Hi,

I am designing a 12V / 5V 3A power supply. Having studied the solutions, I settled on two options from TI:
1) LM1085
2) LM2596

It seems that they are similar in characteristics, I did not find any special differences. Perhaps someone came across them and knows which is better?

As I understand it, LM1085 without a load can produce an input voltage at the output, which is not good.

The documentation also indicates the use of tantalum capacitors. I do not really like this idea because of the explosive nature of such elements. There is an idea to use polymer capacitors that are reliable and not very temperature sensitive. Is this a good plan?

 

Hi,

I am designing a 12V / 5V 3A power supply. Having studied the solutions, I settled on two options from TI:
1) LM1085
2) LM2596

It seems that they are similar in characteristics, I did not find any special differences. Perhaps someone came across them and knows which is better?

As I understand it, LM1085 without a load can produce an input voltage at the output, which is not good.

The documentation also indicates the use of tantalum capacitors. I do not really like this idea because of the explosive nature of such elements. There is an idea to use polymer capacitors that are reliable and not very temperature sensitive. Is this a good plan?

The most espectacular explosion I recall was of an electrolytic. Celebrated loudly by all in the lab.
My tants had been all well behaved up to now.

 

LM2596 is a buck converter ic, better for low power wasting when drawing upto 3A, the Lm1085 is a Linear regulator like the Lm317.