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interoberlin / nRF51-Boards

Some PCBs with a Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822, designed with Altium
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Stabilize power supply: Capacitor, LDO, Zener diode #5

Closed matthiasbock closed 8 years ago

matthiasbock commented 8 years ago

Power supplies mostly don't provide a steady voltage. LEDs are quite picky about their voltage supply though, overvoltage spikes can easily burn them out. Also, voltage spikes are immediately visible to the outside world. A protection should therefore be added.

A capacitor of 470uF (probably way too much, but works) prevented visible flickering in the orchid lamp. It stabilized intermediate power shortages, which were probably due to the inductivity of the power supply's cable.

To prevent overvoltages, a Zener diode with a breakthrough voltage of 12V could be added.

A more sophisticated solution would be to add a 12V regulator. This also would allow to use power supplies with higher output voltages.

Using both, Zener diode and LDO would be ideal.

matthiasbock commented 8 years ago

Continued in issue https://github.com/interoberlin/nRF51-Boards/issues/7