{"id":7649,"date":"2017-08-18T09:32:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/08\/18\/voltage-regulators-as-audio-amplifiers-who-knew\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T23:16:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T13:16:03","slug":"voltage-regulators-as-audio-amplifiers-who-knew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/08\/18\/voltage-regulators-as-audio-amplifiers-who-knew\/","title":{"rendered":"Voltage Regulators as Audio Amplifiers &#8211; Who Knew!?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgzAf8usfJ50AFGJ7Bg5Q5bkf0c2z8OFET_d07Alv6Yt7NzX66WSkmqkBTc-hxxWPr61Hw_pLvgJHkV4tbzjA9qUyp7FhVjbOLBxKFbICyJJBSahn2R9WN9GWqPCbl03yINkY6qsUP1aj4\/s1600\/tl431.bmp\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"163\" data-original-width=\"349\" height=\"149\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tl431.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p> <b>Mike KC7IT pointed out that the AF amplifier chip in my Sawdust regen receiver is actually a TL431 voltage regulator. Mike writes: &#8220;It&#8217;s using the voltage reference input as audio in, and the voltage being regulated as the audio out.&#8221; It works great as an audio amplifier, and with just three terminals it is a lot easier to use than our normal LM386 or 741 chips. I&#8217;d never seen a regulator used this way.<\/b><br \/> <b><\/b><br \/> <b>Here&#8217;s the data sheet: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ti.com\/lit\/gpn\/tl431\">http:\/\/www.ti.com\/lit\/gpn\/tl431<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p> <b>And here are a couple of sites that discuss this very interesting repurposing:<\/b><br \/> <b><br \/><\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/theradioboard.com\/rb\/viewtopic.php?t=6733\"><b>http:\/\/theradioboard.com\/rb\/viewtopic.php?t=6733<\/b><\/a><br \/> <b><br \/><\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/techlib.com\/electronics\/audioamps.html#TL431\"><b>http:\/\/techlib.com\/electronics\/audioamps.html#TL431<\/b><\/a><br \/> <i><u><b><br \/><\/b><\/u><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike KC7IT pointed out that the AF amplifier chip in my Sawdust regen receiver is actually a TL431 voltage regulator. Mike writes: &#8220;It&#8217;s using the voltage reference input as audio in, and the voltage being regulated as the audio out.&#8221; It works great as an audio amplifier, and with just three terminals it is a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/08\/18\/voltage-regulators-as-audio-amplifiers-who-knew\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Voltage Regulators as Audio Amplifiers &#8211; Who Knew!?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio-amplifiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7651,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions\/7651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}