Jump to content
Electronics-Lab.com Community

0-30V Stabilized Power Supply


redwire

Recommended Posts

Guest liquibyte


Sorry, I made a mistake converting the original schematic to the fixed and improved one.

You do not want the negative supply pin 4 of U2 to be negative -1.3V because then U2 will have its total supply voltage very close to its maximum rating of 44V (+42.6V plus -1.3V= 43.9V).
U2 does not need a negative supply so connect its pin 4 and R10 to the 0V from the unregulated power source.

Most little NPN silicon transistors have avalanche breakdown (like a zener diode) of their base-emitter junction when it is reverse biased more than about 6V so maybe you have the emitter and collector pins of Q1 reversed?

Here is my corrected schematic:

Moved pin 4 of U2 and R10 back to the original locations and we're good.  You were right about the transistor being in backwards.  I think the datasheet I looked up must have had the pins backwards from the transistor I was using because it was in right according to the datasheet but as soon as I swapped the collector and emitter pins it started working beautifully.

With your help, we have just solved the transient issue.  I'm now getting 30V with no spikes.  I'm going to redesign my boards to reflect this change and redo redwire's version for him as well.  His outputs are the smoothest thing I've seen on my scope so there must be some real value to the voltage regulator he added in to replace U1.  I think a rev. 7 is in order.  Would you like to do it or should I?
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Hi Liquibyte,
I am glad it is fixed.
I didn't build this project so please can you show a 'scope photo of the output noise from U1 and a comparison to the output noise of a voltage regulator? I think the old zener diode is a noise source.

Can you also show a 'scope photo of a comparision in time of when the power is turned off and when the collector of Q1 drags down the output voltage? I think there will be a delay while C3 discharges.

Please update the schematic to Rev.7 showing the new voltage regulator as the reference voltage. My copy of Redwire's schematic is 2008 with at least one error so I do not know what he has done lately. Please post his updated schematic too.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Hi Liquibyte,
I am glad it is fixed.
I didn't build this project so please can you show a 'scope photo of the output noise from U1 and a comparison to the output noise of a voltage regulator? I think the old zener diode is a noise source.

Can you also show a 'scope photo of a comparision in time of when the power is turned off and when the collector of Q1 drags down the output voltage? I think there will be a delay while C3 discharges.

Please update the schematic to Rev.7 showing the new voltage regulator as the reference voltage. My copy of Redwire's schematic is 2008 with at least one error so I do not know what he has done lately. Please post his updated schematic too.

We'll have to see if redwire can add these mods to one of his boards and post screenshots of his scope.  I only have an old Conar 255 from way back in the day and therefore has no hold function or screenshot export.  I'd have to use my wife's phone to do a movie and try and grab frames to post which wouldn't be very easy or fun to try.  He has a new Rigol scope that can do this better than I ever could.

I'll hack this mod into my boards and do a full load test at various voltages and currents watching the scope for issues but I think it should work just like it did on redwire's board.  I'll redo redwire's schematic later but I have redone rev. 6 to a rev. 7 with Q1 and R13 and R14 added back in.  I'll do a proper schematic and board of this version at a later date as well with proper screenshots.

Quick edit:  Some other engineers over at eevblog forums seem to think that D10 and R15 may be important in the grand scheme of things.
Dont forget D10 and that R15 (or some scheme) for your Q2 Veb(max)protection.

I'm not sure how to even go about testing this as a valid assumption and I'm sure I'd destroy something in the process if I started mucking around with it.

post-107142-14279144730139_thumb.gif

post-107142-14279144730402_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Liquibyte,
Your Rev7 looks good. You have R13 as 10k but I calculated with 12k but it doesn't make much difference. Leave it as 10k.

When Q1 shorts the output of U2 and the base of Q2 to ground then R15 and D10 will prevent the charge on C7 (and on an external load capacitor) from causing excessive reverse voltage on the base-emitter junction of Q2.

But Q1 causes a nightmare:
1) Q1 shorts the output of opamp U2 to ground.
2) When the output of U2 is externally forced to ground then its feedback forces its output to go high with all the current the opamp can provide.
A nice fight.
R15 reduces the current in the fight to a safe amount but causes a voltage drop so the output of the project might not go as high as 30V when it is loaded with 3A.

It might be better if Q1 shorted the input pin 3 of U2 to ground then there will be no fight and R15 is not needed.
Test it with Q1 shorting the input of U2 to ground to see if there is still no spikes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Hi Liquibyte,
Your Rev7 looks good. You have R13 as 10k but I calculated with 12k but it doesn't make much difference. Leave it as 10k.

I went ahead and changed it.  I used a 12K 160R but forgot to modify that when I redid the picture.


When Q1 shorts the output of U2 and the base of Q2 to ground then R15 and D10 will prevent the charge on C7 (and on an external load capacitor) from causing excessive reverse voltage on the base-emitter junction of Q2.

But Q1 causes a nightmare:
1) Q1 shorts the output of opamp U2 to ground.
2) When the output of U2 is externally forced to ground then its feedback forces its output to go high with all the current the opamp can provide.
A nice fight.
R15 reduces the current in the fight to a safe amount but causes a voltage drop so the output of the project might not go as high as 30V when it is loaded with 3A.

It might be better if Q1 shorted the input pin 3 of U2 to ground then there will be no fight and R15 is not needed.
Test it with Q1 shorting the input of U2 to ground to see if there is still no spikes. 

I'll change it tomorrow and do a test and let you know what I find out.

I have noticed a bit of a spike that shows up from about 12V to up around 30V once the filter caps are bled off below a volt and then the supply is turned back on.  It doesn't happen on power off however.  It's not near as bad as it was but still kind of annoying.  My meter is showing about a 6V spike or so when the supply is set at 30V.  I figure any project that's at 30V should be able to handle a 6V spike but it's still annoying.  I tested from some arbitrary points, 30V, 25V, 20V, 12V and 10V.  I didn't really write anything down and I just remember how much it was when set at 30V.  Tomorrow, I'll document things a bit better.  Once around 10V the problem seems to disappear or is small enough that my meter can't see it fast enough.  I also tested lower at 5V, 3.3V and 1V and at these levels there is no noticeable spike.  One of these days I'll have a proper scope to do better testing with.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

I guess it's doing it over a long enough time to show up on the meter because I can definitely see the voltage rise and then settle.  I can see it on the scope too.  It's more pronounced on startup if the caps have drained fairly low, say below 200mV or so.  If I just flip the switch off and back on it doesn't happen at all.  Like I said, if I had a better scope I could probably provide a more detailed description.  I'm really hoping redwire could provide more insight with a better scope analysis with pics.

His original scope pics are in the following posts:
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1016770#msg1016770
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1016974#msg1016974
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1016986#msg1016986

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found Redwire's 'scope photos of the 24MHz output ringing at turnon and shutdown on page 141 on May29/2014. The output goes -30V then +30V back and forth many times.
I cannot read the settings on his 'scope so I don't know how much delay occurs from when shutdown occurs to when the ringing begins.

What causes the ringing?
The 2N3055 output transistors are slow with an fT (no gain) at about 3MHz but the BD139 driver is fast with an fT at 190MHz. The TLE2141 opamp has an fT at 6MHz but its output cannot slew faster than 700kHz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

I've tested with the collector of Q1 at pin 3 and pin 6 of U2.  Given my meters error rate (and that of my eyes), the results are roughly the same.  There is definitely a voltage rise happening on power on.  Once I get above 1V the auto resolution of the meter probably hides the rise I get on power off but starting at 800mV and under I can see a definitive rise to around 1.25V - 1.5V as the caps drain out over many seconds.  I wouldn't want to keep something that required very low power levels hooked up on power off because all control seems to be lost.

To test consistently, I waited to power on once my meter settled to under 200mV as the caps drained and then turned on.  I did this several times to make sure it was consistent and to compensate for my brain not registering the number the first go around.

[pre]   Pin 3 Pin 6

30V 36.75 36.6
25V 33.06 32
20V 29 28
15V 23.56 23
10V 16.23 16.69
5V 7.95 8.56
3.3V   5.49 5.6
2V     3.6   3.9
1.5V   3.2   3.4
1.2V   3 2.8
1V     2.7   2.6
.8V 2.2   2.2
.5V 1.6   1.5
.2V .9   .3
.1V .36   .3
0V Too small and quick to see (39.2mV == 0)[/pre]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Liquibyte,
On your measurements it looks like Q1 turns on a little too late to completely squash the voltage spike but it reduces it a little.

Are we barking up the wrong tree?? (I haven't said that for about 50 years)
Without Q1 the 'scope photo from Redwire shows 24MHz ringing when the power is turned on and when it is turned off. But in post #? (this site does not have post numbers) he shows no ringing when he replaced U1 with a voltage regulator. I don't think he uses Q1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Here's the fun part.  The board he sent me and the one I'm doing this testing on is the one with the linear regulator on it in place of U1.  I've added Q1 into this board but perhaps I'm not using a fast enough transistor.  The one I'm using is from Radio Shack which is marked on the package as a 2N2222A but is more than likely a MPS2222A made by either Motorola or ON Semi.  I found the datasheet here, sorry they zipped this one for some reason.  The package came with 3 types, 2N4401, 2N3904 which is actually a MPS3904, and the above 2222.  I have a few others laying around that I got in a grab bag from Jameco to play around with but would have to look up datasheets to see if I can find something faster.

From oldest reference of the added regulator to the newest that I could find quickly.
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1016994#msg1016994
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1017015#msg1017015
http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=19066.msg1017302#msg1017302

MPS2222A_datasheet_2.pdf

post-107142-14279144730073_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Doesn't the linear regulator eliminate the voltage spikes caused by U1? Redwire said it did.
Does the linear regulator produce less noise than the zener diode/U1 circuit?

When the mains power is turned off then the 47uF filter capacitor C3 for the negative supply takes time to discharge. The speed of any little NPN transistor is much faster.
Then the slow discharge time of C3 delays activation of Q1. Then the voltage spikes are not completely squashed.

When a powered inductor is suddenly unpowered then it produces a voltage spike.
Then does a powered transformer that is suddenly unpowered when its mains current is at a peak also produce a voltage spike? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Doesn't the linear regulator eliminate the voltage spikes caused by U1? Redwire said it did.

Not that I've seen, maybe reduced it a bit.

His version without Q1 suffers from a ramp in voltage at the output once power is cut until the filter caps drain, a runaway spike if you will.  I removed the the paralleled 4K resistors on his board across C1 and put a resistor across each cap (3 4700's in parallel with a 15k each) and it reduced the bleed time but the spike remained higher than 30V no matter where the voltage pot was set.

With Q1, the spike is limited to the ranges I posted.  My version without Q1 behaves in the same way as his version with Q1 with a subtle difference, my version holds the voltage at P1 until the caps drain, no runaway.  With Q1, the caps drain quicker on his version.  My version holds voltage for ~10 seconds or so.  I haven't removed my boards to put a Q1 in yet but will soon.  The way I've got mine hooked up makes it a pain to remove the boards once everything is hooked up, live and learn.  I get no voltage spikes on power off, just a slow bleed.  Power on gives me the same results I posted, identical in fact.


Does the linear regulator produce less noise than the zener diode/U1 circuit?

I never put the scope accross the output of U1 or the regulator, just the output of the supply.  His version is much cleaner on the output than mine, even at very, very low V/div so I think it's probably an avenue worthy of exploration though I'll say it's having an odd effect on the results so far.  People keep talking about inversion and that if a TL081 were there and Q1 were hooked to pin 3 it would induce that.  I don't know, I get lost at that point.


When the mains power is turned off then the 47uF filter capacitor C3 for the negative supply takes time to discharge. The speed of any little NPN transistor is much faster.
Then the slow discharge time of C3 delays activation of Q1. Then the voltage spikes are not completely squashed.

When a powered inductor is suddenly unpowered then it produces a voltage spike.
Then does a powered transformer that is suddenly unpowered when its mains current is at a peak also produce a voltage spike? 

I know that an inductor produces a voltage spike and that inrush current is also an issue with any type of inductor.  Inductance is still kind of a foreign issue to me though.  Bear with me, I'm learning.  How long can an inductor hold the charge that it releases though?  My thinking on this is that while an inductors spike can be an issue, what I'm seeing with voltage over time is related to the filter caps stored energy and U2 doing something I don't understand.  As I said, my version isn't suffering this problem on power off.  With Q1, this is limited in scope to a couple of volts depending on P1.  Without Q1, at least on redwire's version, the spike rises to 36V regardless of where the voltage pot is set and then slowly drains.  I'll try and get one of my boards modified with a Q1 within a day or two and post the results from that vs. the other board I have where I'll leave it off for now.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


People keep talking about inversion and that if a TL081 were there and Q1 were hooked to pin 3 it would induce that.

Certainly, But we are not using the low max supply voltage TL081 opamp that has the inversion problem.

I know that an inductor produces a voltage spike and that inrush current is also an issue with any type of inductor.  Inductance is still kind of a foreign issue to me though.

The opposite.
An inductor does not producer an inrush current. Charging the main filter capacitors quickly produces the inrush. The inductance of a transformer slows the rise in current for each half cycle.
I don't know how many half cycles it takes to fully charge the huge main filter capacitor.

As I said, my version isn't suffering this problem on power off.  With Q1, this is limited in scope to a couple of volts depending on P1.  Without Q1, at least on redwire's version, the spike rises to 36V regardless of where the voltage pot is set and then slowly drains.  I'll try and get one of my boards modified with a Q1 within a day or two and post the results from that vs. the other board I have where I'll leave it off for now.

I do not know what produces a 36V spike or high frequency oscillation at power off. Maybe you will kill the spike or oscillation with Q1 without knowing why it happened.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys, I haven't visited for a few weeks but see that the discussion has taken a new turn.
Liquibyte, would you mind to correct the png Parts list  (top right corner) to show Rev7 and delete the "cosmetic" line, just to keep things less confusing.

[easy way...right click the .png ; edit; add text to a blank spot; use Select tool to drag/place "7" over the "6" and "Aug" over "July"; select a rectangle over a blank spot on page - right click copy - drag over the 2nd line to blank it].

Edit your posting on the Sticky blog with this corrected one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Hi guys, I haven't visited for a few weeks but see that the discussion has taken a new turn.
Liquibyte, would you mind to correct the png Parts list  (top right corner) to show Rev7 and delete the "cosmetic" line, just to keep things less confusing.

[easy way...right click the .png ; edit; add text to a blank spot; use Select tool to drag/place "7" over the "6" and "Aug" over "July"; select a rectangle over a blank spot on page - right click copy - drag over the 2nd line to blank it].

Edit your posting on the Sticky blog with this corrected one.

Thank you, forgot to edit that part.  As soon as I get things worked out and tested to make sure this isn't going to cause issues I'm going to redo my Eagle files too.  After having to remove my board to add in Q1, I've found that my design isn't as user friendly as I thought it would be.  In my defense, it was the first board I ever designed and had made.



Certainly, But we are not using the low max supply voltage TL081 opamp that has the inversion problem.


The opposite.
An inductor does not producer an inrush current. Charging the main filter capacitors quickly produces the inrush. The inductance of a transformer slows the rise in current for each half cycle.
I don't know how many half cycles it takes to fully charge the huge main filter capacitor.

I stand corrected.  Told you I was still learning.  I guess it'll come to me with time and study.



I do not know what produces a 36V spike or high frequency oscillation at power off. Maybe you will kill the spike or oscillation with Q1 without knowing why it happened.

I've added the Q1 circuit to one of the boards in my dual supply and will test out various things to compare between them before I finalize everything and button it up.  I did a quick test and the spikes still happen on power up based on the voltage 30V > 36V, 12V > 19V etc. but now my caps drain immediately and I still am not seeing a spike on power off which I guess is a good thing.  You are right that I should find out why it's happening and see if I can come up with a solution.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@liquibyte
Could you edit your preamble statement in the "Sticky" page.
I could have PM'd you but I want to note it here that 90% credit goes to AudioGuru for his huge contribution to this forum's answers.

amend ".....the troubleshooting guide was written by peterk" to read "collated by peterk". Thankyou.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

@liquibyte
Could you edit your preamble statement in the "Sticky" page.
I could have PM'd you but I want to note it here that 90% credit goes to AudioGuru for his huge contribution to this forum's answers.

amend ".....the troubleshooting guide was written by peterk" to read "collated by peterk". Thankyou.

I put "collated and assembled from the two very large threads", twas no small feat to go through those threads and pick out those issues and put them all in one place.

I also gave credit for the "redesign that works" to audioguru because it does work rather well even if it has a few quirks and also to redwire for sending me the board I was testing for him for the issue of the spikes and that gave me the leap to Q1 being needed.  Some of the credit for that goes to David Hess over at eevblog forums for mentioning the Tektronics PS-503A and a discussion he had a week earlier about this issue.  While I was trying to figure out how to shoehorn something like that into this circuit it hit me that Q1 was this circuit.  If I didn't have redwire's board, I may have procrastinated taking out one of mine because they are a pain in the ass to get out and back in again.

I think a lot of credit goes to several other builders and testers as well.  I just realized that xristost had basically some of the same thoughts I had on it.  I'm still learning so it was important that I made the leap myself to understand the circuit better.  I've not really read his page over at http://diyfan.blogspot.com/2013/03/adjustable-lab-power-supply-take-two.html until just now.  One other thing I just noticed is that in this version, he's removed RV1.  I also wonder why it's there because in my build there's no measurable effect on the circuit.  I know it's are supposed to zero the voltage but, as far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything.  I also don't like the idea of adding voltage regulators unless they do something special that discrete components can't, the op amps themselves for instance.  I'm not against it per se, I just think that nothing is learned by adding black boxes to the mix.  That makes me wonder if it would be possible to do this in an all discrete version.  I need to quit thinking now.

Also, redwire was right about the placement of the terminal blocks.  My next version will be changed to have them nowhere near the standoffs.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why does Texas Instruments show the RV1 circuit we are using for nulling the input offset voltage of their TLE2141 opamp then?
Please double-check your pcb that pin 4 of U2 and R10 both connect together and to the 0V of the main filter capacitor.

If C7 is an electrolytic then its dielectric absorption will produce a positive output of the project when there is no load.

Since U2 no longer has a negative supply then it cannot cause an output negative offset voltage so adjusting the output offset should be zero to positive only.
I think the output of U2 should be monitored when RV1 is adjusted because it should never go below about +1V (two low current base-emitter voltage drops) when the voltage pot is zero. With too much negative input offset adjustment on U2 then the output of the project will be 0V (it can't go negative) but the output of U2 will saturate at close to 0V instead of being linear at about +1V.

Also check that adjusting RV1 slightly increases or slightly decreases an output voltage. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

Why does Texas Instruments show the RV1 circuit we are using for nulling the input offset voltage of their TLE2141 opamp then?
Please double-check your pcb that pin 4 of U2 and R10 both connect together and to the 0V of the main filter capacitor.

Yep.


If C7 is an electrolytic then its dielectric absorption will produce a positive output of the project when there is no load.

C7 is a polyester film type on both mine and redwire's version.


Since U2 no longer has a negative supply then it cannot cause an output negative offset voltage so adjusting the output offset should be zero to positive only.
I think the output of U2 should be monitored when RV1 is adjusted because it should never go below about +1V (two low current base-emitter voltage drops) when the voltage pot is zero. With too much negative input offset adjustment on U2 then the output of the project will be 0V (it can't go negative) but the output of U2 will saturate at close to 0V instead of being linear at about +1V.

Also check that adjusting RV1 slightly increases or slightly decreases an output voltage. 

Adjusting RV1 and monitoring the output of the PS with P1 set to zero the voltage never goes above or below 31.7mV.

Adjusting RV1 and monitoring the output of pin 6 on U2, the lower half of RV1's range does nothing.  From about half to full, the voltage goes from 73.6mV to a fluctuating 124-125mV.  I get nowhere near 1V.

post-107142-1427914473111_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The maximum input offset voltage of a TLE2141C is only 1.4mV so the input offset adjustment should change the output plus and minus 1.4mV or more.
The minimum output voltage of the TLE2141C (when the output is saturated as low as it can go) is about +100mV.

U2 has no negative feedback when the output of this project has no load. A small leakage current in the driver or output transistors will cause the output voltage to rise then the negative feedback will force the output of U2 to go as low as it can go and maybe oscillate up to 1V and back down over and over. We should add a low current load from the output of the project to ground. Maybe 2.7k at 1W.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

With a 2.965K load, I get down to around 15mV + or - using five 15k resistors in parallel so I can get a good power rating.  If I add one more to get 2.467K I get exactly the same if I recalibrate max at 30V.  I could be getting an error in reading here due to my meter.  Regardless, I'm still get voltage spike at turn on.  I've been testing at 10V to make the mental calculations easier.  Without the load, I get around a 7V spike.  With the load, I get around 6.5V.  Q1 has eliminated the spike at power off.

From David Hess:

That answers that then.  The output from U1 is actually the problem.

The inverting input should follow the non-inverting input if the operational amplifier is acting as an operational amplifier.

My WAG (wild ass guess) is that U1 operating open loop during startup before D8 conducts results in overshoot caused by windup of its internal compensation capacitor.  If U1 had a negative offset voltage, then I think it could latch off but we need not worry about that since it is not happening at the moment.  In a production design I would want to test for that.

Try adding a capacitor across D8.  I am not sure what the value should be but a .1 microfarad ceramic or film would be a good place to start.  This will force U1 to operate closed loop during startup and lower noise from the reference as a side effect.


My answer over there:


I've added a 0.1uF ceramic across D8 but I'm still getting about 16.7 volts on startup before it settles back to 10 volts.  I have a jar of many values of ceramics from 1pF to 100nF that I got off Ebay for doing just this kind of thing.

The funny thing is that the version that I have that has a vreg in place of U1 has the exact same issue and it doesn't have a D8 either.

I've even tried loading the output from 2.5K to 3K (6 & 5 15K parallel resistors) to see if it helped but it didn't.  It does help load enough so that RV1 can get the offset of U2 down to around 15mV though.  I'm not sure if the difference between 35mV and 15mV is worth the trouble considering the transient voltage problem.  If it helped in that regard, I'd definitely keep it.

I can't imagine that U1 is the issue because redwire's version is suffering the same problem and it doesn't have a U1.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Doesn't the linear regulator eliminate the voltage spikes caused by U1? Redwire said it did.
Does the linear regulator produce less noise than the zener diode/U1 circuit?


I proclaimed victory too early.  I found the spike on the posted board with certain settings on the scope.  I replaced U1 with a linear regulator and with the scope on the same settins I did not see a spike ,probably because it was happening at a significantly lower frequency.    I failed do anymore testing thinking the issue was resolved until I sent a populated board to Liquibyte.  He noticed the spike.  Unfortunately, I had already packed up my other board, scope, and test equipment while I'm remodeling a room at my house to work in.  Right now I don't have an adequate workspace to do any testing.

When the mains power is turned off then the 47uF filter capacitor C3 for the negative supply takes time to discharge. The speed of any little NPN transistor is much faster.
Then the slow discharge time of C3 delays activation of Q1. Then the voltage spikes are not completely squashed.

When a powered inductor is suddenly unpowered then it produces a voltage spike.
Then does a powered transformer that is suddenly unpowered when its mains current is at a peak also produce a voltage spike?


I suspect that the transformer is the source of the spike but I don't know how to test or eliminate.

As for the output transistor, I am using a darlington MJ11016 driven by a STN 851 transistor.  I have plenty of headroom so there is no problem reaching 30V and no heatsink is required for the STN851. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest liquibyte

I failed do anymore testing thinking the issue was resolved until I sent a populated board to Liquibyte.  He noticed the spike.  Unfortunately, I had already packed up my other board, scope, and test equipment while I'm remodeling a room at my house to work in.  Right now I don't have an adequate workspace to do any testing.

You should see the frankencircuit I've made of it.  I've got Q1 bodged back in and have been trying various techniques to tame the spike down but to no avail so far.  One thing I've learned is that I hate working with surface mount components.




I suspect that the transformer is the source of the spike but I don't know how to test or eliminate.

As for the output transistor, I am using a darlington MJ11016 driven by a STN 851 transistor.  I have plenty of headroom so there is no problem reaching 30V and no heatsink is required for the STN851.

I've tried all of the suggestions so far with no luck with one small exception.  On your board it doesn't work but on mine if I load the output a bit, I can get RV1 to pull a little more towards zero.  Not that there's that much difference between 37mV and 15mV but it's something that needs more exploration to see if true zero can be had.  I don't know if it's because I used 10 turn trimmers and they're a good quality but I can see a bit of a result there where as on yours I can't.

Like I said, I'm getting some advice on another board too.  I figure it can't hurt because I don't have very good equipment and not near enough experience to even begin to figure out why this is happening.  I've tried looking at inrush articles thinking transformer too because I'm also getting 61 volts on power up before settling to 43 volts or so on the cap bank.  I guess the good news is that I've tamed some things but there's still a little bit to do.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
  • Create New...