Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Parallelling voltage regulators.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Odin

Member
Can it be considered a good design practice to parallel linear voltage regulators? I've seen it done in some equipment. Electronic Speed Controllers for model airplanes use it. I've got one of them in front of me, with two ST L4941B directly i parallel. No current sharing resistors. It's seems like a crude way to do it, but maybe it's not that bad. It obviously works, but I keep asking myself if it's really the right way to do it. What do you think?
 
That may be done in some models, but many are going to switching regulators. See: **broken link removed**

The biggest problem has been radio interference. Someone on this forum suggested the MC33167 as a single chip switcher. Can't get it from my usual supplier, so I hve no experience with it. John
 
jpanhalt said:
That may be done in some models, but many are going to switching regulators. See: **broken link removed**

The biggest problem has been radio interference. Someone on this forum suggested the MC33167 as a single chip switcher. Can't get it from my usual supplier, so I hve no experience with it. John

Well, I wasn't interested in ESC with BEC in particular. It's more a generic question for electronic design. Would you parallel linear regulators in a given design? In a toy? In a train? In a plane? In the space shuttle? :)

Btw. I do fly R/C models, but that's another story.
 
Here are two threads from this forum on paralleling linear regulators. Both imply it will work, but the results may not be too good. Search term: parallel regulators.

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/high-current.31416/?highlight=parallel+regulators
https://www.electro-tech-online.com...ener-ldo.30230/?highlight=parallel+regulators

BTW, my earlier comment and link to Castle Creations was related to the fact that the newer equipment for higher voltages is going to switching regulators, rather than paralleled linear. Given the noise problems with switching regulators, at least the earlier ones, I take that change as an indicator that problems of paralleled linear regulators are greater. Although, it might mean that the switching regulator is simply needed for 4S and greater voltages.

John

Edit: Forgot to add that if one is considering parallel linear regulators, why not go with a series pass set-up? Heat is not going to be any more, and the pass copnfiguration is well accepted.
 
Last edited:
I don't see anny problems in it but i would use current sharing resistors in the design

Robert-Jan
 
I have seen it done many times...although I have never tried/tested it.

**broken link removed**

Last time I needed more current, I just used a stock application circuit from the datasheet of an 7805 and hooked up a power transistor to it. Using the 7805 as the reference, with the power transistor taking most of the current.

My opinion? I wouldn't design a circuit that way, unless it was just for me and not a customer...or I'm prototyping something quick and dirty.

Blueteeth
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top