13 responses to “Testing switch mode voltage regulators”

  1. Chemary

    Hi, thanks for this interesting benchmark. I will take into account the results when I buy next regulators.
    I was thinking on buying some cheap LM2596 to get 5V@1A but after reading your article they seem to have a poor efficiency.

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  3. Joe Price

    Good data, thanks for sharing. I may need to affix heat sinks to the regulators on order.

  4. Gil Elgez

    Thanks for sharing this valuable data. You saved me significant testing time. The MP1584 seems to be the efficiency and size winner as a BEC regulator in RC planes and Multirotors.

    Two of them could be paralleled for twice the current output with “OR-ing” diodes and the output voltage can be trimmed to compensate for the output diodes voltage drop.

  5. Berwyn

    If anybody wants to know how to make those LM2596 boards stable, you can do it simply by replacing the output cap with the low ESR ones recommended in the datasheet. (Different caps are recommended for different output voltages): http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/LM2596-D.PDF

  6. Peter

    Is there a way to control the output current on the MP1584. So that it will act as a CC-CV regulator?

  7. Pekka

    I see that your “LM2596” board is running at ~50khz which suggests it’s actually a LM2576 or something similar.

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  9. Werner

    Hi,
    I used the Kim055 and with 2A load the output voltage dropped to 4,4V, which is too low to charge eg a smartphone. Did anybody else have this problem too? And what to to about it?

  10. Mike

    Great writeup, thank you! Some additional testing I’ve done on the MP1584 module to see load regulation and temperature. My goal is to regulate from old laptop power supplies 16 to 19VDC down to 5VDC. Adjusted the board potentiometer to 5V out @ 1A load, ran at each load for 15 minutes.
    Load Vout Temp
    0A 5.28V 23C
    1A 5.05V 63C
    2A 4.84V 110C
    My conclusion: with that much voltage drop (19v to 5v), much above 1A will cook the components. Could try adding a heat sink, but that kind of ruins the purpose of the small form factor. Did not repeat the temp tests with a 12V supply, but a quick check showed nearly the same output voltage at 12Vin in as 19Vin with no adjustment to the board. This makes it nice to set once an use with different power bricks.

  11. João Paulo Nogueira

    Thank you for being informative and helpful!!

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