ORIGINAL: combatpigg
Now don't these gizmos need to be bolted to some metal to achieve their rated capacity?
CP -
Sometimes, but the causes of heating can be surprising (well, at least to me). Generally, I think of heat generation being associated with current. Voltage regulators tend to heat when the voltage differential is large - a voltage drop from 20v to 5v has to be dissipated somehow and that's heat. For our use, dropping a 3s or 2s lipo to 5v may cause it to get bearly warm. For a 2s lipo, the drop is so small that a LDO reg might be a better choice. I put together another circuit to drive a foam cutter that uses a power transistor. This will drive a 36" bow - this particular MOSFET tends to heat as the switching frequency goes up, not so much with the current it carries.
You're correct, but for the loads imposed by most 1/2A applications, we can probably get by without it. Many of these Vregs will run at junction temperatures of 100C or higher.