BioE298 Lab

Session II

20-22 Feb 2007

RC Circuits A resistor-capacitor circuit (RC circuit) is a fundamental electronic circuit that represents a simple analog filter. Consider the following series RC circuit:

Capacitor voltage Step response voltage Step response

Resistor

An uncharged capacitor behaves as a short circuit. The graph on the left indicates that with time, the voltage across the capacitor, Vc tends towards V=Vin, while the voltage across the resistor, VR tends towards zero. Intuitively, this makes sense, since the capacitor charges from the supply voltage (V in = V) over time, and ultimately becomes fully charged and behaves as an open circuit. Meanwhile the voltage across the resistor, VR drops and tends towards zero, since by conservation of energy: Studying the functions of time above indicates that a series RC circuit has a time constant = RC. This indicates that the time it takes the voltage across a component in an RC circuit either rises (across C) or falls (across R) within 1/e of its final value. Therefore, is the time it takes Vc to charge up to V(1-1/e) (=0.63Vin) and VR to reach V(1/e) (=0.63Vin).

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BioE298 Lab

Session II

20-22 Feb 2007

Once the capacitor is fully charged, and the voltage supply is removed, the fully charged capacitor begins to discharge, in which case, Vc drops exponentially from Vin towards 0. After one time constant of discharging, Vc = 0.37Vin.

Low Pass Filters A low pass filter is a filter that allows low frequencies through and attenuates frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The cutoff frequency is determined by the R and C values used to build the filter. A low pass filter is constructed by placing a resistor in series with a load and a capacitor in parallel with the load. At low frequencies, the capacitor has time to charge up, and so the voltage across the capacitor is almost equal to the input voltage, and the capacitor can be represented as an open circuit. At high frequencies, the capacitor is only able to charge up to a small value before the input switches direction, and the capacitor begins to discharge. With this, the output increases and decreases only a fraction of the amount the input actually goes up and down. The faster the input switches, the slower the output switches due to the time delay imparted by the capacitor. Therefore, since only a small fraction of the input is able to flow through as Vout, the remainder of the input flows through the capacitor to ground. With this, the capacitor behaves wire, short circuiting to ground. Another way of considering the behavior of this circuit is to consider the reactance of the circuit at low and high frequencies. When the input is approximated to be DC (i.e. low frequency), the DC cannot flow through the capacitor, and thus the input must exit via the Vout path. This would be the same as treating the capacitor as an open circuit, or effectively removing it from the circuit. With an AC input, it is able to flow very well through the capacitor, and the input flows almost entirely through the capacitor, through to ground, and thus is analogous to replacing the capacitor with a wire and effectively short circuiting to ground.

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BioE298 Lab

Session II

20-22 Feb 2007

High Pass Filters High pass filters attenuate frequencies that are lower than the cutoff frequency that the filter is designed for. A high pass filter with a very low cutoff frequency is especially useful in building circuits because it can be used to block the DC component of a signal, which may be undesired, and passes virtually all other components of the signal. The simplest high pass filter is represented by the RC circuit to the right.

Time constant & Cutoff frequency An important value to consider when designing an RC circuit, is the value of the time constant = R C. This is the time it takes the capacitor to charge through the resistor, to a value of 63.2% of full charge, or to discharge the capacitor to 36.8% of its initial full charge. The most critical design parameter in RC circuits is the cutoff frequency fc. A low pass filter will attenuate frequencies f>fc , high pass filter will only pass frequencies f>fc, and a bandpass filter has a lower cutoff frequency flo and a higher cutoff frequency fhi and will only pass frequencies flo<f<fhi. The cutoff frequency fc is the frequency above or below which the power of the circuit, which is most often a filter, is the input power. Since P = V2/R, half the power is proportional to sqrt(1/2) the voltage. This is also referred to as the =3dB point, or the knee frequency, due to the bending of the curve of the bode plot, as seen in the figure to the right. dB (deciBel) is a way of comparing two signals. To compare two voltages with amplitude A2 and A1:

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BioE298 Lab

Session II

20-22 Feb 2007

A dB = 20 log10 2 A1 Note that if A2 is less than A1 their ratio will be less than 1 and less than 0 in dB. The time constant is related to the cutoff frequency by the following expression:

or

Experimental Objectives: 1. How to design & build a low pass filter. 2. How to use a function generator to drive a circuit. 3. How to use an oscilloscope to: a. Probe your circuit b. Measure frequency response c. Determine time constants. Experiment: Design a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency in the range of 1500Hz10kHz. What is the cutoff frequency of your filter?

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BioE298 Lab

Session II

20-22 Feb 2007

c= ______________ What R and C values are you using to achieve this cutoff? Recall that at high frequencies, the capacitor is a short and all of the input voltage will drop across the resistor. Assume a peak input voltage amplitude of 10 V and also calculate the peak power dissipated by the resistor. If this value is over W, choose different component values. P=

R = __________ C = __________

Provide a circuit diagram with your chosen R & C values labeled.

Provide a screenshot of your filters operation by finding where the output amplitude is 0.707 (-3 dB) of the input amplitude. o Use a T-connector at the output of the function generator. Connect one BNC cable directly to the oscilloscope input 1. Connect another BNC cable to the breadboard. This is the input voltage of your filter. o Connect the output voltage of the filter to the oscilloscope input 2. o Turn on the function generator. Use a sine wave with a frequency a few orders of magnitude lower than your cutoff frequency as the input voltage. There should be no DC offset and the amplitude should be somewhere between 5 and 10 V. (The exact value does not matter. Remember that you are comparing the output to the input and their ratio should not change with a change in input amplitude.) o Use the oscilloscope cursors to confirm that the two voltage waveforms have the same amplitude and are in phase (meaning they peak at the same time).

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BioE298 Lab

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o Use the voltage cursors to set the voltage amplitude to be 100% on the oscilloscope. Then, keep one cursor at 0 V and set the other at 70.7% of the voltage amplitude. o Increase the frequency of the input voltage and watch the output voltage. The input voltage amplitude should not change, but the output voltage amplitude should decrease in value. o Find the input frequency that results in an output voltage that is 70.7% of the input voltage. This is the cutoff frequency of your filter. Does it match your calculations above? If not, is it within the tolerance of the values of the components that you used? Measure the time constant of your filter on the oscilloscope. o The time constant determines the transient behavior of the circuit. To simulate a switch closing, change the function generator setting so that it produces a square wave signal. The period of the signal should be long enough to allow the output voltage of your circuit to reach a steady state value before the input voltage changes value. o Use the cursors set as 100% the entire voltage swing (from minimum to maximum) of the output voltage. o If the input voltage is dropping from high to low on your oscilloscope screen, you need to measure the amount of time it takes for the output voltage to drop by 63%. If the input voltage is going from low to high on your oscilloscope screen, you need to measure the amount of time it takes for the output to increase from 0% to 63% of the final value. o Use the voltage cursors to find the 63% value, then use the time cursors to measure the time between the input voltage changing values and the output voltage reaching the 63% value. This is the measured time constant.

measured = _________________ How does your measured time constant value compare with the theoretical value?

theoreticaol = __________________

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