Continuing on my high-brightness LED kick, here’s a few designs for switch-mode constant-current supplies for high-power LEDs, courtesy of ON Semiconductor:
12V AC-DC MC34063 LED Buck Driver
The MC34063 is a nice chip to use purely based on price – it’s dirt cheap. You can also get a fair amount of efficiency from it, though apparently the darlington output stage is somewhat lacking. Still, it’s available in a DIP8 package, and did I mention… dirt cheap? $0.83CAD from Digikey in singles, drops to under $0.30CAD in the thousands.
Considering that any linear system (constant-current regulator, plain ol’ resistor) is going to give you something on the order of 50-60% efficiency, and this’ll give you on the order of 75-85%… not bad at all.
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