182 Int'l Conf.

Frontiers in Education: CS and CE | FECS'17 |

Design of a Laboratory Power Supply – a Capstone

Research Project

Bassam Shaer, Andreas Fuchs and Nathaniel Morales

Engineering Department
University of West Florida
Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract— This paper discusses the design and construction of home workshop setting. The overall goal of the design is to
a power supply that utilizes a hybrid topology of a switching and create a single laboratory power supply that will be able to
linear voltage regulator in order to achieve a regulated voltage and furnish the end user the ability to handle most of the common
current output that has low ripple, low voltage current stability, and applications regularly encountered in the industry without the
overall consistent efficiency. The supply is designed for use in need for multiple lab supplies. The laboratory power supply
commercial laboratories or by avid electronic hobbyists. Key will provide reliable DC voltages to be used in many
results are that the power supply will provide multiple output applications. It will be enclosed in a metal housing that
voltages as follows: A single regulated output with adjustable contains a front panel user interface for output voltage and
output voltage and current as well as three additional adjustable
current setting adjustments. The power supply will be similar
output voltages each capable of delivering up to two hundred
in size to a typical bench top supply.
milliamps. These additional outputs are commonly used for circuit
testing and evaluation. The goal of this work is to design and The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
produce a product that can be used in many applications. discusses the design specifications. Section 3 presents the
Keywords— power supply, regulated voltage, linear regulator technical approach. Section 4 presents the formal description
of the proposed system and hardware implementations.
Section 5 presents the results of the work with concluding
1. INTRODUCTION remarks in section 6.
Power supplies are devices used to provide electrical power
to a broad range of equipment, test circuitry, and components 2. DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS
in a commercial laboratory or a home workshop setting. In
general, these devices are used to deliver a range of direct - The laboratory power supply will convert a single phase
current (DC) output voltages that are fixed or adjustable. 120 VAC input in order to achieve all output voltages.
While the commercial and personal use of these supplies is - The single adjustable output voltage will be 0 to 30VDC
similar in nature, the commercial industry can demand the need
with 0 to 2A current capability.
for very high voltage and current capabilities in power supply
units that are manufactured for specific purposes. For the - The housekeeping output voltages will be +/-9 to +/-
scope of this project, a low voltage power supply with current 12VDC, and +3.3 to +5VDC of at least 200 mA.
and voltage capabilities that are within the common range of
those found in a standard laboratory setting will be developed. - The laboratory power supply will utilize a pulse width
modulator (PWM) to implement the switching portion of
The typical laboratory setting presents conditions where the hybrid power supply topology.
various DC voltages are required simultaneously in order to
test and/or evaluate circuitry. An integrated circuit containing - The user will be provided local control of the power
op-amps, digital ICs, and microprocessor chips can create a supply through front panel potentiometers to control the
demand of +15VDC, +/-12VDC, and +5VDC. This often output voltages and current setting.
results in increased costs as multiple power supplies are needed
to accomplish a single task. In addition, the dedicated use of a - LCD meters will provide the user with voltage and current
second lab supply for low current applications such as display for the single adjustable output while bi-color
providing housekeeping supplies or partial circuit isolation LEDs on the front panel will provide operation status of
testing is both excessive and wasteful. each output.
The intention of this project is to create a lab supply that can be For clarification purposes, the overall design specifications
used as an out of the box solution for testing conditions are shown in Table 1.
commonly encountered in either the commercial industry or a

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Table 1: Design Specifications The Linear Regulator

The linear regulator model used for simulation purposes is
shown in Figure 2. It works on the principle that one is able to
control the output voltage at the emitter of the power transistor
Q1 by manipulating the voltage at its base. Connected to the
non-inverting input of the op-amp U1A, called the error amp,
is the voltage reference, V2. Connected to the inverting input
of the error amp is the midpoint of a voltage divider (R1 and
R2). The error amp will react to any difference between its
two input voltages by adjusting its output voltage which is
connected to the base of the NPN transistor: when the error
amp drives current into this transistor’s base, it allows current
to flow from collector to emitter, and that transistor in turn
pulls current from the base of the pass transistor. This setup
allows an op-amp capable of only driving a few milliamps to
control several amps through the pass transistor. The highest
output of the laboratory power supply is the single adjustable
0-30VDC, 0-2A supply. Based on this, the voltage divider
network is designed with a 10:1 output voltage scale with a
The flow chart of the design process is shown in Figure 1. maximum scale reference voltage (V2) of 3VDC. For
example, a reference voltage at V2 of 1VDC will translate to
10VDC on the output. The actual linear regulator selected to
implement the Lab Power Supply was the LT3080. It is a low
dropout, low noise linear regulator capable of delivering up to
1.1A and has an input voltage range of 1.4 to 40VDC and
output voltage range of 0.4 to 32V. In order to meet both the
maximum output current of the single adjustable output, two
LT3080s will be used in parallel. In addition, the three
housekeeping output supplies will be provided with the
LM317 (positive outputs) and the LM337 (negative output)
linear regulators.

Figure 1: Design Process

3. TECHNICAL APPROACH
This section contains the technical details that will be
utilized to implement the design of the Lab Power Supply.
For clarity purposes, the power supply will be divided into Figure 2: Basic Linear Regulator
seven segments: linear regulator, switching regulator,
intermediate DC bus generation, control loop, negative
voltage generation, fault detection and protection circuits. The
The Switching Regulator
circuits derived were for simulation purposes only and do not
always reflect the actual components selected for the design; The buck converter block (A1) in Figure 3 was utilized in
however major components are identified and discussed. The place of an actual pulse width modulator (PWM) in order to
design approach was to begin from the output of the power conceptualize the design. A buck converter or step-down
supply and work back towards the AC input. The power switch mode power supply can also be called a switch mode
supply’s main output is designed around a hybrid circuit regulator. It provides high efficiency by utilizing a feedback
consisting of a switcher and a linear regulator. This topology loop that varies the pulse width based on the output load
was selected to benefit from the good efficiency of the current. The typical application of a switching regulator is to
switching regulator (and therefore minimize the need for provide a fixed regulated output that can handle various load
heatsinking and cooling) and the low output ripple and noise conditions. The input to A1 in Figure 3 is the unregulated DC
and excellent dynamic characteristics of the linear regulator. bus derived from the input AC/DC stage shown in Figure 4.
The output of A1 is being controlled by the error amp U2A,

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which is monitoring the voltage across the passive transistor op-amp in the differential amplifier configuration (U5B) has
of the llinear regulator Q1. The error amp will try to maintain the job of keeping the overhead voltage across the input and
the same voltage at both input pins due to identical voltage output of the linear regulator at a selected fixed voltage
dividers (R3 and R5, and R4 and R6), however, the voltage reference of V1. This allows the linear regulator to operate at
drop across D3 will ensure that there will always be a small a consistent higher efficiency state. Although the datasheet of
delta across Q1. In order to achieve this, the actual switching the LT3080 linear regulator states that the overhead voltage in
regulator selected to implement in the Lab Power Supply was order to maintain output voltage regulation can be designed to
the LM2576. It is a simple 50kHz switcher capable of be as low as 0.5VDC, a 2.0VDC reference was selected in
delivering up to 3.0A and has an output voltage range of 1.2 to order to pprovide pplenty
y of margin.
g
37VDC, which is able to meet both the maximum output
g and current of the single
voltage g adjustable
j p
output.

Figure 4: AC/DC Power Conversion

Figure 3: Buck Converter in Tandem with the Linear

Regulator

The Intermediate DC Bus

The AC/DC converter designed for simulation purposes is
shown in Figure 4. One criteria of a buck converter is that the
input voltage must be higher than the desired output voltage.
Since the maximum desired output voltage is 30 VDC, a step
down power transformer (T1) with a 5:1 ratio was selected to
provide a secondary voltage of 24 VAC. This AC voltage is
processed by the full bridge converter and smoothed by the Figure 5: Main Adjustable Output Simulation
output capacitor C1. The DC voltage is approximately 32
VDC, which is calculated by the secondary AC voltage times Negative Voltage
the square root of 2 minus the voltage drops across both An oscillator circuit with a negative charge pump on the
diodes. Since the linear regulator selected has a head voltage output will be used to generate the negative output supply. A
requirement of less than 0.4 VDC, the unregulated DC bus is MIC4429 shown in Figure 6 utilizes the internal Schmitt
more than adequate for this design. In order to meet the FCC trigger that uses the RC time constant as the input of the
regulations for EMI emissions as well as the UL and CE internal comparator circuit to create hysteresis by applying
safety requirements, a commercial off-the-shelf AC/DC positive feedback to the non-inverting input of the amplifier.
converter was selected. The converter provides a 36V The configuration shown will be modified by setting the
regulated output with a 12% output adjustment. It can deliver charge pump rectifier diodes and capacitors for negative
up to 150W, has an efficiency of 86%, and has a maximum voltage rectification. The actual circuit schematic is shown in
output ripple of 200mV. In addition, it has overcurrent, Figure 7. The duty cycle was set to approximately 50% in
overvoltage and short circuit protection. It is both UL and CE order to maximize efficiency by setting the value of R38
listed. experimentally.
Control Loop
Fault Detection
For the lab power supply, the design approach shown in
Figure 5 was implemented for the feedback loop in order to The output of the three housekeeping voltages are
regulate the output supply. Since one of the drawbacks of the monitored for both undervoltage and overcurrent conditions.
linear rregulator is that any voltage drop across Q1 is The output voltages are compared to a fixed reference voltage
dissipated in heat loss which translates to poor efficiency, an at the input of the comparators. During normal operation
when the outputs are within 10% of the minimum adjustable

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output voltage window, the output of the comparator provides output labeled ‘I LIMIT PREVIEW’ via a momentary
the drive signal that will turn on the green LED. If the output switch. Pressing the switch allows the user to set the
voltage drops below 10% of the window either due to an current trip point by rotating the ‘CURRENT ADJUST’
output voltage failure or because it is in current limit, the knob of the front panel. The housekeeping supplies are
output of the comparator switches states and the red LED internally limited to provide at least 200 mA. In addition,
illuminates. A schematic showing the negative output supply all linear regulators have built in short circuit protection.
being monitored by a comparator is shown in Figure 8.
x Thermal: A thermistor mounted to the chassis will
provide temperature monitoring through a comparator
stage that will shut down both of the buck converters
when the temperature reaches 40°C. In addition, all
regulators will use the power supply chassis for heat-
sinking.
x The mains input is protected with an in-line fuse that has
a value of 2A.
x The power supply housing is connected to ground.
Figure 9 shows the complete schematic of the Lab Power
Supply.

4. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS
Figure 6: Oscillator Circuit
The final product is a safe, reliable laboratory power
supply that is user friendly and portable. It is comprised of the
printed circuit board (PCB), the AC/DC converter, and the
power supply housing.
PCB
After the electrical design was complete, the PCB Artist
software was utilized to create the layout of the board. The
software requires that a schematic of the design first be
created prior to generating the Gerber files that contain the
information for manufacturing the board. The goal of the
design is to make the lab supply to have ease of manufacturing
as well as testing. For this reason, three connectors were
added that allow for quick connect and disconnect. For the
Figure 7: Negative Voltage Generator project, the Digi-Key ‘Scheme it’ tool was used to create the
actual schematic in Figure 9 because it has the advantage that
it automatically generates a parts list which can be exported to
an Excel spreadsheet. Although the Digi-Key schematic does
not show the connector pin-outs, they are presented in Table 2.
Once the schematic is complete, the user is given the
option to have the layout of the components as well as the
trace width automatically selected or to do both tasks
manually. Part of the design is to use the power supply steel
housing as the heatsink so the linear and switching regulators
were manually placed along the edge of the PCB board. The
Figure 8: Undervoltage / Overcurrent Fault Detection trace width for the maximum current of 2A and 1 ounce
copper was calculated in order to ensure that the PCB would
Protection Circuits work for the design. An Excel spreadsheet containing
The following protection measures were taken for the formulas used by industry standards yielded a minimum trace
Laboratory Power Supply: width of ~30 mils for a 10°C rise. The default setting of the
software is 15 mils (0.015”) so the high current traces were
x Overvoltage: All outputs are provided overvoltage identified and set to a width of 50 mils.
protection with the use of zener transient voltage
Upon receiving the PCB board, a 100% point to point
suppressors that are in parallel across each output.
connectivity test was performed prior to soldering any
x Overcurrent: Current limit for the 30 VDC output is user components. Figures 10 and 11 show the completely
adjustable up to a maximum of 2A. The front panel populated board. Additional leads were added for three
provides a current limit preview setting for the main reasons. The first being that the LM339 comparator chip

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selected (U16 of Figure 9) is an open collector IC that requires encountered that affected the loop stability of the design. For
external pull-up resistors to a VCC source. The second reason this reason, a vector board was added to the design in order to
is that a design feature of adding bi-color LEDs was isolate the switching circuits. The vector board was placed
implemented in the latter stage of the design that would add a above the PCB using 1 ¼” standoffs. Figures 12 and 13 show
visual recognition of output validity. The final reason for the top and bottom sides of the vector board.
adding additional leads is that noise problems were

Figure 9: Final Complete Schematic

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Table 2: Input and Output Connector Pin-outs

Connector 1 Connector 2 PL1
PIN SIGNAL PIN SIGNAL PIN SIGNAL
1 30 VPOT_TOP 1 30 VDC 1 Intermediate Bus +
2 30 VPOT_ARM 2 30 VDC 2 Intermediate Bus +
3 30 VPOT_BOT 3 30 RTN 3 Intermediate Bus -
4 30 IPOT_TOP 4 30 RTN 4 Intermediate Bus -
5 30 IPOT_ARM 5 +12 VDC 5 NC
6 30 IPOT_BOT 6 +12 RTN
7 12 VPOT_TOP 7 -12 VDC
8 12 VPOT_ARM 8 -12 RTN
9 12 VPOT_BOT 9 5 VDC
10 -12 VPOT_TOP 10 5 RTN
11 -12 VPOT_ARM 11 NC
12 -12 VPOT_BOT 12 LED1
13 5 VPOT_TOP 13 LED2
14 5 VPOT_ARM 14 LED3
15 5 VPOT_BOT 15 RTN
16 5 VMETER +
17 5 VMETER +
18 5 VMETER RTN
19 5 VMETER RTN
20 RT1 Figure 12: Top side of Vector Board
21 RT1 RTN
22 I LIM ACTUAL
23 I LIM PREVIEW
24 NC **NC = NO
25 NC CONNECTION**

Figure 13: Bottom Side of Vector Board

Figure 10: PCB Top Side

5. RESULTS

As part of the design process, an industry standard stress

analysis was performed for all supply components to ensure
that all remained within the test margins. Further, thermal
analysis verified that no regulators required external heat
sinks. Then, the laboratory power supply was fully assembled
and an acceptance test datasheet was created to collect the data
for the test plan that was developed in order to verify that the
power supply met the design specifications. Figure 14 shows
the fully developed final product.

Figure 11: PCB Bottom Side

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188 Int'l Conf. Frontiers in Education: CS and CE | FECS'17 |

power conversion applications that require high efficiency.

The overall design which required only slight modification
due to noise issue, provided safe, reliable outputs with
overcurrent, overvoltage, and thermal protection in a package
that has ease of manufacturability. The design met the desired
goal of providing a power supply that can be used as an out of
the box single solution to the demands encountered in the
average laboratory and home workshop setting.

REFERENCES
[1] R. W. Erickson and D. Maksimovic, Fundamentals of
Power Electronics. Norwell, Mass: Kluwer Academic,
2001.
[2] M. H. Rashid, SPICE for Power Electronics and Electric
Figure 14: Final Assembled Product Power. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2012.
[3] M. H. Rashid, Power Electronics : Circuits, Devices, and
6. CONCLUSION Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, 2004.
[4] J. T. Stauth and S. R. Sanders, "Optimum Biasing for
The hybrid topology of a switcher regulator working in Parallel Hybrid Switching-Linear Regulators," Power
tandem with a linear regulator to produce a stable DC supply Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 22, pp. 1978-
was materialized as part of this senior capstone design project. 1985, 2007.
The voltage across the linear device for the main output was [5] K. K. Sum, Switch Mode Power Conversion : Basic
regulated to a constant low drop-out voltage for the entire Theory and Design. New York: M. Dekker, 1984.
range of the output in order to allow constant high efficiency. [6] A. Trzynadlowski, Introduction to Modern Power
Although efficiency in a lab power supply is not particularly Electronics. New York: Wiley, 1998..
critical, this hybrid topology could be implemented in many
.

ISBN: 1-60132-457-X, CSREA Press ©