Voltage regulator circuit

Abstract

An inventive voltage regulator is herein described to provide voltage regulation while maintaining electrical isolation between the input and output sections of a power supply. In a switching regulator for a power supply, a core of the sense transformer is charged until the sense transformer becomes saturated. The charging power is then removed from, for example, the primary winding, and the voltages across the primary and secondary windings reverse polarity and begin to rise. The voltage across the primary winding rises until it forward biases a low power diode connected between a non-grounded output terminal of the power supply, at an output voltage of V.sub.out, and the primary winding of the sense transformer. Thus, the voltage across the primary winding is clamped to the output voltage plus a diode voltage drop. As the energy in the sense transformer dissipates into an output load connected to the output terminals of the power supply, a voltage corresponding to V.sub.out is generated across the secondary winding of the sense transformer. This voltage is applied to a peak detector and the output of the detector applied to a controlling means which compares the voltage to a reference voltage and adjusts the power supply output voltage accordingly.