Power Supply Filter Capacitor Design

Putting it to work a practical example.

Power supply filter capacitor design.

This large current may damage the diode and at the same time it causes greater heating of the power transformer resulting in decreased efficiency. 1 2 3 is more efficient and gives better results than the rc filter shown in fig. Why the capacitor in your power supply filter is too big january 21 2016 by david williams the job of the capacitor in the output filter of a dc power supply is to maintain a constant dc value by removing as much power ripple as possible. The inductor passes dc.

The filter capacitor must usually be large to provide an acceptable level of filtering. Simple shunt capacitor filter reduces the ripple voltage but increases the current through the diode. In addition to the natural output capacitance of the power supply you might add a series inductor and another filter capacitor to further reduce output noise fig. The chart above shows typical power supply filtering frequency ranges.

1 2 4 but for basic power supplies lc designs are less popular than rc as the inductors needed for the filter to work efficiently at 50 to 120hz need to be large and expensive. A simple power supply decoupling filter made from an inductor and capacitor covers the gap between about 10khz and 1mhz. Probably the most widely used application of smoothing capacitors is the construction of power supplies. Either lc or rc low pass filters can be used to remove the ripple remaining after the reservoir capacitor.

This is an assumption in cases where the capacitor is oversize it will be perhaps 80 but this is close enough for government work and not very critical. Because these capacitors have a dc value they are actually storing a lot of energy that never gets used. For example a 10 ripple in a 5 v power supply means that the actual output voltage varies by 0 5 v. Correct design of the decoupling filter ensures that it won t cause more problems than it solves.

The lc filter shown in fig. Regardless of the frequency with which the input voltage is applied a capacitor is used in order to reduce the remaining resistance after rectification. The bigger the capacitor the lower the resulting ripple voltage. L c filters power supply filters.

Depending on the power supply the smoothing capacitor is combined with other circuits. For a typical 5 v power supply a 2 200 μf electrolytic capacitor will do the job.