Chapter 7 Tutorial
Overview of Agilent E3631A Operation
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Overview of Agilent E3631A Operation
Series regulated power supplies were introduced many years ago and are still used
extensively today. The basic design technique, which has not changed over the years,
consists of placing a control element in series with the rectifier and load device. Figure
7-1 shows a simplified schematic of a series regulated supply with the series element
depicted as a variable resistor. Feedback control circuits continuously monitor the
output and adjust the series resistance to maintain a constant output voltage. Because
the variable resistance of Figure 7-1 is actually one or more power transistor operating
in the linear (class A) mode, supplies with this type of regulator are often called linear
power supplies. Linear power supplies have many advantages and usually provide the
simplest most effective means of satisfying high performance and low power
requirements.
Figure 7-1. Diagram of Simple Series Power Supply with Tap Selection
To keep the voltage across the series resistance low, some supplies use preregulation
before the rectifier bridge. Figure 7-1 shows a controlled transformer tap as used in
the Agilent E3631A. This is one of several techniques using semiconductors for
preregulation to reduce the power dissipated across the series element.
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