Brigham Young University-Idaho Department of Mechanical Engineering ME 210-02

Lab 7
Charging and Discharging of a Capacitor

Jeff Anderson 3/20/2012

Introduction Purpose To demonstrate how and at what rate a capacitor charges and discharges To encourage development of circuit design skills To encourage self directed learning To increase proficiency in the use of basic laboratory instruments

Equipment 9 Volt power source or voltage source such as a battery 470 F capacitor 0-1 mA analog amp-meter 22k W resistor 2 SPST pushbutton switches SPDT toggle switch Spreadsheet for tabulating and graphing data Small dry-erase marker with fine tip Timer that counts in seconds

Procedure Construct the test circuit as shown in the schematic diagram on a prototyping board Calculate the charging and discharging times for the capacitor using the nominal resistance of the resistor and assuming the meter is ideal with no internal resistance, also assume the source to be 9 volts. Use the following equation to compute the time constant. Note that it takes 5 time constants to charge or discharge the capacitor enough to be considered complete: Where: t = time in seconds C = capacitance in Farads R = resistance in Ohms Measure and record actual source voltage, actual resistance of the resistor and meter Turn the power switch to on With SPDT switch oriented as shown, push it to the up position With an assistant to keep time and announce each 2 second interval, start the timer and push S1 simultaneously Use the dry-erase marker to mark the needle position on the meter at t=0 seconds and every 2 seconds thereafter until the marks grow too close together to be legible

Record and plot the time vs. current data and label it charging Now switch the SPDT to the down position and restart the timer and mark currents every two seconds as the capacitor discharges Record this data as well and plot it. It should be labeled discharging Now use Ohms law to calculate the voltage drop across the combined resistance of the meter and resistor at every recorded time for both charging and discharging Use Kirchovs voltage law to calculate the voltage across the capacitor at each recorded time for the charging portion. The voltage will just be the difference between the supply voltage and the voltage drop across the resistance Use Kirchovs voltage law to calculate the voltage at every time recorded as the capacitor discharged. The supply voltage was disconnected during discharging and the capacitor supplied the voltage across the resistance, so the voltage across the capacitor during discharge is simply the negative of the voltage across the resistance, since they are the only elements in the loop with voltage changes

Schematic Diagrams

Figure 1: Capacitor tester designed for this experiment

Experiment Data Expected Results The calculated time constant for this RC circuit is t = RC = 22000*.000470 = 10.34 seconds. So the capacitor should reach 63.2% of the supply voltage in just over 10 seconds. The supply voltage was measured to be 9.72 volts, so after about 10 seconds the voltage across the capacitor should be .632*9.72 = 6.14 volts. Measured Results
Table 1

R1 Rmeter Vsource 21600 86.6 9.72

Table 2

Time (s) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Charging Current (A) Vm Vc 0.00048 10.40957 -0.68957 0.00036 7.807176 1.912824 0.00028 6.072248 3.647752 0.00022 4.771052 4.948948 0.00018 3.903588 5.816412 0.00014 3.036124 6.683876 0.00012 2.602392 7.117608 0.0001 2.16866 7.55134 0.00009 1.951794 7.768206

Charging
0.0006 0.0005 Current (A) 0.0004 0.0003 0.0002 0.0001 0 0 5 10 Time (s) 15 20

Figure 2: Current flow during the capacitor charging time.

Charging
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 0 -2

Vc (Volts)

10 Time (s)

15

20

Figure 3: Voltage across the capacitor during charging time.

Table 3

Time (s) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Discharging Current (A) Vm 0.00048 -10.4096 0.00036 -7.80718 0.00028 -6.07225 0.00023 -4.98792 0.00019 -4.12045 0.00015 -3.25299 0.00011 -2.38553 0.0001 -2.16866 0.00009 -1.95179

Vc 10.40957 7.807176 6.072248 4.987918 4.120454 3.25299 2.385526 2.16866 1.951794

Discharging
0.0006 0.0005 Current (A) 0.0004 0.0003 0.0002 0.0001 0 0 5 10 Time (s) 15 20

Figure 4: Current during discharging.

Discharging
12 10 Vc (volts) 8 6 4 2 0 0 5 10 Time (s) 15 20

Figure 5: Voltage across the capacitor during discharging.

Discussion and Conclusions Since the voltage at just over 10 seconds was calculated to be about 6.14 volts and the actual reading at 10 seconds was about 6.68 volts the error was under 10% and therefore the data supports the theory and equations presented in the textbook for this class. Some of the possible causes of the error in this experiment are that the measurements of voltage were taken indirectly using an analog current meter which has limited accuracy. The method of recording currents by marking the dial cover at 2 second intervals was a primitive technique and is likely the largest source of inaccuracy. However, it proved to be adequate in demonstrating the purposes of this experiment. Since capacitors and resistors may be chosen to make a circuit charge and discharge at a specified rate, simple timers that do not require a high level of accuracy may be constructed with such RC circuits. An example of such a circuit would be the flashing light circuit we built at the beginning of the semester.