Quote:
Originally Posted by Qbranch
As you probably know, we have a data display on the back of our robot. At midwest, the display would go out a lot because the battery voltage often went low when loads were put on it (i.e. traction motors) causing the display to go dim/out. Since the second half of the boilermaker regional, you may have noticed the display now very rarely blanks or dims now.
We put a circuit in line with the power supply to the rear display that takes in the DC voltage from the battery, and runs that into a switching transistor that flips on and off at about 15KHz, generating AC. This high frequency AC goes into one side of a transformer, and comes our the other side at a high voltage. This high voltage is then rectified using diodes, and regulated back down to a (very very clean and stable) 12 volts, while the input can vary anywhere from about 6.0vdc to 18vdc.
If you have any further questions, just come over to our pit in atlanta and ask for Q.
-q
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Q,
I didn't know about the display, but I follow exactly what you've done and it sounds like you've got a really slick solution to your problem. Nicely done...nice high frequency means small caps at the rectifier output and not a lot of ripple. Probably a lot cheaper and surely more educational than buying a switching power supply. I'll try to stop by when I get a chance.
- Steve