Mutah University

Electrical Engineering Department

Electronics lab

Experiment 2: Rectifiers

Objectives:

To study and verify the application of diodes.

Equipment :

1- Oscilloscope. 2- Function Generator (FG) or Signal Generator.

3- Two Digital Multi-meter (DMM). 4- Bread-board.

5. DC power supply 6- Resistors of 100, 1K,10K AND 100K

7. Capacitors of 1μ F,2.2 μ F. 7. Diodes 1N4006

Background:

Rectifiers are the main applications for diodes. They are used to convert AC signal to DC signal. In this
lab you are going to build two types of rectifiers; half wave and full wave rectifiers.

Unfiltered half wave rectifiers:

If you use AC power source instead of the DC power supply source in figure 1.1 a or b then you build a
half wave rectifier. In half wave rectifiers one half of the AC signal makes the diode forward biased and
allow the current to pass and the other half makes the diode reverse biased and no current pass.

The output of the unfiltered half wave rectifier is shown in figure 1.1 below.

Figure 1.1: half wave rectifier output signal

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The maximum output voltage of the rectified unfiltered signal (Vp (HWR) ) is found by the following
equation:

Where V value (DC value) of the HWR rectified unfiltered signal over one period is given by: (input ) is the
input signal peak voltage. The amount of the average

The frequency of the rectified output waveform can be expressed as: f (HWR) = f source

Filtered half wave rectifiers:

If you add a capacitor in parallel with the resistor to the circuit in figure 1.2 a then you build a filtered
half wave rectifier. By adding the capacitor to the circuit the signal will be smoothed out in order to
obtain direct signals (it is dc only in the sense that it does not change polarity, no ripples in the signal).
The capacitor will charge to the peak voltage of the rectified signal and when the rectified signal voltage
falls below the capacitor maximum voltage, it start to discharge through the load resistance

R shown in Figure 1.1. The discharge time for the capacitor (τ = RC) has to be greater than the period of
the input signal (T).

Figure 1.2: Filtered signal The output filtered signal average voltage

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Where V (rectified ) is the HWR or FWR signal peak voltage and Vr p-p is the ripple signal peak to peak
voltage. Vrp-p represents the difference between the capacitor maximum voltage and the capacitor
voltage after discharging, which can be found by the equation:

Where (f) is the frequency of the input signal, (R ) is the load resistance and (C ) is the filtered capacitor.
The ripple voltage can be controlled by changing R, C, f and V (rectified ) (Note: V (rectified ) is related to
the input signal maximum voltage).

The percentage ripple is a measure of how much efficient is the filter. High values of percentage ripple
means bad filter and low value of percentage ripple means good filter, it can be expressed as:

2-Full wave Bridge rectifier:

In bridge rectifiers four diodes are used as the arrangement in figure 3.1. The four diodes are arranged
in “series pairs” with only two diodes conducting current during each half cycle. During the positive half
cycle of the supply, diodes D1 and D2 conduct in series while diodes D3 and D4 are reverse biased.

Figure 2.1: Diodes arrangement in full wave bridge rectifier

The amplitude of the output voltage is two voltage drops ( 2*0.7 = 1.4V ) less than the input VMAX
amplitude. The ripple frequency is now twice the supply frequency (e.g. 100Hz for a 50Hz supply) see
Figure 2.2.

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Figure 2.2: The output of full wave bridge rectifier

Where Vp of the rectifier can be found by:

The amount of the average value (DC value) of the rectified unfiltered signal over one period is given by:

The Smoothing Capacitor

The full-wave bridge rectifier gives a greater mean DC value (0.637 Vmax) with ripple and the output
waveform is twice that of the frequency of the input supply frequency. The average DC output of the
rectifier can be improved and at the same time the AC variation of the rectified output can be reduced
by using smoothing capacitors to filter the output waveform. Smoothing or reservoir capacitors
connected in parallel with the load across the output of the full wave bridge rectifier circuit increases
the average DC output level even higher as the capacitor acts like a storage device as shown in figure 2.3
below.

Figure 2.3: the output of full wave bridge rectifier with smoothing capacitor, filtered rectifier.

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The output filtered signal average voltage can be found as:

Where VP (rectified ) is the signal peak voltage and Vr - pp is the ripple signal peak to peak voltage. Vr -
pp represents the difference between the capacitor maximum voltage and the capacitor voltage after
discharging, which can be found by the equation:

Where (f) is the frequency of the input signal, (R ) is the load resistance and (C ) is the filtered capacitor.
The ripple voltage can be controlled by changing R, C, f and VP (rectified) (Note: VP (rectified) is related
to the input signal maximum voltage).

- Prosedure

(1) Unfiltered half wave rectifier:

1- Construct the circuit shown in Figure 1.3 a where: R =1kΩ, Vp-p=10 V, 50Hz.

a b
Figure 1.3: Unfiltered half wave rectifier

2- Switch ON the Oscilloscope and put the channel coupling for CH2 to DC.

3- Switch ON the Function Generator and set the source voltage (V ) to 10V sinusoidal.

4- Use the Oscilloscope to measure voltage and sketch the results on the answer sheet showing all
the peak voltage and the frequency of the resulted signal.

5- Reverse the diode according to Figure b and repeat the previous steps.

6- Again sketch the output on the answer sheet showing the peak voltage and frequency of the
signal

7- Change the resistance (100, 1k, 10, 100k)Ω and sketch the output in the answer sheet.

(2) Filtered half wave rectifier:

1- Construct the circuit shown in Figure 1.4 where: R =1kΩ, Vp-p=10 V, 50 Hz.

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 Figure 1.4: Filtered half wave rectifier.

2- Switch ON the Oscilloscope and put the channel coupling for CH2 to DC.

3- Switch ON the Function Generator and set the source voltage (V ) to 10Vp-p sinusoidal.

4- Use the Oscilloscope to measure voltage and sketch the results on the answer sheet showing all
the peak voltage and the frequency of the resulted signal.
5-Change the capacitance (1, 2.2)µF and sketch the output in the answer sheet.

3- Full wave bridge rectifier:

1- Construct the circuit shown in Figure 2.3, Rload=1 k,Vs=10 Vp-p 50Hz.
2- Use the Oscilloscope CH2 to observe the output signal, and to do that you had to disconnect
CH1Why?

3- What is the Output Signal Frequency?

5- Measure the Average Voltage (Vavg ) using DMM (put the DMM to DC).
6- Measure the Ripple Voltage Vr-pp (since V-pp = Vout-pp) from CH2.
7- Calculate the Ripple Percentage (Ripp.% )
8- Repeat for all the values of capacitors and resistors as shown in the answer sheet.

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 Mutah University

Electrical Engineering Department

Electronics lab

Exp 2: Rectifiers

Group Number:………………………

Student Name ID

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- Rectifiers:

1-Unfiltered half wave rectifier:

2.Filtered half wave rectifier:

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3 – Full wave bridge rectifier