Sarah Cote Physics II Lab March 26, 2014 Lab #6: RC Circuits Partners: Susan Kang and John

Donnelly Abstract This lab furthers our understanding of capacitors and how they work in a circuit. We see how capacitors in series and in parallel differ. RC circuits allow alterations and manipulations to see how different capacitors respond and alter their charges. An RC circuit is a circuit which has a capacitor combined in series with a resistor. 3RC is used to calculate the amount of time it takes for a capacitor to reach 95% charge and discharge. However, we had to alter ours do to previous error and we had to use RC. An oscilloscope was used to visualize the charging and discharge of RC circuits on the computer program. Introduction As mentioned, when a capacitor is combined in series with a resistor, it is called an RC circuit. This enables the characteristic of charging up and discharging over a period of time. When a voltage source is applied across a circuit the capacitor plates will eventually reach the voltage of the power supply however, the capacitor will never reach the full voltage, but approach the voltage. When a charged capacitor is allowed to discharge, the energy that is stored in the capacitor will be transferred to the resistor and the voltage across the capacitor plates will decrease with time. The following are capacitors in series and the second image is of capacitors in parallel.

The following image is now a RC circuit. It charges when the switch is closed and connects the whole circuit and discharges when the switch is detached, breaking the circuit.

To measure the charge and discharge of an RC circuit you use an oscilloscope. You need to use a capacitor and resistor combination that has a short time constant. Methods

Whenever you measure make sure that the capacitor is discharged by touching the two legs of it together. Build an RC circuit on your breadboard as the previous picture in the introduction indicates. The switch will be replaced by a small wire. That will be used to adjust the charged and discharged modes. Measure the resistance of all the resistors and the capacitance of all the capacitors. Set the power supply to 5 V. It will stay at that level throughout the experiment. Clip the DMM probes on the two terminals of the capacitor. Place the wire for the switch into the top row of your BB and time how long it takes for the capacitor to reach 95% through the computer program that was set up. Then plug the wire for the witch into the bottom row of your BB and time how long it takes for the capacitor to discharge 95% of its voltage. Make sure you discharge the capacitor between trials. Do this for the different capacitor and resistor combinations. Use the oscilloscope to set the function generator to produce an appropriate output wave. This is done by connecting the function generator to channel 1 of the oscilloscope using a BNC cable. Be sure to calculate the RC for the capacitor and resistor values you will be using, and then choose the appropriate frequency for those values. The following are the combinations used. Build an RC circuit with a 14k resistor and 470F capacitor, then a circuit
containing 49.9 resistor k and 470 F capacitor, and finally a circuit with a 49.9 resistor k and 330 F capacitor. To charge, place the end of the wire not connected to the resistor in the top row of the bread board, that row should be connected to the positive outlet of the power supply. To discharge move that wire from the top row to the bottom row, that row should be connected to the negative outlet of the power supply. The computer is set on logger pro, calculate 3RC to determine the length of the experiment add a couple seconds and use that number when prompted for a sampling time.

Results

Trial 1 2 AVG 1 2 AVG 1 2 AVG

C (F)

1RC (s)

t of t of charge discharge % Error (s) (s) charge 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 0.8558 0.8673 0.86155 1.73 1.82 1.775 1.65 1.45 1.55

% Error Discharge

14000 0.00033 4.62 14000 0.00033 4.62 14000 0.00033 4.62 14000 0.00047 6.58 14000 0.00047 6.58 14000 0.00047 6.58

30.7359307 12.45457 30.7359307 14.8674

51.3677812 15.43636 51.3677812 16.36456

24800 0.00047 11.656 3.2 24800 0.00047 11.656 3.2 24800 0.00047 11.656 3.2

72.5463281 14.2072752 72.5463281 14.2072752

Sample calculations:

Conclusion/Error The relationship between capacitors in series is that they add reciprocally. Capacitors in parallel add linearly. In the second part of the experiment, it was found that calculating 3RC for the circuits would give the amount of time it takes for a capacitor to charge 95% of the total voltage. However, due to lack of time and error we used RC. The percent error between the calculated amount of time and the measured time varied for both charging and discharging. Through techniqual difficulties and error in the hardware not all of the charge and discharge graphs reached 95%. Sometimes it took a longer amount of time to discharge, this could be attributed to either allowing the capacitor to charge for too long or the amount of time it took to move the wire from the top row to the bottom row. The error for the charging times could be explained by either not discharging the capacitors fully before each trial and the time difference

between pressing collect on the computer and turning on the power supply. The oscilloscope allowed us to see a picture of the charging and discharging phases at the same time instead of separately. Experimental Uncertainties would include the following. Contact between probes and capacitor/resistor legs. The fit of the resistor/capacitor and the bread board. Error from transitioning the wire and clicking on the button to record on the computer. Contact between the power supply and wires connected to the circuit. The time difference between clicking on collect and turning on the power supply. Time difference between clicking collect and moving the wire to discharge the circuit. Not discharging the capacitors fully between trials.

Questions 1. M and F combined will give the time constants in seconds. M is 106 and is 10-6 if the time is the result of the product between resistance and capacitance then the two prefixes would cancel to give seconds. 2. For capacitors in series: Vtotal= VC1 + VC2. For capacitor in parallel: Vtotal= VC1=VC2

Two Capacitors in Series C1 (F) 330 x 10-6 470 x 10-6 C2 (F) 330 x 10-6 470 x 10-6 C1 measured (F) 372 x 10-6 427 x 10-6 C2 measured (F) 388 x 10-6 418 x 10-6 Ceff calculated (F) 188.9 x 10-6 211.2 x 10-6 Ceff measured (F) 188 x 10-6 211 x 10-6 % Error

1.01 .09

330 x 10-6

470 x 10-6

374 x 10-6

425 x 10-6

198.9 x 10-6

197 x 10-6

.96

Two Capacitors in Parallel C1 (F) 330 x 10-6 470 x 10-6 330 x 10-6 C2 (F) 330 x 10-6 470 x 10-6 470 x 10-6 C1 measured (F) 379 x 10-6 430 x 10-6 382 x 10-6 C2 measured (F) 382 x 10-6 423 x 10-6 430 x 10-6 Ceff calculated (F) 761 x 10-6 853 x 10-6 812 x 10-6 Ceff measured (F) 768 x 10-6 850 x 10-6 808 x 10-6 % Error

.91 .35 .50

Trial

R ()

C(F) 425 x 10-6 425 x 10-6 425 x 10-6 425 x 10-6 425 x 10-6 425 x 10-6 377 x 10-6 377 x 10-6 377 x 10-6

3RC (s)

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

14080 14080 14080 49940 49940 49940 49940 49940 49940

17.952 17.952 17.952 63.674 63.674 63.674 56.482 56.482 56.482

Time of charge (s) 15.0 17.0 17.0 60.0 61.0 61.5 52.0 55.0 54.0

Time of Discharge (s) 18.0 20.0 18.0 65.5 65.0 64.0 59.0 61.0 60.0

% error charge 16.44 5.30 5.30 5.79 4.19 3.41 7.94 2.62 4.39

% error discharge 0.27 11.41 0.27 2.87 2.08 0.51 4.49 7.96 6.23