High Voltage

Regulator
Ton Giesberts
D1 LR12
Pass
The LR12 made by Supertex Inc. is a Element

good choice for applications where a IC1

supply voltage of more than 35 to 40 V +17V...+100V
6V5

LR12 U OUT = +5,0V Overtemp

needs to be stabilised. This small regulator

1k
& 1kΩ
1V2 10µA
Overcurrent
can cope with input voltages of up to ADJ R1

100 V, when the output voltage can be

6k04
RL1 ADJ
LR12
adjusted between 1.2 and 88 V. A small C1 1% C2 (TO-92)

disadvantage is that the input voltage 100n

R2
needs to be at least 12 V more than the RLOAD

18k2
output voltage. ≤ 16k5
The regulator keeps the voltage between 1%
ADJ
the output and adjust pin constant at 054032 - 11

1.2 V. With a potential divider the output

voltage can be set using the following
equation:
Vout = 1.2 × (R2 / R1 + 1) + Iadj × R2.
The circuit shows a standard application
where the LR12 is used as a 5 V regula-
tor. C1 decouples the input voltage. Its
value and working voltage depend on the
input voltage and the current consumption.
The bypass capacitor (C2) is required to
keep the LR12 stable. In cases where the
voltage at the input may be smaller than
at the output an extra protection diode is
required, for example a 1N4004.
The output current of the IC needs to be
at least 0.5 mA. In the circuit shown here
the potential divider made by R1/R2
already draws 0.2 mA. This means that
with a 5 V output the load resistor needs
to be less than 16k5. If the resistance is
higher, the total output current drops
below the required value of 0.5 mA.
The output current of the LR12, with a
12 V difference between input and out-
put, is limited to 100 mA (max. dissipa-
tion of a TO92 package: 0.6 W at
25 °C). The ripple suppression is at least
50 dB. The current consumption of the IC
itself is very low at only 5 to 15 µA.
(054032-1)

2 elektor electronics - 7-8/2005