Programmable Voltage Source Idea

It does sort of remind me of the high-power switching reg I use in one of my gradient amps: +225 volts from the transformer, big fet, 250 watt power resistor, big output cap bank. The uP digitizes the voltage on the caps and turns the fet on and off, now and then. Digital power is the new-new thing!

John

Yeah... you can call it the Obaminator.

Yeah, but if they included them, the damn thing might work, and we'd need a new unit of measure: Obamawatts

Obamawatt: the result after Obama taxes the s*it out of you and runs the money through his snake oil crapology policies; analogous to the circuit at

Ed

Now Ed, I think you're being overly pessimistic.

Why, I was driving home yesterday when I noticed my fuel gauge had crept up from "E" to about 1/16th.

Then it hit me: "It's already working! Obama's filling my tank!"

Cheers, James Arthur

:-) :-)

That one's easy, it's a virtual potentiometer, so it has an infinite heat sink.

Thanks, that explains it. Now how about when R5 is set to, say, 100 ohms--how does that work?

Grins, James Arthur

Yep, that's how I took it.

No one's pointed out that the regulator-oscillator loop never does anything useful: D1 never conducts.

Well, at least not until after R5 smokes...

Best, James Arthur

I'm still playing 'Name that simulator'.

It's not LTspice, not Circuitmaker... I think it's Multisim (Formerly Electronics Workbench) The op amp and virtual diode look familiar.

D from BC myrealaddress(at)comic(dot)com British Columbia Canada

Well, D2 and R1 are made out of strongium, maybe even virtual strongium, so ~8mA for the R or 1 amp for the zener or even way higher won't hurt either one. As to D1, it depends upon how virtuous it is, but that's not specified, so for diminishing values of virtue, the circuit gets dirtier and dirtier.

Ed