Sometime you gotta love this list. Sometime people go right out and let the
smoke
out of their bits long before your iron is hot. That and someone blurts out
things that
save time n money.

Just so I'm on topic slightly. We never design anything with a 7805 that
doesn't
have a head voltage in the 3-5 range. Preferably 3 if its going to pull
near rated
current. I have run one with 18.5 head and it ran red hot even with a huge
sink on
it. It was one of the least reliable designs I let out.


>Maxim has some nice regulator chips that are pretty inexpensive - on a
>production board, a power supply using these chips would cost you about as
>much as a 7805 and you don't have the heat issues (and if you are running
>from batteries, the circuit will run a *lot* longer).
>
>myke

Now this just made my day. I had a quick look at some of Maxims stuff and
found
one of these that eliminates me having to design two separate power supplies.
I can heat sink it for worst case and laugh.

You know I think I've learned two things from this list this month. That's
almost scary ;-]
As a direct result I didn't have to think nearly as hard and can now afford
to kill off
those extra brain cells with beer this weekend.

Cheers

Dave

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