Power source - its varieties and application

One of the main problems faced by both experienced and novice fans of designing electrical and radio devices is power supply. For such needs, a device such as a power supply (IP) has been developed.

When choosing such an instrument, it is necessary to take into account a number of necessary factors that are determined by operating conditions, safety requirements, load properties and other factors. Moreover, it is necessary to take into account the types of the device, such as a network power source - it can be powerful, medium power or micro-powered.

In the first place, you need to pay attention to the correspondence of the parameters of such a device to the requirements of the device itself. The power supply has a number of similar characteristics: the current consumed , the supply voltage, the required (normal or nominal) level for stabilizing the voltage, the allowable (as well as its minimum and maximum value) voltage ripple.

Also, the power source has some qualities and characteristics that directly affect its operation and application. For example, the presence or absence of a protection system, the mass and dimensions of the device.

The power supply is an integral part of any radio electronic device. Means of both primary and secondary nutrition must absolutely meet the necessary required criteria, which are imposed both on the whole to the equipment and to its constituent parts. If such a device as a power source, some parameters will go beyond acceptable limits, then this can lead to dissonance in the device and its failure.

There are several types of network power sources:

- with a capacitor or a quenching resistor (the so-called non-transformer ones);

- linear, which are performed according to the classical scheme (transformer-rectifier, then there is filtration and stabilization);

- pulsed high-voltage and high-frequency;

- pulsed secondary (operate according to the scheme of transformer-filters-high-frequency converter);

- autonomous power supplies;

- Linear PIs.

Linear is the most simple and affordable for radio amateurs. They are often used in small-sized devices, for example, in chargers, batteries, power supplies, alarm systems and so on. Also here you can include the uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

However, when current values greater than one ampere are used, the efficiency of using such a device as a linear power source is drastically reduced for a number of reasons:

- the stabilization factor will be unstable due to fluctuations in the mains voltage;

- large currents require the installation of large-sized radiators on regulating transistors and rectifying diodes;

- the input of the stabilizer will be given a much higher voltage than any permissible with fluctuations in the network.

However, recently pulsed converters (secondary) and a power supply based on high-frequency converters with transformerless inputs have become quite common.