Variable Voltage Regulator Circuit Using LM317T

This is a Variable Voltage Regulator Circuit that is built by LM317T IC. The LM317T is an adjustable 3 terminal positive voltage regulator capable of supplying in excess of 1.5 amps over an output range of 1.25 to 37 volts. The device also has built in current limiting and thermal shutdown which makes it essentially blow-out proof. This circuit can be use to make a stable power supply. This is a simple design that can you make for your stable voltage regulator. You can look the circuit diagram from the figure.


The principle work of the circuit is output voltage is set by two resistors R1 and R2 connected as shown below. The voltage across R1 is a constant 1.25 volts and the adjustment terminal current is less than 100uA. The output voltage can be closely approximated from Vout=1.25 * (1+(R2/R1)) which ignores the adjustment terminal current but will be close if the current through R1 and R2 is many times greater. A minimum load of about 10mA is required, so the value for R1 can be selected to drop 1.25 volts at 10mA or 120 ohms. Something less than 120 ohms can be used to insure the minimum current is greater than 10mA. The example below shows a LM317 used as 13.6 volt regulator. The 988 ohm resistor for R2 can be obtained with a standard 910 and 75 ohm in series.

When power is shut off to the regulator the output voltage should fall faster than the input. In case it doesn't, a diode can be connected across the input/output terminals to protect the regulator from possible reverse voltages. A 1uF tantalum or 25uF electrolytic capacitor across the output improves transient response and a small 0.1uF tantalum capacitor is recommended across the input if the regulator is located an appreciable distance from the power supply filter. The power transformer should be large enough so that the regulator input voltage remains 3 volts above the output at full load, or 16.6 volts for a 13.6 volt output.

Simple Photo Electric Street Light Circuit

Simple photo electric street light circuit is a simple design circuit that is basically a Schmitt Trigger circuit which receives input from a cadmium sulfide photo cell and controls a relay that can be used to switch off and on a street lamp at dawn and dusk. The circuit has built the circuit with a 120 ohm/12 volt relay and monitored performance using a lamp dimmer, but did not connect the relay to an outside light. The photo cell should be shielded from the lamp to prevent feedback and is usually mounted above the light on top of a reflector and pointed upward at the sky so the lamp light does not strike the photo cell and switch off the lamp. This is the figure of the circuit.


The photo cell is wired in series with a potentiometer so the voltage at the junction (and base of transistor) can be adjusted to about half the supply, at the desired ambient light level. The two PNP transistors are connected with a common emitter resistor for positive feedback so as one transistor turns on, the other will turn off, and visa versa. Under dark conditions, the photo cell resistance will be higher than the potentiometer producing a voltage at Q1 that is higher than the base voltage at Q2 which causes Q2 to conduct and activate the relay.

The switching points are about 8 volts and 4 volts using the resistor values shown but could be brought closer together by using a lower value for the 7.5K resistor. 3.3K would move the levels to about 3.5 and 5.5 for a range of 2 volts instead of 4 so the relay turns on and off closer to the same ambient light level. The potentiometer would need to be readjusted so that the voltage is around 4.5 at the desired ambient condition.

Simple LED Flasher with 2 Transistor

This is LED Flasher circuit that is built using 2 transistors. Many other NPN transistor have a small signal or switching transistors can be used, such as 2N4401, PN2222 or 2N2222 using the circuit on the left figure. The circuit can also be inverted using PNP transistors such as 2N3906, 2N4403, PN2907, or 2N2907 as shown to the right. This is the figure of the simple LED Flasher circuit;


The 470 ohm resistors determine the LED brightness. Lower resistance means higher current, and more light. LEDs that require more current or have a higher operating voltage (such as green and yellow) may work better with 300 ohms. The RC time constant of the 39K ohms resistor and the 10uF capacitor determines the on time for each side. (The two sides do not need to match - vary the RC time constant for one side to get a lower or a higher duty cycle). With the values shown, the flash rate is about 1 cycle per second at 50% duty cycle.

Simple LED Flasher Circuit Using 555 IC

This is a simple LED flasher project that built uses a common 555 timer IC for its operation. It is configured as an unstable mode which means that its output is a square wave oscillator. Two LEDs are connected to its output in such a way that when one LED is ON, the other LED will turn OFF. It circuit uses only 10 simple parts that are easily available at any electronic shops. This is the simple figure of the circuit;


Principle work of this circuit is capacitor C2 charges exponentially through resistors R1, R2 and the resistance of the variable resistor. When C2 has charged to about 2/3 VCC it stops charging and it discharges to about 1/3 VCC through R2 and the VR resistance via pin 7. This is the standard operation of a 555 timer. When a Vcc of 5 V to 15 V DC is applied to the circuit, the LED will start to flash. The frequency of the flashing can be changed by varying the resistance of the potentiometer.

Simple Adjustable Voltage Circuit Source With NPN Transistor

It is a simple and less efficient method to control DC voltage is using a voltage divider and transistor emitter follower configuration. The figure below is illustrated use a 1K potentiometer to set the base voltage of a medium power NPN transistor. The collector of the NPN feeds the base of a larger PNP power transistor which supplies most of the current to the load. The output voltage will be about 0.7 volts below the voltage of the wiper of the 1K pot so the output can be adjusted from 0 to the full supply voltage minus 0.7 volts. Using two transistors provides a current gain of around 1000 or more so that only a couple milliamps of current is drawn from the voltage divider to supply a couple amps of current at the output. The figure is;


Note that this circuit is much less efficient than the 555 timer dimmer circuit using a variable duty cycle switching approach. In the figure below, the 25 watt/ 12 volt lamp draws about 2 amps at 12 volts and 1 amp at 3 volts so that the power lost when the lamp is dim is around (12-3 volts * 1 amp) = 9 watts. A fairly large heat sink is required to prevent the PNP power transistor from overheating. The power consumed by the lamp will be only (3 volts * 1 amp) = 3 watts which gives us an efficiency factor of only 25% when the lamp is dimmed. The advantage of the circuit is simplicity, and also that it doesn't generate any RF interference as a switching regulator does. The circuit can be used as a voltage regulator if the input voltage remains constant, but it will not compensate for changes at the input as the LM317 does.

Simple AC Line Circuit Using LED Indicator

The circuit in the figure illustrates to power a LED from the 120 volt AC line using a capacitor to drop the voltage and a small resistor to limit the inrush current. This circuit can operate one or two LED. There are three concept to operate the LEDs. Operation of this circuit is when the capacitor must pass current in both direction, a small diode is connected in parallel with the LED to provide a path for the negative half cycle and also to limit the reverse voltage across the LED. A second LED with the polarity reversed may be substituted for the diode, or a tri-color LED could be used which would appear orange with alternating current.


The circuit is fairly efficient and draws only about a half watt from the line. The resistor value (1K / half watt) was chosen to limit the worst case inrush current to about 150 mA which will drop to less than 30 mA in a millisecond as the capacitor charges. This appears to be a safe values, I have switched the circuit on and off many times without damage to the LED. The 0.47 uF capacitor has a reactance of 5600 ohms at 60 cycles so the LED current is about 20 mA half wave, or 10 mA averages. A larger capacitor will increase the current and a smaller one will reduce it. The capacitor must be a non-polarized type with a voltage rating of 200 volts or more.
The lower circuit is an example of obtaining a low regulated voltage from the AC line. The zener diode serves as a regulator and also provides a path for the negative half cycle current when it conducts in the forward direction. In this example the output voltage is about 5 volts and will provide over 30 milliamps with about 300 millivolts of ripple. Use caution when operating any circuits connected directly to the AC line.