12V to 120V DC DC Converter Circuit

Here is a simple DC DC converter schematic using a saturation-limited to push-pull converter. DC converter can be used to power the VCR from a car battery and glow plug light aircraft models from a 12V battery starter.

As a final amplifier of the DC DC converter is a pair of transistor MJE2955 and 2SC945 as oscillator to apply sufficient bias to the final amplifier transistors.

The 2SC945 is a bias switch for startup. When applying 12V power, this transistor applies enough bias to the power transistors to get the oscillation started. Soon later, the 100uF capacitor charges up, the transistor goes off, and the power transistors self-bias into cut-off, such that cross-conduction is eliminated. After removing power, the 6k8 resistor discharges the bias timing capacitor, as otherwise the circuit would be unable to restart!

The secondary rectifiers are ultrafast diodes. These are NOT 1N4007! And the 220nF capacitors for the secondary filter are no typos; the diodes deliver almost pure DC, since the oscillation waveform is square, so only some noise filtering is needed. No electrolytics are necessary here.

DC DC Converter

Note the filters at both input and output, using ferrite cores. These are necessary to avoid polluting your environment with RF noise! Using these filters, and joining the input and output negative leads, this converter is very quiet and does not cause any problem in my combined HF, VHF and UHF station.

All ferrite cores (for the transformer and for the noise filters) are manufactured by Amidon Associates, and can be ordered directly from them in small quantities. Look for Amidon on the web. The 77-material core used for the transformer is less than ideal. A square-loop ferrite would work more efficiently! This one gets really warm, operating in saturation mode at 25 kHz. But it has worked well enough for two years now. The filter cores, on the other hand, are well chosen, so try to use the exact ones.

For all windings, the schematic states the number of turns. “7t” means 7 turns. As the transformer is quite small for the involved power, use as thick a wire as you can fit, leaving about half of the space for the 2×7 turns primary winding, and the other half for the secondary, while the feedback winding can be made from very thin wire.

The transistors do not need any heat sinks. They are large enough without, and they need to dissipate little heat!