Need to build a 12 volt 10amp voltage regulator

[nobb]

Hi.
I am hoping to regulate a voltage source that puts out 12-14 volts output. I want to regulate this to 12 volts exactly (cant exceed 12.4v) at 10 amps max and I was hoping maybe someone could recommend a simple chip to do this? I have experience building voltage regulators out of the lm317 chip, but that only handles 1 amp. Recommendations welcome. Thanks.

 

[PottedMeat]

12V @ 10A is asking quite a bit from a linear regulator. If you read the LM317 datasheet it should show you a way of paralleling pass transistors to increase the current rating. They're going to have to be pretty beefy along with appropriate heat sinks.

Is the voltage source that noisy/variable?

So the voltage varies between 12.0 and 14.0?

Why 12.4 max?

Guaranteeing the input voltage is greater than ~13V would make it pretty simple ( maybe a LDO + pass transistors )

Buck converter maybe?

 

[nobb]

Ok, if you really want to know...the reason is that I just built a carpc with an M2-ATX power supply and a Via Epia M10000 motherboard. However, sometimes it appears that the power supply may "overshoot" a little bit on the 12volt rails and may explain why my motherboard sometimes does not power up properly. Here is a thread describing this issue in more detail:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulleti...fix-m2-atx-jetway.html

So it appears that the problem may be that the 12volt rail can get a bit high, causing the motherboard to have problems powering up. So if (after I do some testing) indeed my 12 volt rails are "overshooting", then I want to perhaps build a simple regulator to keep the voltage below 12.5 volts. 12.4 volts max seems to be a good target for regulation.

 

[Dman877]

Why not hook it your battery/alternator?

 

[Zepper]

Car power generally runs over 13 Volts. Hard to regulate to 12V with that low a differential voltage - have to find some low diff regulators and maybe parallel them for the high amperage. The confuser doesn't really need 12V @ 10A, does it? Most mini-ITX systems don't need 100W total much liess 120W of just 12V...

.bh.

 

[PottedMeat]

Can you guarantee a greater input voltage than 12.7V? Turn the carputer on only after the car is on maybe?

One google hit:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulleti...tor-schematic-15a.html