This paper presents a prototype of a digital controlled electronic load proposed to be used in testing the reliability of linear and switching mode power supplies and as well as the batteries. The proposed design of the electronic load was implemented around an 8 bit microcontroller which manages the configuration, monitoring and control of the entire system. The testing data is displayed on a 128x64 graphic liquid crystal display (GLCD) and sent to a graphical user interface (GUI) designed with LabVIEWTM. By using GUI, the user can perform the acquisition and the configuration of the testing routine having the possibility to save the data in ASCII files for later analyses. The architecture, thermal analysis and the testing results with different power supplies are presented in the last part of the paper.

Keywords: Electronic load, Digital control, Power supplies, MOSFET, Microcontroller