Power Supplies

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\| Elements of a Power Supply \| Basic Rectifier Circuits \| Filters \| Regulators \| Why Use Alternating Current? \| Voltage Multipliers \|

Power Supplies

Any electrical circuit requires power to do anything. You can use a battery, of course, but those need to be replaced periodically. A practical alternative is to use an additional, very specialized circuit whose job is to provide power to everything else.

Elements of a Power Supply: A traditional power supply has three basic sections. Here we identify them and what they do.
Basic Rectifier Circuits: Even the individual sections of a power supply can have variations, so long as they do the job. Here are the basic rectifier circuits.
Filters: We've looked at filters in an ac setting. For a power supply, we need a low-pass filter that won't quit: something that will remove all variations and leave only clean dc going out. Here's how we approach that ideal.
Regulators: In many cases we need an accurate power supply voltage, or better output voltage smoothing than a simple filter can provide. In such cases we can add an extra circuit or device after the filter, to more closely regulate the output voltage.
Why Use Alternating Current?: If we have to convert ac to dc for most electronic circuits, why use ac at all?
Voltage Multipliers: Sometimes we need a higher output voltage than the power supply would normally provide, but we don't need much output current and don't want to use expensive parts. Here's one way to solve the problem.