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Power Supplies A to Z
We've included this handy glossary to help with the terminology & abbreviations relating to power products. Pick a letter below to begin.
| A | From 'A' To 'AWG' |
|---|---|
| B | From 'Back Electromotive Force (Back EMF)' To 'Bus Converter ' |
| C | From 'C' To 'Curve B (or Class B)' |
| D | From 'dB' To 'Dynamic Load' |
| E | From 'Earth' To 'External Fusing' |
| F | From 'F' To 'Fusible Link' |
| G | From 'Galvanic' To 'Grounded' |
| H | From 'H' To 'Hz' |
| I | From 'I ' To 'Isolation Voltage' |
| J | From 'J ' To 'Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET)' |
| K | From 'K' To 'kWh' |
| L | From 'L ' To 'LVD' |
| M | From 'Magnetic Amplifier (Mag Amp)' To 'Multi-Resonant Topology (MRT)' |
| N | From 'Nano ' To 'NTC' |
|---|---|
| O | From 'OCV' To 'OVP' |
| P | From 'P' To 'PWM ' |
| Q | From 'Quarter Brick ' To 'Quarter Brick ' |
| R | From 'R' To 'RS485' |
| S | From 'S' To 'System International d’Unites (SI)' |
| T | From 't' To 'TUV ' |
| U | From 'U' To 'USB' |
| V | From 'V' To 'Vss' |
| W | From 'W' To 'Working Voltage' |
| X-Z | From 'X ' To 'Zetta ' |
| # | From '°C ' To '°F ' |
Term of the day : 'Semi-regulated Output'
A subjective term indicating partial regulation (usually applies to secondary outputs of a Multiple Output Power Supply). Typically with semi-regulated outputs, the Cross Regulation specification is poor (or not specified at all), the Load Regulation specification is poor (for example, if a power supply can provide more than 1A and the specification is +/-5% or worse then this is likely to be a semi-regulated output). Power supplies with semi-regulated outputs often have a Minimum Load requirement on at least one of the outputs. Semi-regulated outputs may well be acceptable for most applications, however, some things to be aware of and consider before using a semi-regulated output:-
If you have a variable load on the power supply then all semi-regulated outputs will have transients on the output at the same frequency as the load variations.
If the load on a semi-reg o/p is removed (or reduced) then the output will increase. On some power supplies, this can be as much as 30% or more!!!
If you use remote sense on the main (usually fully regulated) output, then all semi-regulated outputs could vary by a similar amount (depending on exact design). For example, with a 3V channel 1, if you have 0.5V of remote sense correction then the output of a 12V semi-regulated supply could vary by up to 2V !!
Great care and consideration needs to be paid to ensure that these effects (and possibly others) will not cause any problems. It is also useful to know if the power supply you are considering using has semi-reg outputs as this is often not shown in product datasheets (although by checking the Cross Regulation, Load Regulation or Total Regulation specification, it should be possible to deduce this).