Dual tracking regulator

A dual power supply is shown above using two separate 5K potentiometers or a dual 5K potentiometer can be used for a dual tracking power supply. The advantage of using the potentiometers for adjustment is that maximum voltage allowed by the regulators can be used but while using dual potentiometer for a tracking supply , precision may not be accurate. Good tracking voltage can only be obtained if the dual potentiometer is well matched and such a unit can be very expensive. The circuit below will give you accuracy and precision tracking within a few milivolts but at the sacrifice of voltage limitation as dictated by the op-amp maximum permissible supply voltage which should be no more than plus and minus 15 volts input voltage for a regulated output voltage of 1.250 volts to approximately 13.4 volts at a maximum current of 1.5 amps . To obtain such precision matched resistors should be used and the op-amp must have a very low offset current , the TL071 a FET type meets this requirement and works very well . You must also insure that the regulators used are of the same manufactured brand.

The Circuit
The positive side of the circuit is adjusted with RV1 in the conventional way. From the junction of RV1 and R1 to the LM317 the positive reference voltage is applied to pin 2 input of the op-amp through the 10K resistor and the inverted output reference from pin 6 is applied to the control pin of the LM337. Pin 3 is connected to ground reference zero . If the op-amp used does not have a zero offset current it will be reflected in difference of the inverted reference voltage applied to the negative regulator as compared to the positive reference applied to the positive regulator and the error will be reflected at the negative regulated output. Other op-amps can be used such as OP-08, TL084, LF356 or similar. Opamps like the 741 , 301, can also be used but the offset has to be manually adjusted with the use of a 10K miniature potentiometer connected between pins 1 and 5 in the case of the 741 and the negative ouput reference matched to the positive one by adjusting the 10K pot.

Note that the op-amp supply source is taken from the +/- input voltage, this is necessary to obtain the negative voltage reference. The 10uf capacitors are used to increase ripple filtering under heavy load . The 2.2uf capacitors used at the output must be solid tantalum types for best result. Resistors R1,R4 should be 1/2 watt resistors all others can be 1/4 watt .

The total operating current of the circuit is less than 30mA . With proper care of assembly with heatsinks and choice of components, tracking and regulation should be within + or - .5%.