High Voltage LM317 Regulator

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Gives a high voltage regulation circuit. The first paragraph states that the LM117 can only withstand 40V across it's input and output terminals. Yet surely in the circuit the voltage drop across the LM117 can be at least the approximately the full voltage? The circuit shows

170 input and output min of 8V which is at least 162V being dropped

across the LM317. How does this jive with what they are saying?

Reply to
James Rollins
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Nope, the Darlington pair Q1/Q2 drops almost all the voltage--there's only about 4.7V across the LM317. That's because the Zener D1 forces the base of the Darlington to be 6.2V above the output voltage, which makes the input voltage of the LM317 only about 4.7V above its output.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
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Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Don't stop there.

0 input and output min of 8V which is at least 162V being dropped

The second paragraph of the datasheet: "Figure 1 shows how it=92s done. Zener diode D1 ensures that the LM317H sees only a 5V input-output differential over the entire range of output voltage from 1.2V to 160V"

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1

That circuit is a mess... it's trying way too hard to use the 117 where it doesn't fit. And its capacitive load stability could keep one up at night.

You can make a nice HV reg from six cheap discretes. Three more to add active current limiting, one more after that for foldback.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Well, it _is_ a datasheet circuit. ;0

At least it's better than the PNP wraparound for getting 30A from an LM7805.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Have you a circuit fot this Hv reg with 6 discrete?

Thanks "John Larkin" ha scritto nel messaggio news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Reply to
maxi

Sorry, no circuits for top posters.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

At least email it to us bottom-posters!

Reply to
Ben Bradley

The darlington Q1-Q2 is an emitter follower that is driven by D1 to produce a voltage input for the LM317 that is only about 5V higher than the output.

Reply to
Jasen Betts

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