Zener regulator circuit, and power ratings.

[sureshot]

Yes, darlington means 2 voltage drops.
Yes, you shouldn't take zener to its max, give it little space.

And stop worrying about how you need 5W zener, from start of your design. Calculate as I showed you in the example above, and then you will know what power rating you need.

Yes i will, its starting to sink in now. Thanks for the help with this, that's to everyone that's put up with me.

From memory that might have been the case, i took the resistor to the maximum. No head room i think in that circuit i put together.

[Simon123]

No worries, by the way i also suggest you when you design and stuff ... circuits, print out schematic and write voltage levels(and currents) across stuff you are interested in.
That way i think you will understand it even faster, since its nice visual representation, not just some stupid math equations lol

[CJay]

You don't have to find a Darlington, you can make one, pick yourself a pass  transistor and then add another 'driver' transistor, have a look at the Ham Jumbo PSU, that's pretty much a classic Zener regulated, Darlington pair based PSU.

As mentioned earlier, if there's no load on the output then the current through the Zener will be maximum, limited by the series resistor so that's why your Zener got hot.

[Simon123]

And there is also another configuration Similar to darlington, called sziklai pair, which gives you 0.6V drop, not 1.2V as darlington ... But for now i suggest darlington, since you are beginner.

[sureshot]

Yes i have looked closley into darlinton and Sziklai pairs, the latter had a slower response time i read, but i don't think that's an issue with this circuit. Buy yes i will stick to darlington transistors, or maybe make one with two bipolar transistors. I read the resistors in the darlington pair improve response times, and help with on to off states. Think that was it. Anyway thanks ever so much for the help from everyone, I'm learning it, be it slowly.