TUTORIAL LM317

Hello everyone! I hope you all will be absolutely fine and having fun. Today, I am going
to explore my knowledge about Introduction to LM317. It is basically a positive voltage
regulator having three terminals. It can a supply a current more than 1.5A and voltage
in a range of 1.25V to around 37V.
For the adjustment of output voltage only two external resistors are required. It has
improved standards of line regulation as well as load regulation. Full overload protection
e.g. current limiting, area protection can be achieved using LM317. If its adjusting
terminal is disconnected, even then all of the protection circuits will work properly. We
can also use LM317 as precision current regulator by inserting a constant resistor
between its adjustment terminal and output terminal. LM317 has a wide range of
applications e.g. constant regulators, battery chargers, microprocessors supplies,
automative LED lightning, ethernet switch, femto base station, hydraulic valve, IP phone,
motor controllers, power bank solutions, power quality monitoring etc.

INTRODUCTION TO LM317
LM317 is a positive voltage regulator with three different terminals Adjust,
Vout and Vin respectively. It can supply the output voltage in a range of 1.25-37V and
a current more than 1.5A. It has advanced line regulation and load regulation standards
as compared to the general regulators. It has a lot of applications in rela life e.g. motor
controllers, power bank solutions, hydraulic valve, ethernet switch, battery chargers etc.
1. LM317 Pinout
LM 317 has three (3) pins in total Adjust, Vout and Vin respectively.
Each of the pins has its own functions, all the pins along with their name and numbers
are shown in table given below.

2. LM317 Pins Configuration

LM 317 pins configurations along with the properly labeled diagram is shown in the
figure below.
 The animated LM317, its symbolic representation and the image of the real LM317
all are shown in the above figure.
3. LM317 Working Principle
LM 317 wokrs on a very simple principle. It is a variable voltage regulator i.e. supports
different output voltage levels for a constant applied input voltage supply. A variable
resistor is connected at its Adjustment (Adj) terminal in order to control the level of the
output voltage according to the requirements of the circuit. In other words we can say
that LM 317 can step down the voltage from 12V to several different lower levels.
4. LM317 Packages and Dimensions
A lot of LM 317 packages and their dimensions are provided along with their System
International (SI) units in the table shown below.
 Description of packages along with their dimensions is given in the table above.
5. LM317 Specifications
The different specifications associated with LM 317 are provided in the table given
below.

6. LM317 Applications
LM 317 has avery wide range of application, a few of which are given below.

Washing machine.
Waveform generator.
 Refrigerator.
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).
Power quality meter.
Motor controllers.
Finger prints.
Ethernet switch.
Private branch exchange.
Constant current regulators.
Microprocessors supplies.
Automotive LED lightning.
Battery chargers, the proper design of the circuit is shown in the figure below.

7. LM317 Proteus Simulation

I have made a simulation in Proteus ISIS for voltage regulator.
The screenshot of the simulation is shown in the figure below.
 The running form of the above simulation is shown in the figure below.

Input, output and variable resistor are encircled in the above figure.
Since its a variable voltage regulator so by changing the value of variable resistor
you can obtained different voltage levels at the output.
In the above figure, for the resistance of 61% the output voltage is 7.88V.
Now, I am going to check the voltage level for the different value of variable resistor,
which is 54% in this case.
The output of the simulation is shown in the figure below.
 For the different value of variable resistor the output voltage has also changed
from 7.88V to 8.27V.
That was the detailed description of the voltage regulator simulation.
You can download this LM317 Proteus Simulation by clicking below button:
Download Proteus Simulation
So, that is all from the tutorial Introduction to LM317. I hope you all have enjoyed this
exciting tutorial. If you face any sort of problem you can ask me in comments anytime
you want without even feeling any kind of hesitation. I will try my level best to solve your
issues in some better way if possible. Our team is here to entertain you 24/7. I will
explore further ICs and transistors in my upcoming tutorials and will surely share all of

them with all of you as well. So, till then, take care