Low-Power Voltage Doubler (Booster)

All miniature electronic devices operate off batteries. Some of them need higher than the standard battery voltages to operate efficiently. If the battery of that specific voltage is unavailable, we are forced to connect additional cells in series to step up the DC voltage. Thus, the true meaning of miniaturisation is lost. A simple way to overcome this problem is to employ a voltage doubler, if the device under consideration can operate at a small current.

Here we present a low-power voltage doubler circuit that can be readily used with devices that demand higher voltage than that of a standard battery but low operating current to work with. The circuit is quite simple as it uses only a few components. Yet, the output efficiency is 75 to 85 percent along its operating voltage range. The available battery voltage is almost doubled at the output of the circuit.

Here IC1 is wired as an astable multivibrator to generate rectangular pulses at around 10 kHz. This frequency and duty cycle of the pulses can be varied using preset VR1. The pulses are applied to switching transistors T1 and T2 for driving the output section, which is configured as a voltage-doubling circuit. The doubled voltage is available across capacitor C5. During each cycle of the pulse occurance, the high level drives T1 into its saturation, keeping transistor T2 cut off.

So transistor T1 charges capacitor C4 via the path formed by diodes D2 and D1 to a voltage level slightly lesser than the supply. But during the low period of the pulse, transistor T1 is cut off while transistor T2 is driven into saturation. Now, transistor T2 raises the charge on the negative pole of capacitor C4 by another step equal to the supply voltage. Therefore an equal amount of charging is built up on capacitor C5 via diode D3.

This doubling action increases the total voltage across capacitor C5 to almost double the input voltage. If the output of the pulse generator is maintained with a high enough amplitude and frequency, the output voltage and current remain constant and cater to the needs of the load. Even with the half-wave function, this circuit is almost free of ripple voltage. If the connected load doesn’t require a high current, the efficiency can be expected in the upper 90 percentranges.

Since the input voltage is doubled, the current drain from the input power supply is also doubled at the input but halved at the output. One point of caution is that if the multivibrator’s frequency is fairly high, the output may suffer with the interference imposed over the DC voltage. In this case, the frequency must be set favorably by trials and actual load connection procedure. This tiny circuit can be assembled on the general-purpose PCB. If all of the components are surface-mount type, the whole module can be genuinely miniaturized.

EFY Lab note.
During testing with input of 8V and 1.25mA load current the output voltage was found to be around 13V.

4-Bit Analogue to Digital Converter

The operation of the converter is based on the weighted adding and transferring of the analogue input levels and the digital output levels. It consists of comparators and resistors. In theory, the number of bits is unlimited, but each bit needs a comparator and several coupling resistors. The diagram shows a 4-bit version. The value of the resistors must meet the following criteria:

• R1:R2 = 1:2;
• R3:R4:R5 = 1:2:4;
• R6:R7:R8:R9 = 1:2:4:8.

The linearity of the converter depends on the degree of precision of the value of the resistors with respect to the resolution of the converter, and on the accuracy of the threshold voltage of the comparators. This threshold level must be equal, or nearly so, to half the supply voltage. Moreover, the comparators must have as low an output resistance as possible and as high an input resistance with respect to the load resistors as feasible. Any deviation from these requirements affects the linearity of the converter adversely.

 

 

If the value of the resistors is not too low, the use of inverters with an FET (field-effect transistor) input leads to a near-ideal situation. In the present converter, complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverters are used, which, in spite of their low gain, give a reasonably good performance. If standard comparators are used, take into account the output voltage range and make sure that the potential at their non-inverting inputs is set to half the supply voltage. If high accuracy is a must, comparators Type TLC3074 or similar should be used.

This type has a totem-pole output. The non-inverting inputs should be interlinked and connected to the tap of a a divider consisting of two 10 kΩ resistors across the supply lines. It is essential that the converter is driven by a low-resistance source. If necessary, this can be arranged via a suitable op amp input buffer. The converter draws a current not exceeding 5 mA.

555 DC/DC Converter

It is all too often necessary to augment the power supply of an existing electronic circuit because exactly the voltage that you need is missing. The circuit presented here may provide a solution in a number of cases, since it can be used to convert a single-ended supply voltage into a balanced set of supply voltages. That’s not so remarkable by itself, but the special feature of this circuit is that this is accomplished without using difficult to obtain, exotic ICs. All of the components used in the circuit are ones that every electronics hobbyist is likely to have in a drawer somewhere.

The heart of the circuit is formed by an ‘old reliable’ 555 timer, which is wired here as a free-running oscillator with a frequency of approximately 160 kHz. The oscillator is followed by two voltage-doubling rectifiers, consisting of C1, D1, D2, C3 and C7, D3, D4, C5. They are followed in turn by two voltage regulators to stabilise the positive and negative voltages generated in this manner. The duty cycle of the 555 is set to approximately 50 percent using R1 and R2. The square-wave signal at the output of the timer IC has a DC offset, which is eliminated by C4 and R3.

The amplitude of the output signal from the 555 is approximately equal to the supply voltage less 1.5 V, so with a 12-V input voltage, there will be a square-wave signal on pin 3 with an amplitude of approximately 10.5 Vpp. With respect to ground (across R3), this is this +5 V / –5 V. Although this yields a symmetric voltage, its positive and negative amplitudes are somewhat too small and it is not stabilised. In order to split the square-wave signal into sufficiently large positive and negative amplitudes, C1/D2 are added for the positive voltage, causing the positive half to be doubled in amplitude.

For the negative half, the same effect is achieved using C7/D3. Following this, the two signals are smoothed by D1/C3 and D4/C5, respectively. Both voltages are now high enough to be input to normal 5-V voltage regulators, yielding symmetric +5V and –5V supply voltages at the output. The input voltage does not have to be regulated, although it must lie between +11 V and +18 V. The maximum output current is ±50 mA with an input voltage of 12 V. This circuit is an excellent choice for generating auxiliary voltages, such as supply voltages for low-power opamps. Naturally, the fact that the converter can be powered from the in-vehicle voltage of a car is a rather attractive feature.

DC/DC Converter From +1.5V To +34V

An interesting DC/DC converter IC is available from Linear Technology. The LT1615 step-up switching voltage regulator can generate an output voltage of up to +34V from a +1.2 to +15V supply, using only a few external components. The tiny 5-pin SOT23 package makes for very compact construction. This IC can for example be used to generate the high voltage needed for an LCD screen, the tuning voltage for a varicap diode and so on. The internal circuit diagram of the LT1615 is shown in Figure 1. It contains a monostable with a pulse time of 400 ns, which determines the off time of the transistor switch.

If the voltage sampled at the feedback input drops below the reference threshold level of 1.23 V, the transistor switches on and the current in the coil starts to increase. This builds up energy in the magnetic field of the coil. When the current through the coil reaches 350 mA, the monostable is triggered and switches the transistor off for the following 400 ns. Since the energy stored in the coil must go somewhere, current continues to flow through the coil, but it decreases linearly. This current charges the output capacitor via the Schottky diode (SS24, 40V/2A). As long as the voltage at FB remains higher than 1.23V, nothing else happens.

As soon as it drops below this level, however, the whole cycle is repeated. The hysteresis at the FB input is 8mV. The output voltage can be calculated using the formula Vout = 1.23V (R1+R2) / R2 The value of R1 can be selected in the megohm range, since the current into the FB input is only a few tens of nano-amperes. When the supply voltage is switched on, or if the output is short-circuited, the IC enters the power-up mode. As long as the voltage at FB is less than 0.6V, the LT1615 output current is limited to 250mA instead of 350mA, and the monostable time is increased to 1.5µs.

These measures reduce the power dissipation in the coil and diode while the output voltage is rising. In order to minimize the noise voltages produced when the coil is switched, the IC must be properly decoupled by capacitors at the input and output. The series resistance of these capacitors should be as low as possible, so that they can short noise voltages to earth. They should be located as close to the IC as possible, and connected directly to the earth plane. The area of the track at the switch output (SW) should be as small as possible. Connecting a 4.7-µF capacitor across the upper feedback capacitor helps to reduce the level of the output ripple voltage.

The selection of the coil inductance is described in detail in the LT1615 data sheet at www.linear-tech.com. Normally, a 4.7µH filter choke is satisfactory for output voltages less than 7V. For higher voltages, a 10-µH choke should be used. In the data sheet, the Coilcraft DO1608-472 (4.7 µF) and DO1608-100 (10 µF) are recommended. The Schottky diode must naturally have a reverse blocking voltage that is significantly greater than the value of the output voltage. The types MBR0530 and SS24 are recommended. The shutdown input (/SHDN) can be used to disable the step-up regulator by applying a voltage that is less than +0.25V.

If the voltage at this pin is +0.9 V or higher, the LT1615 is active. You must bear in mind that even when the IC is disabled, the input voltage still can reach the output via the coil and the diode, reduced only by the forward voltage drop of the diode. The second circuit diagram for the LT1615 (Figure 2) shows how you can make a symmetric power supply using this switching regulator. Here the switch output of the IC is tapped off and rectified using a symmetrical rectifier. The voltage divider at the positive output of the rectifier determines the output voltage.

Balanced Output Board For The Stereo DAC

This add-on board is designed to provide a pair of balanced audio outputs for the High-Quality Stereo DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). Two 3-pin male XLR connectors are used for the new outputs and they can either replace or augment the existing unbalanced outputs without affecting their performance. Balanced audio is used in recording studios and on stage because of its improved noise immunity.

Picture of the project:

 

 

This is due to the fact that the signal is sent differentially (ie, as two signals 180° out of phase) and then converted to a single-ended voltage signal at the far end. If any noise is picked up in the cable, it affects the two out-of-phase signals equally so that when the signals are subsequently subtracted, most of the noise is eliminated.

Parts layout:

In addition, the DAC’s performance at the balanced outputs generally exceeds that of the unbalanced outputs, although only by a small margin. The signal-to-noise ratio, frequency response and channel separation are all better, although we measured a tiny bit more distortion from the balanced outputs. However, both levels are so low as to be almost negligible.

Circuit diagram:

Comparison chart:

 

 

1.5V to 5V Converter

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In many cases can be very handy to be able to convert 1.5V to 5V. Then you can power microcontroller or LED from a single AA or AAA battery. It is simple to do this as there are special ICs as MAXIM MAX1674 or MAX7176. This is step-up DC-DC converter that can convert voltages from 0.7V to any in range from 2V to 5.5V. MAX1676 have already preset pins for 3.3V and 5V, that makes easer integration in 3.3 and 5V circuits. IC can dissipate up to 444mW.

Frequency to Voltage With IC TC9400

Voltage to Frequency With IC TC9400

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