> > Thanks for the help so far. I made a little test and turned my lab
> > power supply to 5.5V and went up to 9V like the 6V rated spare wall
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> Bye.
> Jasen

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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
>>>Thanks for the help so far. I made a little test and turned my lab
>>>power supply to 5.5V and went up to 9V like the 6V rated spare wall
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
> small unregulated supply at 9 volts no load will sag below the required
> voltage, and the output voltage will drop below what you need.
I once mightily p!ssed off the Principal of a well known Electronics
College by proving that his first term class project *could* *NOT* meet
the specification of 5V @ 1A using a 'vanilla' 7805 and the supplied
6.3V transformer. He tried to get out of the hole by throwing more
reservoir capacitance at it, but I was able to show by a graphical
construction that the reservoir capacitance required was ridiculously
large.
By this time, we had attracted an interested audience of the college lab
technician and the instructors for the digital and analog modules (and a
decidedly bored audience of the other students in the class). An
attempt to demonstrate that the supply did in fact work as designed
failed miserably when the current reached about 200 mA with a slight
voltage droop which when I insisted a scope was used, proved to be the
regulator dropping out and following the bottom of the ripple.
I pointed out that if he really wanted to meet the spec, He'd need 78S05
regulators, a mimimum of 8 V rms transformers and heatsinks. Since he'd
bulk ordered the parts this did *not* go down well. It turned out that
previous classes had 'cooked' their lab reports. As a face-saving
compromise, and knowing that we were supposed to be using these PSUs for
our digital labwork, I suggested derating the supplies to 500 mA and
fitting a much larger reservoir capacitor.
Next week, the lab notes had the title "A 5 V, 500 mA Regulated Power
Supply" and the larger caps had been purchaced :-) The Lab tech and
myself got the assignment of upgrading the class set of these PSUs that
got used by the 'foundation' course. We were both amused that a
professional engineer could make such a goof on regulator headroom and
basic PSU design and I remained close friends with the tech till his
death a few years ago.
The moral of the story? Even with a humble 78xx series regulator *LOOK*
at the data sheet at least once in your career and preferably again
before designing it in to anything that isn't a one off project. And
*DONT* embarrass the head honcho in public unless you *enjoy* doing
scutwork . . .

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Michael A. Terrell - 31 Dec 2006 01:32 GMT
> >>>Thanks for the help so far. I made a little test and turned my lab
> >>>power supply to 5.5V and went up to 9V like the 6V rated spare wall
[quoted text clipped - 67 lines]
> *DONT* embarrass the head honcho in public unless you *enjoy* doing
> scutwork . . .
That is because you think too small. ;-)
I had a Captain in the US Army who was running around the base
telling everyone that it was "Impossible" to convert our B&W TV station
to color without replacing everything, including the tower. he was the
Base Information Officer, and ranthe base newspaper. he was connstantly
sticking his nose into the TV section, and trying to tell the engineers
how to do their jobs.
After a week of hearing his "No color" crap, I borrowed a color bar
generator from another engineer and transmitted our new station ID in
color at the start of our live 6:00 PM newscast to be sure that a lot of
people would see it.
He was really pissed off. He was screaming that I had made a fool out
of him, in front of the whole base. I smiled and said, Sir, You always
bragged about being a self made man, then reminded him that he was
tresspassing, and I could have him arrested for interfering with my
duty. As he left he infomed me that he was calling the USARAL General.
I don't know what the General told him, but I never saw him in the
Transmitter / Control room again.* He would just go to his end of the
building to cut & paste the layout for our base newspaper every week.

Signature
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
>> or a 7805-based 5V one rated for a little more current than you need
>> and bootstrap it by putting a 1n914 in series with the gournd leg of
>> the 7805. (result about 5.6V)
>>
>> either way should beat the specifications of your original...
> The 7805 needs TWO volts more at the input than the output voltage. A
> small unregulated supply at 9 volts no load will sag below the required
> voltage, and the output voltage will drop below what you need.
That's why I mentioned excess current cabality, less sag.
in any case, given the regulation of his original a little sag is
unlikely to be a problem.
Bye.
Jasen
Michael A. Terrell - 31 Dec 2006 01:33 GMT
> >> or a 7805-based 5V one rated for a little more current than you need
> >> and bootstrap it by putting a 1n914 in series with the gournd leg of
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> in any case, given the regulation of his original a little sag is
> unlikely to be a problem.
A couple volts is "A little sag"?

Signature
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida