I’m new to this forum, so perhaps this question has been answered many times before. If I power step-up, step-down, or step-up/step-down regulators with battery supplies, do I have to worry about input voltage surges damaging the regulators? On some other circuits I’ve built with battery supplies (not through regulators), I’ve put a 0.1 uf ceramic capacitor between Vin and GND.
Hi.
Batteries are generally pretty good at handling any spikes that come back to the supply, but if your power leads are long you might still have to take precautions against LC voltages spikes. All of our regulators have some ceramic capacitance on their input. If your regulator doesn’t have an electrolytic capacitor on the input, you could add one close to the regulator for added protection.
-Claire