What is a variable regulated power supply?
A variable regulated power supply, also called a variable bench power supply, is one where you can continuously adjust the output voltage to you requirements. Varying the output of the power supply is the recommended way to test a project after having double checked parts placement against circuit drawings and the parts placement guide. This type of regulation is ideal for having a simple variable bench power supply. Actually I think this is quite important because one of the first projects a hobbyist should undertake is the construction of a bench supply. While a dedicated supply is quite handy e.g. 5V or 12V, it’s much handier to have a variable supply on hand, especially for testing. There have been many times I have had to “smoke test” a project. This means I have started out at the minimum voltage on my supply (about 3V), seen nothing untoward happening and then slowly winding up the voltage to say 15V (this would only be where the project design called for 15V). When testing a pr
