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Technology ArticleVoltage Regulators A voltage regulator is an electrical regulator designed to automatically maintain a constant voltage level. It may use an electromechanical mechanism, or passive or active electronic components. Depending on the design, it may be used to regulate one or more AC or DC voltages. With the exception of shunt regulators, all modern electronic voltage regulators operate by comparing the actual output voltage to some internal fixed reference voltage. Any difference is amplified and used to control the regulation element. This forms a negative feedback servo control loop. If the output voltage is too low, the regulation element is commanded to produce a higher voltage. For some regulators if the output voltage is too high, the regulation element is commanded to produce a lower voltage; however, many just stop sourcing current and depend on the current draw of whatever it is driving to pull the voltage back down. In this way, the output voltage is held roughly constant. The control loop must be carefully designed to produce the desired tradeoff between stability and speed of response. Wikipedia Disclaimer Above information is from wikipedia and is freely distributed under the GNU license Also See: All Articles |