Measuring the Time Constant of an RC Circuit using a Digital Oscilloscope: Lab Report, Study notes of Electrical Circuit Analysis

Download Measuring the Time Constant of an RC Circuit using a Digital Oscilloscope: Lab Report and more Study notes Electrical Circuit Analysis in PDF only on Docsity! Measuring the time constant of an RC circuit using a digital Oscilloscope: Objective: The main objective of this lab is to understand the basic characteristics of an RC circuit and measure the time constant of an RC circuit. Theory: Time constant of an RC circuit can be measured in two different ways using a digital oscilloscope. The charging and the discharging curves of an RC circuit are shown is shown in the following figure. The time constant theoretically given by τ = RC, is the time taken by the circuit to charge the capacitor from 0 to 0.632 times of the maximum voltage. This can be derived from the charging equation of an RC circuit given in equation 1. In case of discharging, the time constant is the amount of time required to reduce the voltage across the capacitor from the maximum value to 0.368 of the maximum value. This relation can be derived from equation 2 by replacing t by τ. Apparatus: Resistor close to 500 Ω, capacitor close to 30 μF, digital oscilloscope, circuit board, function generator, connecting wires and oscilloscope probes. Procedures: Warm up 1. Get a function generator and connect its output to the oscilloscope and display the output as sinusoidal wave, square wave and triangular wave. Set the frequency at 100Hz and the amplitude at 5V. Get snapshot of each wave and attach them with your report. 2. Practice to change the frequency and the amplitude of the generator output. Learn to measure them from the oscilloscope. Get help from the instructor. 3. Make sure you are doing it correctly. Get help from the instructor. RC Circuit: