Greetings everyone:
I am a new member, and currently a college student about to graduate in less than two weeks. Although my degree is in chemistry, I recently decided that I really didn't want to do organic chemistry research for the rest of my life, so I decided to try out some new fields. I am taking my first real course in electronics this semester, in which I have a final exam tomorrow (don't worry, I'm not asking for exam help).
Anyway, frequently throughout class, my professor made the remark that in his experience with electronics, a good portion of the problems and failures occur in the DC power supply. He also said that there have been very few technological advances with regard to power supplies in the last 30 years, such as that used by a laptop computer. Also, in that lecture, he pointed out how there is significant energy loss in the transformer coils, rectifiers, and filters, much of which causes heating.
This got me thinking about an alternate method of producing DC voltage from AC mains. Basically, I was thinking of a method that would
1. Digitize the incoming mains AC signal using an ADC.
2. Convert the sinusoidal digitalsignal into a flat digital signal through some sort of logic circuit.
3. Convert the flat digital signal into DC using a DAC.
At this point in my education, I would not know how to accomplish step 2, but I'd be surprised if it couldn't be done, given what humanity has accomplished with digital logic circuits.
Anyway, I am curious to know what research has been done in this area (I'm sure someone came up with this idea before me), and how the energy efficiencies of this method compare to energy efficiencies of existing power supplies.
I am a new member, and currently a college student about to graduate in less than two weeks. Although my degree is in chemistry, I recently decided that I really didn't want to do organic chemistry research for the rest of my life, so I decided to try out some new fields. I am taking my first real course in electronics this semester, in which I have a final exam tomorrow (don't worry, I'm not asking for exam help).
Anyway, frequently throughout class, my professor made the remark that in his experience with electronics, a good portion of the problems and failures occur in the DC power supply. He also said that there have been very few technological advances with regard to power supplies in the last 30 years, such as that used by a laptop computer. Also, in that lecture, he pointed out how there is significant energy loss in the transformer coils, rectifiers, and filters, much of which causes heating.
This got me thinking about an alternate method of producing DC voltage from AC mains. Basically, I was thinking of a method that would
1. Digitize the incoming mains AC signal using an ADC.
2. Convert the sinusoidal digitalsignal into a flat digital signal through some sort of logic circuit.
3. Convert the flat digital signal into DC using a DAC.
At this point in my education, I would not know how to accomplish step 2, but I'd be surprised if it couldn't be done, given what humanity has accomplished with digital logic circuits.
Anyway, I am curious to know what research has been done in this area (I'm sure someone came up with this idea before me), and how the energy efficiencies of this method compare to energy efficiencies of existing power supplies.