows a block diagram of a power supply system which converts a 230V AC mains supply
(230V is the UK mains voltage) into a regulated 5V DC supply.

A simple power supply circuit that includes each of these blocks in given in figure 4. The following
articles in this series look at each block of the power supply in detail, but if you just want to build a 5V
regulated power supply without understanding how it works, you can follow the instructions later in this
article.


Related Articles

The Transformer - Part 2 of this series




The Rectifier - Part 3 of this series




Smoothing - Part 4 of this series




The Regulator - Part 5 of this series





Building the 5V Regulated Power Supply
Figure 5 gives a stripboard layout for the 5V regulated power supply shown in figure 4. The layout does
not include the transformer block, so the input to the board needs to be 7 - 35V AC from a suitable
transformer. The layout includes space for two optional 2-way screw terminal blocks to make
connecting up the power supply easier.
If the input voltage is 9V AC, you will be able to draw 1A from the power supply. For the maximum
input voltage of 35V you will be able to draw 0.1A.

Reference: http://www.eleinmec.com/article.asp?16














Article no.3: Building simple DC power supply
Build a Simple DC Power Supply
Or at least understand what's happening when you use one.
By
Vin Marshall
Posted 02.02.2010 at 3:33 pm 7 Comments

98

A Simple Power Supply

There are more efficient and complex power supplies in the world. There are easier ways to get a simple power supply like this one (re-
using a wall-wart, for instance). But if you make a power supply like this at least once in your life, you will have a much better
understanding of how alternating current becomes regulated DC power. There will be many other power supplies like it, but this one will
be yours.
A power supply, as we'll be referring to it here, converts alternating current from the outlet on the wall into direct current. There are
several ways to do this. We are going to look at one of the simplest, but also most illustrative.
Electricity passes through several stages in a voltage regulator type power supply like this one, or like the common wall -wart. The ways
in which it is altered by each stage are explained below. The next time you use a wall-wart to power one of your projects, you will
understand what is happening inside.
The Theory:
AC Input: Coming from the wall, the AC alternates from a minimum to a maximum voltage at a frequency of 60Hz (in the US and other
60Hz countries). That is what powers all of the ACappliances in your house and shop, and it looks like the following graph. After the
transformer, the graph is similar, except the sine wave has a smaller amplitude.

AC Power Graph
Vin Marshall
Rectification: The first stage of this power supply is a rectifier. The rectifier is an arrangement of diodes that only allows current to flow
in one direction. Think of a one way check valve for water. Because of the arrangement of diodes in the full wave rectifier used in this
design, the positive part of the AC signal passes unimpeded and the negative part of the AC signal is actually inverted and added back
into the output signal from the rectifier. Now our signal looks like this:

AC Power Rectified Graph
Vin Marshall
Smoothing: Now we have at least consistently positive voltage levels, but they still dip down to zero 120 times per second. A large
capacitor, which can be thought of like a battery over very short time periods, is installed across the circuit to even out these rapid
fluctuations in power. The capacitor charges when the voltage is high and discharges as the voltage is low. With the help of the
capacitor, the voltage curve looks like this:

AC Power Smoothed Graph
Vin Marshall
Regulation: At this point, we use an integrated circuit to consistently regulate the voltage to exactly the desired level. It is important in
sizing the components for all of the previous stages to drive this IC with a voltage level sufficiently higher than the regulated voltage
such that the remaining dips 120 times per second will not drop below the required minimum input value. However, you do not want to
drive it with too high a voltage, as that excess power will be dissipated as heat. The voltage curve at this point is (ideall y) a DC signal at
the desired voltage; a horizontal line.

DC Power Graph
Vin Marshall
The Parts:
To build this specific power supply, you will need the following.
Power cord. There must be one lying around somewhere...
SPST 120V toggle switch
Panel mount 120V neon lamp
3x Binding Posts
Transformer with an input voltage of 120V and an output voltage around 24V to keep the Vin for the 7812 regulator above the
minimum. I used a Radio Shack p/n 273-1512.
Full-wave bridge rectifier
6800 uF Capacitor
2x 100nF (exact value is not crucial) capacitors
2x 1 uF (exact value is not crucial) capacitors
7805 5V Voltage Regulator
7812 12V Voltage Regulator
The Build:
The construction of the power supply is quite simple. I built this power supply many years ago and used point to point wiring on a perf
board to build it. There are many cleaner ways to build it than this, and I encourage you to pursue one of them. However, thi s works just
fine as is. In building this power supply, it would be wise to attach a heat sink of some kind to the 78xx voltage regulators. This design
can quite easily be modified to provide an adjustable voltage output by using a LM317 voltage regulator in place of or in addition to the
voltage regulators specified. By grounding the center tap of the transformer secondary (assuming you have a transformer with a center
tap), taking positive and negative leads from the bridge rectifier, and using the LM79xx and/or LM337 series of negative voltage
regulators, your power supply can supply regulated negative voltages as well.