Use this forum to chat about hardware specific topics for the ESP8266 (peripherals, memory, clocks, JTAG, programming)

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By LastSamurai
#19958 Thanks again. It's always crazy how much can be overlooked if you checked the schematics like a dozen times :D

eriksl wrote:For anything above ~100 mA I'd recommend a buck converter instead of a lineair regulator. They're dead cheap now and very small as well. They generally can convert from ~30 V to ~2.5 V on 2000-3000 mA without getting quite warm, so that means they're much more efficient. Converting from 12 V to 3.3 V using a lineair regulator is like inserting a big resistor and a small transistor to handle the transients, and this big resistor is going to burn a lot of power continuously.

Can you recommend one? If possible one that is available in Europe. I was looking for an efficient regulator but wasn't able to find a small and relatively cheap one...
SOT-223 would be best but something in about the same size would be great too.
Oh and you need an extra coil for that which takes space too... kinda annoying ;)
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By kenn
#19960
eriksl wrote:For anything above ~100 mA I'd recommend a buck converter instead of a lineair regulator. They're dead cheap now and very small as well. They generally can convert from ~30 V to ~2.5 V on 2000-3000 mA without getting quite warm, so that means they're much more efficient. Converting from 12 V to 3.3 V using a lineair regulator is like inserting a big resistor and a small transistor to handle the transients, and this big resistor is going to burn a lot of power continuously.


On my test bench I use a 2596-type switching regulator to step down a 10v wall wart to 5v, then a linear SOT type regulator for 5 to 3.3v.
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By j0hncc
#19962
LastSamurai wrote:...
Can you recommend one? If possible one that is available in Europe. I was looking for an efficient regulator but wasn't able to find a small and relatively cheap one...
...

Not Europe, but I just ordered some of these because they were mentioned on this board...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310788623921?rmvSB=true