Voltage regulator employing a triac to deliver voltage to a load

Abstract

An alternating current voltage regulator providing a stable RMS output voltage across a load. The voltage applied to the load being determined by controlling the firing angle of a triac, which is controlled by the pulse width of a timing signal generated in a timer circuit. The pulse width of the timing signal is controlled by an error signal. The error signal is based upon the actual triac output voltage as compared with a comparison signal. The voltage delivered to the load is compared with a RMS reference voltage to produce the comparison signal. The potential difference between the output voltage and the comparison signal is constantly monitored to produce the error signal. The error signal is thus constantly applied to vary the pulse width of the timing signal and thus vary the firing angle of the triac in accordance with the deviation of the actual output voltage from the stable RMS reference voltage. By constantly varying the firing angle of the triac with regards to deviations from the stable RMS reference voltage, the triac output is constantly adjusted to produce an output voltage substantially equal to the RMS reference voltage.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.