Re: noobie question re: voltage regulators
- From: "trillium" <michaelgrunberg@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 22 Oct 2005 15:27:29 -0700
I'll read more in your question: that you argued with someone on this
topic and decided to ask the "experts." Reading the answers so far, I'd
say you're more confused than before asking.
That's partly because you're question was ambiguous and engineers don't
want to be wrong. I'll go on a limb here and rephrase your question so
it reflects what you want to know and removes ambiguousness: "can a
voltage regulator put out more current that goes in?"
The answer is yes -- if it's a switching voltage regulator. Those try
to "burn" as little power as possible in the process, so what comes out
is almost all of what goes in -- almost all of a maximum 9W in your
case, so the 5V current is no more than 9W/5V = 1.8A. (A good number is
1.5A, which assumes an efficiency of 83% -- which is in the typical
range.)
If it's not a switching regulator, it's a linear regulator, and the
answer is no. The linear regulator is like a variable resistance in
series with the load, changed by a feed-back loop so the voltage on the
load stays just so (5V); everything being in series (12V souce,
regulator, load), they all get the same current.
.
- References:
- noobie question re: voltage regulators
- From: Alex
- noobie question re: voltage regulators
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