Some years ago, I built a power supply using a Raytheon RC4194 regulator IC which, though it was rated for only 250 mA, was adequate for many things. I built it according to the mfg recommendations and never gave it a thought afterward. The recommended design used four additional transistors in order to provide about 4 amperes of output current, which was considerably less well-regulated than the output from the regulator alone, but, it was adequate. The point, of course, was to control the output voltage on both the positive and negative rail, with a single control input, in this case from a potentiometer.

Now I'm interested, perhaps, in building another version of this same sort of circuit, but perhaps with a DAC input rather than a potentiometer. That old regulator has been obsolete for a long time and I'm wondering if there's some really simple and clever way to do what it did, which was to provide bipolar output precisely tracking a single reference input over the range from 0 volts to bipolar 30 volts or so. I'm willing to put forth the effort so long as I can obtain a well-regulated bipolar supply that tracks within 5 mV or so and supplies at least 2.5 amperes. I'm not being too fussy, but close tracking is pretty important.

I want to end up with voltage regulation as cursorily described, adjustable current limiting, and most of the "usual" features provided by monolithic regulator IC's, but in a dual-tracking version controllable with a single control, one for voltage, one for current. I'm interested in what people have to suggest.

Any recommendations?

RE