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@ericfont
Created January 28, 2025 06:43
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simple cheap (power-wasting) voltage step-down regulator from 3.3V to 1.2V using zener & led
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@ericfont
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Instead could use two 7660 ICs two divide a 5.0 V supply twice to produce a 2.5 V supply and a 1.25 V supply. Note that 1.25 V is within the ice40's 1.2 V core supply tolerance range of 1.14 V to 1.26 V.

@ericfont
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regarding the very first image, turns out 1.2V zeners don't really exist...seems lower limit is 2.0V zeners. So an alternative could be to use a 2.1V zener to subtract 2.0V from 3.3V:

circuit-20250129-0449

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assuming that don't already have a stable high voltage to start with, then could drop down to the lowest zener (lowest I can find cheaply are 2.0V) and then from that 2.0V do a simple resistor-divider:

circuit-20250221-0320

Takes about 5us for the 1.2V level to get close enough to be considered "on", since just needs to charge up the 1nF and 10nF capacitors through the somewhat low-valued resistors:

sim

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