MARMARA UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

PHYS 1104
PHYSICS LABORATORY II

Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Section:6

Group:7

Instructure:Res. Assit. Neslihan Alpay

Date:05.05.2025

Department Student Id Number Name & Surname Task Distribution

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Table of Contents
1. Purpose....................................................................................................................................................................3
2. Theory......................................................................................................................................................................3
3. Experimental Setup.................................................................................................................................................4
3.1. Equipment List.................................................................................................................................................4
4. Procedure................................................................................................................................................................ 5
5. Results and Discussion.............................................................................................................................................7
Data and Tables...............................................................................................................................................................7
6. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................................13
7. Recommendations.................................................................................................................................................13
8. References.............................................................................................................................................................13
9. Appendix................................................................................................................................................................14

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

1. Purpose
To observe the effects of capacitance, resistance and voltage on the charging of a
capacitor in an RC circuit.

2. Theory
Basically, a capacitor can be built by placing two metal conductive plate face to face in a
small distance (Figure 1). Then the plates are connected to a voltage source and when the
potential is applied one of the plates are charged ¿, while other is (– )Q . The voltage difference
between the two plates are approximately equal to the applied voltage. Capacitance is the ratio
of the charge to the potential difference between the plates. It is shown by “C ” with a unit of
Farad (F) which is in SI unit system.

Figure 1 Parallel plate capacitor. Figure 2 Capacitor charging circuit diagram

In the circuit of Figure 2, the change with time of the current passing through the charging
capacitor (C) which is connected in series with the resistor (R) with applied a constant voltage
(V) is given as follows:

V s −t
I ( t )=¿ RC (1)
R e
Where, Vs is the source voltage, R is the resistance, Vc is the voltage on capacitor.

The RC time constant (τ) is the time it takes for a capacitor to charge or discharge through
a resistor. It is calculated by multiplying the resistance (R in ohms) by the capacitance (C in
farads). The value of the time constant is %63.2 of the maximum voltage applied to the
capacitor.

The Equation 1 can be represented in terms of time constant (τ).

V s −t
I ( t )=¿ τ (2)
R e
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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
−t
V c =V s (1−e RC ) (3)

In the case of discharging of the capacitor voltage and current are calculated by

−V s −t
I ( t )=¿ τ (4)
R e
−t
V c =V s e τ (5)

3. Experimental Setup
3.1. Equipment List
1. Board x1 2. DC Voltage Source (0 – 30 V range) x1
3. Digital Multimeter x2 4. On-off switch x1
5. 1000 µF Capacitor x2 6. Connection cables
7. 10 kΩ Resistor x1

Figure 3 Circuit diagram

The experimental setup is shown in Figure 3. The internal resistance of the digital
multimeter and the setting time can be disregarded. R is a protective resistor that limits the
current while discharging the capacitor when Switch is set to B.

In this experiment, you will record the voltage across the capacitor and current passing
through the circuit as a function of time for different values of the capacitance and the source
voltage. To observe the theoretical relation given in Equation 1, it is best to graph natural
logarithm of the current as a function of time. In that case, the theoretical expression can be
written as

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
V 1
ln I =ln( )− t (6)
R τ
−1
The slope of the plot of Equation 6 is . The intersection point of the plot on y axis is
τ
Vs
ln .
R

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

4. Procedure
1. Ensure that the capacitor and resistance are working properly. Check with multimeter.

2. Adjust the voltage source to the desired value precisely and ensure that it works correctly using a
digital multimeter.

3. Build the circuit shown in Figure 3 but be careful the minus part of the capacitor should be
plugged in the correct direction of the current. If it is plugged in a wrong way, the circuit does
not work as requested. Be careful your circuit must be similar to the Figure 4 showing all
connection and Figure 5 showing the detail view of the circuit.

Figure 4 Experiment setup

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Figure 5 Detail view of the circuit

4. Take the video covering the beginning and end of the experiment for each part. The screens of
the power supply and both multimeters should be visible on the frame of the recorded video. The
video must be taken without shaking video camera.

5. Write the voltage and current values in the frames corresponding to the time in the related tables.
(you can obtain these values by writing them to a file using image processing and OCR
programs)

6. Plot voltage vs time and Iexp vs time graphs for each case.

7. Calculate the theoretical values of the time constants (τ) for all parts. Determine the
experimental values of the time constants by drawing the ln (Iexp) vs time graph. The slope of the
−1
graph will be as shown in Equation 6. Determine the percentage error of time constant.
τ

8. Follow steps from 5 to 7 for each part with the values given in the Table 1

9. Before charging the capacitor ensure that the capacitor is fully discharged by changing the
switch to the position of B.

10.Write the time, current and voltage values of Part I, Part II and Part IV in Table 2, the values of
Part III in Table 3.

11.In Table 5 calculate percentage errors of voltage, resistance and capacitor values used in the Part
I to Part IV. The row named 3.A and 3.B are values depend on charging and discharging
capacitor of the circuit in Part III respectively.

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
Table 1 Value of source voltage, resistor and capacitor of each part

Part Vs (V) R (kΩ) C (µF)

I 10 10 1.000

II 10 20 1.000

III 10 20 2.000

IV 5 20 2.000

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

5. Results and Discussion

Data and Tables
Table 2. Recorded values of voltage and current of Part I, Part II and Part IV
Part I. Part II. Part IV.
R1=10 kΩ, C1=1000 μF R2=20 kΩ, C1=1000 μF R2=20 kΩ, C2=2000 μF
Time V c (V) Time V c (V) Time V c (V)
I (mA) I (mA) I (mA)
(s) (s) (s)
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0.99 0.3 1 0.43 0.48 1 0.48 0.26

2 0.91 1.4 2 0.41 0.98 2 0.46 0.50

3 0.79 2.8 3 0.38 1.44 3 0.44 0.78

4 0.67 3.9 4 0.37 1.89 4 0.41 0.95

5 0.58 4.2 5 0.36 2.17 5 0.39 1.18

7 0.51 5.1 10 0.28 3.88 10 0.30 2.08

9 0.41 6.0 15 0.22 5.03 15 0.22 2.81

11 0.33 6.7 20 0.16 6.38 20 0.17 3.29

13 0.27 7.4 25 0.13 7.09 25 0.13 3.66

15 0.21 7.9 30 0.10 7.67 30 0.10 3.99

20 0.13 8.7 35 0.08 8.16 35 0.08 4.21

25 0.08 9.2 40 0.06 8.52 40 0.06 4.39

30 0.04 9.5 50 0.04 9.10 50 0.03 4.64

35 0.03 9.7 60 0.02 9.41 60 0.02 4.78

40 0.02 9.8 70 0.01 9.63 70 0.01 4.87

50 0.01 9.9 80 0.01 9.75 80 0 4.92

60 0 9.95 90 0 9.83 90 0 4.95

70 0 9.96 110 0 9.91 100 0 4.97

80 0 9.97 130 0 9.95 110 0 4.99

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
Table 3., Charge and discharge
Part III. R2=20 kΩ, C2=2000 μF
A. Charge B. Discharge
Time Time
I (mA) V c (V) I (mA) V c (V)
(s) (s)
0 0 0 130 0 9.99

1 0.99 0.37 131 0.99 9.69

2 0.92 1.00 132 0.94 9.14

3 0.87 1.60 133 0.89 8.62

4 0.83 1.92 134 0.83 8.13

5 0.78 2.37 135 0.80 7.83

10 0.60 4.18 140 0.60 5.86

15 0.44 5.64 145 0.46 4.57

20 0.35 6.53 150 0.36 3.50

25 0.27 7.39 155 0.27 2.68

30 0.20 8.00 160 0.21 2.02

40 0.12 8.82 170 0.12 1.2

60 0.04 9.57 190 0.04 0.47

80 0.01 9.84 210 0.01 0.16

110 0 9.96 230 0.01 0.1

130 0 9.99 240 0 0.04

Table 4. % error of time constants

Value of Voltage, Resistance and Time constant (τ)
Part
Capacitor Theoretical Experimental % error
1 V1:10 R1:10 C1:1000 10 10.25 2.5
2 V1:10 R2:20 C1:1000 20 19.08 4.6
3.A V1:10 R2:20 C2:2000 40 41.49 3.7
3.B V1:10 R2:20 C2:2000 40 40 0
4 V2:5 R2:20 C2:2000 40 51.28 28.2

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
Theoretical Calculations
τₜₕ=R × C

Part I.

 R = 10 kΩ = 10,000 Ω
 C = 1000 µF = 0.001 F
 τₜₕ = 10,000 × 0.001 = 10 s

Part II.

 R = 20 kΩ = 20,000 Ω
 C = 1000 µF = 0.001 F
 τₜₕ = 20,000 × 0.001 = 20 s

Part III.A

 R = 20 kΩ = 20,000 Ω
 C = 2000 µF = 0.002 F
 τₜₕ = 20,000 × 0.002 = 40 s

Part III.B

 R = 20 kΩ = 20,000 Ω
 C = 2000 µF = 0.002 F
 τₜₕ = 20,000 × 0.002 = 40 s

Part IV.

 R = 20 kΩ = 20,000 Ω
 C = 2000 µF = 0.002 F
 τₜₕ = 20,000 × 0.002 = 40 s

Experimental Calculations
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Capacitor Charge and Discharge
−t
τ
I ( t )=I 0 ⋅ e
t
ln (I )=ln ( I 0)−
τ
−1 −1
slope= ⇒ τ experimental=
τ slope

Graph 1

Graph 2

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Graph 3A

Graph 3B

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Graph 4

Error Calculations

Part I.
τₜₕ=¿ 10
τ exp=10.25
Error %=|10.25−10
10 |× 100=2.5 %

Part II.
τₜₕ=¿20
τ exp=¿ 19.08
Error %=|19.08−20
20 | ×100=4.6 %

Part III.A
τₜₕ=¿40
τ exp=41.49
Error %=|41.49−40
40 |× 100=3.7 %

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Part III.B
τₜₕ=¿40
τ exp=¿40
Error %= |
40−40
40 |
× 100=0 %

Part IV.
τₜₕ=40
τ exp=¿51.28
Error %= |
40−51.28
40 |
×100=28.2 %

6. Conclusion
In this experiment, we studied how a capacitor charges and discharges in a circuit with different values of
resistance, capacitance, and voltage. We recorded the voltage and current at different times and used
graphs to compare theoretical and experimental results. We saw that the time constant changes when we
change the resistance or the capacitance. The experimental results were close to the theoretical values, but
there were small errors. These errors may come from measurement mistakes or equipment limits. This
experiment helped us understand how capacitors work in real circuits.

7. Recommendations
To improve the accuracy of the experiment, we recommend using more sensitive measuring devices. Also,
taking more data points in shorter time intervals can give better results. It is important to make sure that all
connections in the circuit are correct and stable. Before each test, the capacitor should be fully discharged.
Finally, repeating the experiment a few times can help reduce random errors and give more reliable data.

8. References
1. Khan Academy. (n.d.). Capacitors and Capacitance. 05.05.2025
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/circuits-topic/capacitors/v/capacitors-and-capacitance
2. Electronics Tutorials. (n.d.). RC Charging Circuit. 05.05.2025
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/rc/rc_1.html
3. All About Circuits. (n.d.). Capacitor Charge and Discharge. 05.05.2025
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-13/rc-time-constant/
4. SparkFun. (n.d.). Capacitors. 05.05.2025
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/capacitors/all

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

9. Appendix

Figure 6 1.Table experiment

Figure 7 2.Table experiment

Figure 8 3.Table experiment

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Capacitor Charge and Discharge

Figure 4.Table experiment

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