PHY136H5 Lecture Notes - Printed Circuit Board, Lab Report, Num Lock
Document Summary
In this experiment, we will study charging a capacitor by connecting it to a voltage source through a resistor. The experiment also includes the study of discharging the capacitor through a resistor. To study the charging and discharging processes of capacitors. To determine the time constant of an rc-circuit. Consider a circuit as shown in figure 1. , a current is set up in the loop and the capacitor begins to charge. Applying kircho "s loop rule, we get (1) where is the supply voltage, is the resistance, is the charge on the capacitor and is the capacitance. Substituting for the current , equation (1) becomes (2) The solution of equation (3) is given as (3) (4) where is the maximum value of the voltage across the capacitor. This determines the charge on the capacitor as a function of time . The voltage across the capacitor is given as (5)