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How would you increase current? — Parallax Forums

How would you increase current?

ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
edited 2004-02-06 00:46 in General Discussion
I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.

Comments

  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-05 04:01
    Lance,

    It is not advised to parallel vRegs. One of them will wind up doing most of
    the work. Can you split the load, and use one vReg for each side? This is an
    approach that I have used. Or, you can get a Vreg that will handle the
    current you need.

    Jonathan

    www.madlabs.info

    Original Message
    From: "lanceallenr" <lanceallenr@y...>
    To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
    Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 7:29 PM
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] How would you increase current?


    > I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
    > voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    > 2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    > ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    > using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    > basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
    > from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject and
    Body of the message will be ignored.
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    > Yahoo! Groups Links
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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-05 04:06
    Placing two regulators in parallel is not a good idea. The reason is that
    one will tend to take more load than the other.

    Look at http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM340.pdf and look at the circuits at
    the end. These circuits use a pass transistor. The one with two transistors
    is nice because it lets the regulators short circuit and thermal protection
    work.

    Regards,

    AL Williams
    AWC
    *New: Universal PCB holds Stamps or any micro
    http://www.awce.com/gpmpu40.htm


    Original Message
    From: lanceallenr [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=-AIzb5nWA3NUKmEPfQ3j88VYwsdNTAFfhmjg6Fo1-Yub10W4-7W9rov9sq4BnIdqnsPAuGgmAe5rJzuwjNvY6g]lanceallenr@y...[/url
    Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 9:30 PM
    To: basicstamps@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] How would you increase current?


    I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
    voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.




    To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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    Body of the message will be ignored.

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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-05 11:40
    Texas Instruments (TI) makes a range of switching regulators. They are more
    efficient and will increase your battery life. But they are more expensive.
    They switch the voltage rapidly from 0 to 12 volts and regulate the ooutput by
    PWM. The net effect is much more of the input power goes to the load and very
    little heat is generated.
    A linear regulator sheds the excess volts as heat. 12 volts - 5 volts = 7
    volts.
    7 volts at 2 amps = 14 watts as wasted heat. You will be wasting almost 60%
    of your battery power as heat.
    The Digikey catalog has about 3-4 pages of regulators. I do not have one
    handy right now, or I would give you some suggestions.

    Let me know if you need more info. I can get some numbers when I get back to
    the office in a few days.

    Alan Bradford
    Plasma Technologies

    In a message dated 2/5/2004 4:03:10 AM Eastern Standard Time,
    lanceallenr@y... writes:
    I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
    voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.


    [noparse][[/noparse]Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-05 18:17
    Solutions:

    1. Use one 7805 for your BS2 current, and a
    separate one for the 'high-current' line. DON'T
    connect the two +5 volt lines together. DO connect
    both grounds together. DO use capacitors to
    provide clean power to the BS2.

    2. Use one TO-3 can LM338 adjustable regulator,
    good to 5 amps, supporting current pulses to
    7 amps.


    --- In basicstamps@yahoogroups.com, "lanceallenr" <lanceallenr@y...>
    wrote:
    > I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
    > voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    > 2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    > ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    > using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-05 21:59
    It is certainly ok to connect lines between components which are using
    different 5 Volt supplies. One of the worst troubleshooting nightmares I
    have had was where one 5 Volt regulator output was connected to the output
    of another one, in another chassis, across the room. There would be times
    where one would want to pull up, the other pull down, they would fight, and
    both get very hot. The circuits didn't work either<G>.

    Also, if you look, many of the three terminal regulators are more power
    limited than current limited. Look at the current you wish to draw, say 1.5
    Amps. If you are drawing it from a 12 Volt supply, that is 7 Volts time 2
    Amps, which gives 14 Watts of dissipation in the regulator. This means a
    good heat sink, a little air flow, or both. I have used a dropping resistor
    in series with the regulator at times, but remember that regulators require
    a minimum of 3-3.5 Volts across them to be able to work. You have to also
    figure in power supply ripple and droop in the situation.

    Good advice.

    Not trying to frighten anyone, just trying to get all the pencils parallel
    before counting<G>.

    Original Message
    From: Allan Lane [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=0VTRWsDTP_UZqLVQEcdi4fa02Az0eIywOT_HNQFd34wpXhlo8ktwJxECon5B7L3T_ZIwfzo--2poDrznpMnbnG1g]allan.lane@h...[/url
    Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 1:18 PM
    To: basicstamps@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Re: How would you increase current?


    Solutions:

    1. Use one 7805 for your BS2 current, and a
    separate one for the 'high-current' line. DON'T
    connect the two +5 volt lines together. DO connect
    both grounds together. DO use capacitors to
    provide clean power to the BS2.

    2. Use one TO-3 can LM338 adjustable regulator,
    good to 5 amps, supporting current pulses to
    7 amps.


    --- In basicstamps@yahoogroups.com, "lanceallenr" <lanceallenr@y...>
    wrote:
    > I am building a project with my basic stamp. I will use a ua7805
    > voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    > 2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    > ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    > using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.




    To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-02-06 00:46
    Don't forget to fuse your high current circuit. The 78XX series regulators will
    shut down if shorted to ground. At those current levels, you'll probably need to
    use heatsinks depending the duty cycle. Also keep the input to the regulator as
    low as practical to reduce the power dissipated as heat in the regulator.

    lanceallenr <lanceallenr@y...> wrote:I am building a project with my basic
    stamp. I will use a ua7805
    voltage regulator. The regulator only puts out 1.5 Amps and I need
    2 Amps to drive my high-current circuit. Can I simply put two
    ua7805's in parallel. Or is there another way of doing this. I am
    using a 12 Vdc 7A battery.




    To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
    from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject and Body of
    the message will be ignored.

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