John Errington's tutorial on Power Supply Design

Choosing a Transformer and Rectifier

Producing a DC voltage from AC mains involves the use of a transformer and rectifier as shown
below. The transformer changes the mains voltage to something better suited to our
requirements; and the rectifier removes the negative part of the signal giving an output which
Introduction only has positive voltages. The diagram below shows a bridge rectifier; a single diode rectifier
can be used, but is less efficient; and as silicon diodes are inexpensive the bridge design has
Transformer become almost universal.
and rectifier
For the purposes of this tutorial I will use as an example a supply witth a 12V DC output;
Smoothing however the simple theory will allow you to design supplies for any desired voltge and current.
Ripple Current Later sections will use as an example the design for a variable supply of 2A at up to 30V.

Load Voltage drop in the rectifier

regulation
Rectifier: A single silicon rectifier diode in forward conduction develops a voltage of around 0.7V
Design (but can be up to 2V). In general we allow about 2V drop for the bridge rectifier configuration.
Example 1
Transformer: Losses also occur in the transformer windings; however a transformer rated at
220V: 30V at 10A will usually provide a 30V rms output when delivering the rated current. This
Voltage means that the voltage when off-load will be higher.
Regulation

Voltage
References

Voltage
Regulation
Simple cct

Voltage
Regulation and
analysis

Voltage
Regulation
precision
circuit

Voltage
Regulation
Conclusion
Waveforms around the circuit
Current These diagrams show the voltage at different points in the circuit, based on a 240:12V
sources transformer.
Constant
Here you can see the output from the transformer. The output is a sinewave centred around 0
current
volts.

The peak voltage Vpk is 1.414 (square root of 2) times the RMS output - the transformers quoted
Feedback
value.
High voltages
Eg for a 240V: 12V transformer the peak voltage will be
1.414 times 12 = 17V
Rules of
thumb
 ac signal

This diagram shows the output from

the bridge rectifier.

You can see the negative "hump" from

the ac signal above has bee "turned
upside down" by the bridge recifier
assembly. The peak voltage is now 17V
- 2V = 15V.

The RMS voltage is around 10.6V at full

load. It rises when the load is reduced.
The average voltage is 9.27

You can also see the flat part near zero

where none of the rectifier diodes have started to conduct.

The signal above can be seen as a

constant DC voltage of 9.27V with a
superimposed varying signal of about
15V peak - to - peak and an average
value of 0V.

The rms value of this signal is around

15 / 2 * 1.414 = 5.4V

Example design - choosing components

Specification: Design and build a psu to run from 240V ac mains. It must power a 12V
DC motor which runs for long periods of time and in normal use draws a maximum of
2A from the supply.

We will need a transformer rated at 12V 2A =

24W or more

Here you can see two possible transformer styles. Either would be suitable.
Both are rated 12V 48W

This is a silicon bridge rectifier rated at 200V peak reverse voltage

and 4A average forward current. This would be fine.

Heat calculation:

In use there would be a current of 2A and a forward voltage drop of

about 0.9V per diode (data sheet), or 1.8V across both.

2A * 1.8V = 3.6 W.

The thermal resistance to air (from the data sheet) is 22 degrees C

per watt, so the package would be 22 * 3.6 = 80 degrees above
ambient temperature. Thats a bit too warm, so we will add a small
heat sink, or bolt the rectifier to a metal case.

Discussion: The circuit shown on this page would be suitable for charging a car battery
or operating a dc motor. In these applications the ripple is not important. The output of
this supply as above would be 12V - 1.8 = 10.2V approx. The motor would run fine.
However most applications require a smoothed output, and to provide this in the next
circuit we will use a capacitor. Adding a capacitor would increase the average output
voltage - see smoothing.