Power Supply with Active Rectifier, RF Filter and Super-Regulator

[AllenB]

Posts removed following the banning of a sockpuppet account.

 

[gsrchrisu]

Never used positive power supplies for the negative rail before. Can someone take a look at my drawing and comment if this is the right idea. Kinda nervous hooking positive to ground.

 

[tombo56]

No reason to be nervous at all. It’s perfectly safe and your connection drawing is OK. 🙂

 

[jean-paul]

It is somewhat unusual to hook up positive to GND and errors with consequences can be made so being cautious is good. The point of course is that the normally negative side is now not connected to GND. Feels strange, is strange, should be treated as strange but works perfectly 🙂

In this hobby you will notice many to dislike this way of regulating (despite that nothing is wrong) and prefer to use "real" negative regulators instead.

 

[tombo56]

We are just not used to connect separate supplies like that. But, there is no performance difference compared to pairing one 'positive' and one 'negative' supply.
How do we connect the same polarity batteries to get symmetrical supplies? 😉

 

[jean-paul]

With batteries this is fully normal in power electronics but still spectacular errors can be made. Also with batteries in series and a + and - 400V branch taking out one battery in the middle of either string can be very dangerous in a few nasty ways. One needs to triple check and overthink actions before doing anything. Most electrical brains are not trained to think of both a positive and a negative branch and potential differences in a few ways simultaneously (is my assumption/explanation).

It is probably strong emotion based on first experiences long ago when shorting stuff as practically every seasoned DIYer feels it. I recently sold a PSU that was constructed like this as I refused to use it in my device. Nonsense, I know.

 

[tombo56]

I recently sold a PSU that was constructed like this as I refused to use it in my device. Nonsense, I know.

A song for you: 😆

 

[jean-paul]

You are right but IMHO the chance of making mistakes when using “real” negative regulators is lower. Well maybe not opinion but more a fact. It is a mirror of the other circuit with GND being GND for both and not an identical copy of the positive regulator connected “wrong”.

Wow, technical preferences based on emotions. Novelty 😉

 

[gsrchrisu]

Thanks guys, all powered up with no smoke. I was mainly nervous about this one due to the expensive laterals from profusion. But it sings beautifully, dead quiet Tombo, thank you for these amazing power supply designs.