RC Circuits Lab Report
Experiment 5: RC Circuits
Abstract
The purpose of this lab is to learn and understand RC Circuits. An RC circuit is composed of at least one resistor and at least one capacitor. A capacitor is composed of two plates with either air or an insulator also known as a dielectric between the plates. We do not want the plates to be touching, because then we would only have a conductor. The insulator between the plates is also known as the dialectic, which affect how the capacitor will store charge. In an RC circuit, voltage will flow from the battery to the capacitor and through the resistor. When the capacitor is charging, the voltage across the battery is decreasing until the capacitor is fully charged. When the capacitor is fully charged, then the voltage through the battery is zero. That would also mean that the voltage of the circuit would drop until it is also zero. Now when the capacitor completely discharges, the voltage through the battery increases. We were able to measure the half-time of the charging and discharging of the capacitor by connecting the circuit to the oscilloscope with the signal generator providing the potential for the circuit. The time constant was calculated from the half-time of charging and discharging. The time constant is a measure of the length of time a capacitor took to charge and discharge. We used the average of the charging and discharging time constants to calculate the capacitance by using the equation τ = RC. Since we know the resistance and the time constant, we are able to solve for the capacitance and compared the observed and theoretical values in order to verify the capacitance. For the RC circuit with one capacitor, we compared the theoretical and observed time constant and obtained a percent difference of 9.5%. For the RC circuit with two capacitor in series and the RC circuit with two capacitors in parallel, percent differences between the observed and theoretical values were all 9.5%. So
Abstract
The purpose of this lab is to learn and understand RC Circuits. An RC circuit is composed of at least one resistor and at least one capacitor. A capacitor is composed of two plates with either air or an insulator also known as a dielectric between the plates. We do not want the plates to be touching, because then we would only have a conductor. The insulator between the plates is also known as the dialectic, which affect how the capacitor will store charge. In an RC circuit, voltage will flow from the battery to the capacitor and through the resistor. When the capacitor is charging, the voltage across the battery is decreasing until the capacitor is fully charged. When the capacitor is fully charged, then the voltage through the battery is zero. That would also mean that the voltage of the circuit would drop until it is also zero. Now when the capacitor completely discharges, the voltage through the battery increases. We were able to measure the half-time of the charging and discharging of the capacitor by connecting the circuit to the oscilloscope with the signal generator providing the potential for the circuit. The time constant was calculated from the half-time of charging and discharging. The time constant is a measure of the length of time a capacitor took to charge and discharge. We used the average of the charging and discharging time constants to calculate the capacitance by using the equation τ = RC. Since we know the resistance and the time constant, we are able to solve for the capacitance and compared the observed and theoretical values in order to verify the capacitance. For the RC circuit with one capacitor, we compared the theoretical and observed time constant and obtained a percent difference of 9.5%. For the RC circuit with two capacitor in series and the RC circuit with two capacitors in parallel, percent differences between the observed and theoretical values were all 9.5%. So