POWER SUPPLY FILTERS AND REGULATORS

A power supply filter ideally eliminates the fluctuations in the output voltage of a halfwave or full-
wave rectifier and produces a constant-level dc voltage. Filtering is necessary because electronic
circuits require a constant source of dc voltage and current to provide power and biasing for proper
operation. Filters are implemented with capacitors, as you will see in this section. Voltage
regulation in power supplies is usually done with integrated circuit voltage regulators. A voltage
regulator prevents changes inthe filtered dc voltage due to variations in input voltage or load.

In most power supply applications, the standard 60 Hz ac power line voltage must be converted to
an approximately constant dc voltage. The 60 Hz pulsating dc output of a half-wave rectifier or the
120 Hz pulsating output of a full-wave rectifier must be filtered to reduce the large voltage
variations. The figure below illustrates the filtering concept showing a nearly smooth dc output
voltage from the filter. The small amount of fluctuation in the filter output voltage is called ripple.

Capacitor-Input Filter

A half-wave rectifier with a capacitor-input filter is shown in the figure below. The filter is simply a
capacitor connected from the rectifier output to ground. RL represents the equivalent resistance of a
load. We will use the half-wave rectifier to illustrate the basic principle and then expand the concept
to full-wave rectification. During the positive first quarter-cycle of the input, the diode is forward-
biased, allowing the capacitor to charge to within 0.7 V of the input peak, as illustrated in the figure
below. When the input begins to decrease below its peak, as shown in part (b), the capacitor retains
its charge and the diode becomes reverse-biased because the cathode is more positive than the
anode. During the remaining part of the cycle, the capacitor can discharge only through the load
resistance at a rate determined by the RLC time constant, which is normally long compared to the
period of the input. The larger the time constant, the less the capacitor will discharge. During the
first quarter of the next cycle, as illustrated in part (c), the diode will again become forward-biased
when the input voltage exceeds the capacitor voltage by approximately 0.7V.

Operation of a half-wave rectifier with a capacitor-input filter.

The current indicates charging or discharging of the capacitor is as seen below

Ripple Voltage

As you have seen, the capacitor quickly charges at the beginning of a cycle and slowly discharges
through RL after the positive peak of the input voltage (when the diode is reverse-biased). The
variation in the capacitor voltage due to the charging and discharging is called the ripple voltage.
Generally, ripple is undesirable; thus, the smaller the ripple, the better the filtering action, as
illustrated in Figure below
For a given input frequency, the output frequency of a full-wave rectifier is twice that of a half-
wave rectifier, as illustrated in the figure below. This makes a full-wave rectifier easier to filter
because of the shorter time between peaks. When filtered, the full-wave rectified voltage has a
smaller ripple than does a half-wave voltage for the same load resistance and capacitor values. The
capacitor discharges less during the shorter interval between full wave pulses, as shown in Figure
below.

Ripple Factor

The ripple factor (r) is an indication of the effectiveness of the filter and

is defined as

where Vr( pp) is the peak-to-peak ripple voltage and VDC is the dc (average) value of the filter’s
output voltage, as illustrated in Figure below. The lower the ripple factor, the better the filter. The
ripple factor can be lowered by increasing the value of the filter capacitor or increasing the load
resistance.

For a full-wave rectifier with a capacitor-input filter, approximations for the peak-to-peak ripple
voltage, Vr(pp), and the dc value of the filter output voltage, VDC, are given in the following
equations. The variable Vp(rect) is the unfiltered peak rectified voltage. Notice that if RL or C
increases, the ripple voltage decreases and the dc voltage increases.

Example

Determine the ripple factor for the filtered bridge rectifier with a load as indicated in Figure below

Solution
Surge Current in the Capacitor-Input Filter

Before the switch in Figure bellow is closed, the filter capacitor is uncharged. At the instant the
switch is closed, voltage is connected to the bridge and the uncharged capacitor appears as a short,
as shown. This produces an initial surge of current, Isurge, through the two forward-biased diodes
D1 and D2. The worst-case situation occurs when the switch is closed at a peak of the secondary
voltage and a maximum surge current, Isurge(max), is produced, as illustrated in the figure.

In dc power supplies, a fuse is always placed in the primary circuit of the transformer, as shown in
Figure above. A slow-blow type fuse is generally used because of the surge current that initially
occurs when power is first turned on. The fuse rating is determined by calculating the power in the
power supply load, which is the output power. Since Pin = Pout in an ideal transformer, the primary
current can be calculated as

Voltage Regulators

While filters can reduce the ripple from power supplies to a low value, the most effective ap-proach
is a combination of a capacitor-input filter used with a voltage regulator. A voltage regulator is
connected to the output of a filtered rectifier and maintains a constant output volt-age (or current)
despite changes in the input, the load current, or the temperature. The capacitor-input filter reduces
the input ripple to the regulator to an acceptable level. The combination of a large capacitor and a
voltage regulator helps produce an excellent power supply.

Most regulators are integrated circuits and have three terminals—an input terminal, an output
terminal, and a reference (or adjust) terminal. The input to the regulator is first filtered with a
capacitor to reduce the ripple to The regulator reduces the ripple to a negligible amount. In addition,
most regulators have an internal voltage reference, short-circuit protection, and thermal shutdown
circuitry.

Three-terminal regulators designed for fixed output voltages require only external capacitors to
complete the regulation portion of the power supply, as shown in Figure below. Filtering is
accomplished by a large-value capacitor between the input voltage and ground. An output capacitor
(typically 0.1µF to 1.0µF ) is connected from the output to ground to improve the transient response

A basic fixed power supply with a +5 V voltage regulator is shown in Figure below
Percent Regulation

The regulation expressed as a percentage is a figure of merit used to specify the performance of a
voltage regulator. It can be in terms of input (line) regulation or load regulation. Line Regulation
The line regulation specifies how much change occurs in the output voltage for a given change in
the input voltage. It is typically defined as a ratio of a change in output voltage for a corresponding
change in the input voltage expressed as a percentage.

Load Regulation The load regulation specifies how much change occurs in the output voltage over a
certain range of load current values, usually from minimum current (no load, NL) to maximum
current (full load, FL). It is normally expressed as a percentage and can be calculated with the
following formula:

where VNL is the output voltage with no load and VFL is the output voltage with full (maximum)
load.

Example

A certain 7805 regulator has a measured no-load output voltage of 5.18 V and a full-load output of
5.15 V. What is the load regulation expressed as a percentage?