arduinovoltage-regulator
I have a 4.8v battery pack and I made a simple power supply with a L7805CV voltage regulator, which has a 2v dropout. So I'm only getting like 3.5v out. Is it possible to throw an op-amp or something like that before the voltage regulator to make sure I get at least the 7v I need to achieve 5v on vout?
If not, what is best practice?
The L7805C has a dropout voltage of 2v typical.
So with 5.43 volts input you can expect an output of 3.43 volts typical.
(Although dropout is not really spec'd when the output is below regulation voltage.)
If you have not mixed up input and output, the chip is toast. You don't need to connect to the tab, but IN/GND/OUT should be as shown below.
It's fairly hard to kill these things with a 9V battery though, so I'd suspect a wiring error first.
Best Answer
Leon is correct here. Let me approach your question in more detail.
The issue here is simple, for an op-amp to output 7V it needs to have a rail that is at-least 7V, so you will still need another power source to power the op-amp. In most designing for op-amp they also do no pull much power from the first source(actually dissipating this power to ground) so this is not the method you want.
What you need is something that takes power from your first source and delivers it at an increased voltage. You could step up your voltage and then use your 2V drop Linear regulator to step it back down, which they have very good noise characteristics, so if you need low noise, you just have to cope.
Now if you get a buck/boost style switching regulator you can step it to 5V from the 5.4V input voltage, all the way down to 2V input with still getting 5V out. These are nasty to layout so you want to purchase a solution that has already been done.