[sdiy] zener question

[Martin Czech]

Apart from reference usage and ESD protection I can see no
applications for zeners today (ok, some triggering circuits
for scr or something like that, some high voltage stuff, too).

Bandgap references have way better noise specs, zeners tend 
to be quite noisy. Power consumption will be high,
load regulation crappy, so why bother with an old fashioned zener
supply??


m.c.

:::X-Authentication-Warning: node12b53.a2000.nl: majordomo set sender to 
owner-synth-diy at node12b53.a2000.nl using -f
:::From: Michael Buchstaller <buchi at takeonetech.de>
:::To: synth-diy at node12b53.a2000.nl
:::Subject: Re: [sdiy] zener question
:::Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 17:30:58 +0100
:::Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
:::
:::>If you need something well regulated with a fair amount of current (over
:::>50mA or so), you should go to an adjustable voltage regulator - like the
:::>uA723, or LM317 (positive reg) and LM337 (negative reg).  With heat
:::>sinks you can get up to 1 amp out of these, 100mA with no heat sink.
:::
:::personally, i would always go the voltage regulator route - 7809/7909
:::are extremely cheap and will do the trick without any worrying about
:::how much current the circuit draws (in terms of a few 100 mA, of course)
:::
:::
:::-Michael Buchstaller