ECE 213 Lab Report 8

Kate Antonov

April 2, 2019

1
Introduction
This lab intends to understand the response of a resistive-capacitive circuit executed
with a step function. It also intends to explain the relationship between the time
constant and the output voltage.

Procedure
The equipment needed for this lab was: a digital multimeter, oscilloscope, function
generator, a bread board, 224nF capacitor, 3 kΩ resistor, and 3 pairs of wire leads.
All three pair of wire leads were used to connect the function generator, the oscil-
loscope, and the DMM respectively to the circuit. The circuit was built to have
the resistor in series with the source voltage and the capacitor on opposite sides
respectively. Output voltage was the node that connected resistor and capacitor
together. Each actual value for the components were measured and recorded.
The function generator was set to 500 Hz square wave going from 0 to 4 V, with
a 2V DC offset. The waveforms on the oscilloscope were noted and are included in
this report. The rising and falling portion of the output voltage were also noted.
This was repeated with a frequency of 100 Hz. The points where the voltage
was 63.2 percent up on the rising waveform were measured and recorded. This was
also done for the voltage 36.8 up on the falling waveform. The voltage and the time
constant were measured on those points.

Device Manufacturer Model

Oscilloscope Tektronix 2225
DMM WAVETEK BDM35
Function Generator HEWLITT * PACKARD 3311A

Table 1: Equipment Table

Calculations
τ = RC = (2980)(207 ∗ 10− 9) = 0.617ms

voltageaf teroneτ (rising) = V1 − V1 e−t/τ = 4 − 4e−1 = 2.52V

voltageaf teroneτ (f alling) = V1 e−t/τ = 4e−1 = 1.472V

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 Percent Error:

P ercentError = ((M easured − Calculated)/Calculated) ∗ 100%

Calculated Percent Error %

voltage after one time constant (rising) 2.52V 0.79
voltage after one time constant (falling) 1.472V 1.9
time constant (rising) 0.617 ms 2.75
time constant (falling) 0.617 ms 2.75

Table 2: Percent Error of Calculated and Measured Values

Measurements

Component Measured Value

C 207 nF
R 2.98 kOhms

Table 3: Measured values of components

Measured
voltage after one time constant (rising) 2.5V
voltage after one time constant (falling) 1.5V
time constant (rising) 0.6ms
time constant (falling) 0.6ms

Table 4: Measured Values of Voltage and Time Constant

500 Hz diagrams:

Hz source.jpg
500 Hz rising:

3
Hz up.jpg
500 Hz falling

Hz down.jpg
100 Hz diagrams:

Hz source.jpg
100 Hz rising:

Hz up.jpg
100 Hz falling:

4
Hz down.jpg

5
Questions
1. Why did we change the input from 500 to 100 Hz? What would the output be
if the input frequency was infinitely high? What if it was 0? We changed the input
to notice the change in the waveform due to the change in the period. The output
would be no period if frequency was infinitely high, which would look like straight
line with no peaks. With zero frequency, there would be no waveform, no line at all
due the period being infinite.
2. How would changing the value of the resistor affect the time constant? Why?
What about the capacitor?
Decreasing resistance would decrease time constant, and vice versa due to the
formula:
τ = RC

. Decreasing capacitance would decrease time constant, and vice versa.

3. Replace the capacitor with a 150 mH inductor and the resistor with a 1
k resistor. Change the frequency to about 50 kHz. Explain what you see at the
original frequency and at 50 kHz. At original frequency, the waveform with the
inductor would look like the inverse of the waveform seen with the capacitor in the
original circuit. With the 50 kHz frequency, nothing would be seen, as the it is too
fast for the inductor to discharge.

Conclusion
This lab was intended to understand the relationship between time constant and
output voltage. This was done by calculating the time constant and output voltage
and then plotting this on the oscilloscope to compare. With the calculated and
measured values seen below,

Calculated Percent Error %

voltage after one time constant (rising) 2.52V 0.79
voltage after one time constant (falling) 1.472V 1.9
time constant (rising) 0.617 ms 2.75
time constant (falling) 0.617 ms 2.75

Table 5: Percent Error of Calculated and Measured Values

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 Component Measured Value
C 207 nF
R 2.98 kOhms

Table 6: Measured values of components

Measured
voltage after one time constant (rising) 2.5V
voltage after one time constant (falling) 1.5V
time constant (rising) 0.6ms
time constant (falling) 0.6ms

Table 7: Measured Values of Voltage and Time Constant

it was noted that the percent error overall was extremely small. To account for
it, it is possible that estimating o the oscilloscope led to rounding, which would have
differed from the exact calculated values.
In conclusion, the calculated and measured values were accurate enough to ob-
serve the relationship between time constant and output voltage, and to see the
charging and discharging effects of the capacitor as frequency was changed.