Electronic – Applying a voltage at the output of a linear regulator

linear-regulator

I'm working on a fairly complicated project and in the process I encountered a fairly simple problem. My project has a microcontroller which will, of course require programming. However, the PCB will draw its power from a custom designed motherboard, and for the purpose of testing and writing the firmware, it would be grossly inconvenient to require that it be connected to the motherboard simply to program it.

My solution was to simply stick a header onto the 5 V rail and power it externally. However, the 5 V rail is supplied by a linear regulator (LDL1117), which bucks 6 V from the mobo down to 5 V. This means that if I power the rail externally, the regulator will have 5 V at the output, while the input would be floating. Is this inherently a problem? Could this damage the regulator?

Best Answer

I'm not familiar with the regulator but a common trick on PSU design is to feed back from the output to the input using a diode. This way the input can only be one diode-drop below the output. Using a Schottky diode will minimise the voltage drop. You'll have to decide if this is enough.

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

Figure 1. The scheme - if the +6V is available on the header - would be simple.

Judging by @Rohat's comment this is risky.

The obvious solution then would be to apply +5 V to the +6 V input too. This eliminates the problem if that pin is easily accessible.