Batangas State University

College of Engineering, Architecture and Fine Arts

Mechanical Engineering Department

AC DC Voltage Regulator

Bernabe, Jobelle Dhesaline

Cueto, Lester C.
Dalangin, Arriane Vien
De Castro, Vince N.
Magadia, Christian Arlo S.
ME 5104

October 16, 2015

I. Objective
To convert AC voltage to 13 voltage DC Voltage.
II. Procedures
1.

The circuit with an output of 13 volts from an AC source is provided and

created through multism.

2.

The materials needed in the project are prepared. These materials

include: Bread board, AC Plug, LM317 Voltage Regulator, 24 Voltage Transformer,

2.2mF and 100 uF Capacitors, three 100 ohms, 2.2k ohms and 240 ohms resistors.
3.

These materials are placed on the breadboard following the circuit

provided.
4.

Testing of output voltage is done with a use of multimeter.

5.

Adjustments are done if there are any insufficiencies.

Materials Needed:
AC Plug - The first part of the circuit is the AC plug. When we create a DC power
supply, it creates DC voltage from the AC mains voltage from a wall outlet.
Transformer - After the AC plug, we need a step-down transformer. The tranformer's
job is to take the 120V AC voltage from the mains line and step it down to 24 volts. This
is because our DC power supply will supply variable DC voltage of 1-20V. Therefore, we
lower the very high voltage that we get from the mains outlet from the wall into a smaller
voltage.

Full-wave Rectifier - The next component we need in our circuit is a full-wave rectifier.
The job of the full-wave rectifier is to take the AC voltage from the transformer and
rectify it so that the voltage no longer goes through a negative cycle. With the rectifier,
all of the voltage is rectified positive.

Smoothing Capacitor - The next component after the full-wave rectifier is the
smoothing capacitor. The smoothing capacitor acts to smooth out fluctuations in a
signal, so that there is less fluctuation. As you saw in the previous component, the
rectifier creates pulsating DC signals.

LM317 Voltage Regulator - After the smoothing cap is the LM317 Voltage Regulator.
This regulator serves a twofold purpose. First, it serves to further smooth out the
fluctuating signal, so that it's a perfectly smoothing DC signal.

A regulator is a device that "regulates" voltage so that a perfectly smoothing DC voltage

is output.
Below is a diagram of a voltage waveform after both a smoothing capacitor and a
voltage regulator:

R1 Resistor and R2 Potentiometer - The next components needed are the R1 resistor
and R2 p. These two used together decide what voltage will be output by the regulator.
The formula is VOUT= 1.25V (1 + R2/R1).
C2 Capacitor- The C2 capacitor acts again as a load balancer. It helps to smooth out
any fluctuations that may exist on the output of the regulator.

III. Conclusion
To convert AC voltage source to DC voltage output, various steps are used. The
transformer steps down the voltage to lower voltage rating. The next components
needed are full-wave rectifier, smoothing capacitor, LM317 Voltage Regulator and
capacitor. The resistors are used for the adjustment of the output voltage produced by
the voltage regulator.