SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY

School of Engineering and Architecture

Department of Electronics Engineering

In Partial Requirements of the Course ME

2251L: Basic Electronics Laboratory

Laboratory Activity 6
CLIPPERS AND CLAMPERS

Submitted Submitted to:

by:
Engr. Jeorge C. Antonio
Niduaza, Jake F. SEA-ECE Faculty
Date Submitted:
I. TOPIC LEARNING OUTCOME

TLO 6: Familiarize the different types of clipping and clamping circuits and
display their output waveform.

II. DISCUSSION OF THEORY

Clipper Circuits Clipper

Circuits are the circuits that clip off or remove a portion of an input signal, without causing
any distortion to the remaining part of the waveform. These are also known as clippers, clipping
circuits, limiters, slicers etc. Clippers are basically wave shaping circuits that control the shape of
an output waveform. It consists of linear and non-linear elements but does not contain energy storing
elements. The basic operation of a diode clipping circuits is such that, in forward biased
condition, the diode allows current to pass through it, clamping the voltage. But in reverse biased
condition, noncurrent flows through the diode, and thus voltage remains unaffected across its
terminals. Clipper circuits are basically termed as protection devices. As electronic devices are
voltage sensitive and voltage of large amplitude can permanently destroy the device. So, in
order to protect the device clipper circuits are used.

A clipping circuit designed with diodes is an electronic circuit that is used to „clip‟ the input voltage
to prevent it from attaining a value larger than a predefined one. The basic components required for a
clipping circuit are a diode and a resistor. Clipper circuits can be classified depend upon their biasing,
configurations, level of clipping. There are two general categories of clippers: series and parallel (or
shunt). The series configuration consists of a diode connected in series with a resistor; the other one is
the shunt clipper that has the diode in a branch parallel to a resistor. In order to fix the clipping level
to the desired amount, a dc battery must also be included. Different levels of clipping can be obtained
by varying the amount of voltage of the battery and also interchanging the positions of the diode and
resistor. In addition, Zener diode can be used as voltage limiter circuits. It can perform to limit the
voltage swings to desired level. A Zener used to limit the positive or negative of the voltage to the
selected Zener voltage level.

The clamper circuit is almost similar to the clipper circuit except that contains an extra element called
capacitor. A typical clamper circuit consists of a capacitor, a diode, and a resistor. Sometimes,
clamper circuits contain an extra dc battery. According to circuit configurations, the clamper circuit
can be classified as positive clamper, negative clamper and biased clampers.

BASIC CIRCUITS AND WORKING

PRINCIPLE

In electronic circuits, the diode is the simplest and the most fundamental non-linear circuit element. A
clipper circuit is one of the simple diode circuits and it has the ability to “clip off” a portion of the
input signal without distorting the remaining part of the ac waveform. Figure 1 illustrates the basic
clipper circuit that can clipped off the positive or negative part of the input signal depending on the
direction of the diode. The half-wave rectifier is an example of the simplest form of diode clipper.

D1

V1

RL

Figure1. A clipper circuit

Figure 2 shows the basic Zener limiter circuit in which ac supply, a Zener diode and a resistor are
connected in series. Its function is to limit the ac input voltage swings to the Zener voltage level. For
ac input signal, the Zener can act as a forward-biased diode for positive half cycle and limit the
voltage to diode voltage drop. During negative half cycle, the negative peak is limited by Zener action
to Zener voltage level.
R1

V1 D1

Figure2. A Zener limiter circuit

A clamper circuit is also a simple diode circuit that clamps the positive or negative peak of the signal
at a desired dc level. Figure 3 shows a basic clamper
circuit that must consist of a capacitor, a diode and a resistive element. The resistor and capacitorare
used in the clamper circuits to maintain an altered DC level at the clamper output and the diode is
connected in parallel with the output load. The clamper passes the input signal to the output load
depend upon the orientation of the diode.

V1 D1

Working of Clamper Circuit

The positive or negative peak of a signal can be positioned at the desired level by using the clamping
circuits. As we can shift the levels of peaks of the signal by using a clamper, hence, it is also called a
level shifter.
The clamper circuit consists of a capacitor and diode connected in parallel across the load. The
clamper circuit depends on the change in the time constant of the capacitor. The capacitor must be
chosen such that, during the conduction of the diode, the capacitor must be sufficient to charge
quickly and during the nonconducting period of the diode, the capacitor should not discharge
drastically. The clampers are classified as positive and negative clampers based on the clamping
method.
Negative Clamper
During the positive half cycle, the input diode is in forwarding bias- and as the diode conducts-
capacitor gets charged (up to peak value of input supply). During the negative half-cycle, the reverse
does not conduct and the output voltage becomes equal to the sum of the input voltage and the voltage
stored across the capacitor.

Working of Clipper Circuit

The clipper circuit can be designed by utilizing both the linear and nonlinear elements such
as resistors, diodes, or transistors. As these circuits are used only for clipping input waveform as per
the requirement and for transmitting the waveform, they do not contain any energy storing element
like a capacitor. In general, clippers are classified into two types: Series Clippers and Shunt Clippers.

Series Clippers

Series clippers are again classified into series negative clippers and series positive clippers which are
as follows:
Series Negative Clipper

The above figure shows a series of negative clippers with their output waveforms. During the positive
half cycle, the diode (considered as an ideal diode) appears in the forward biased and conducts such
that the entire positive half cycle of input appears across the resistor connected in parallel as an output
waveform.
During the negative half cycle, the diode is in reverse biased. No output appears across the resistor.
Thus, it clips the negative half cycle of the input waveform, and therefore, it is called a series of
negative clipper.
 III. DATA AND
RESULTS
I. EQUIPMENT/ MATERIALS NEEDED:

Transformer - 220V:12V(rms)
Two (2) batteries - 9V
Two (2) diodes - Silicon, 1N4001 OR ANY EQUIVALENT
Resistor - 1KΩ, 1W
Capacitor - 1000microFarad, electrolytic
Oscilloscope

II. PROCEDURES:

Objective A. To become familiar with the different types of clipping circuits.

1. a. Examine the circuit given in (1a) to (4d).

b. Differentiate features of unbiased clipper, shunt type biased clipper and series type biased
clipper circuits.
FIGURE OUTPUT WAVEFORM

SERIES POSITIVE CLIPPER

SERIES NEGATIVE CLIPPER

 PARALLEL NEGATIVE CLIPPER

PARALLEL POSITIVE CLIPPER

SHUNT POSITVIE CLIPPER

WITH POSITIVE BIAS

SHUNT NEGATIVE CLIPPER

WITH NEGATIVE BIAS
SHUNT NEGATIVE CLIPPER
WITH POSITIVE BIAS

SHUNT POSITIVE CLIPPER

WITH NEGATIVE BIAS

COMBINATION CLIPPER

SERIES NEGATIVE CLIPPER

WITH
POSTIVE BIAS
SERIES POSITIVE CLIPPER
WITH NEGATIVE BIAS

SERIES POSITIVE CLIPPER

WITH POSITIVE BIAS

SERIES NEGATIVE CLIPPER

WITH NEGATIVE BIAS
Objective B. To simulate and display the output waveforms and identify the names of the
different clipping circuits using MultiSim software.

2. a. Connect the circuit as shown in figure (1a). Set the oscilloscope to dual function.
b. Connect one probe (Channel 1) of the oscilloscope across the 12Vrms source (in lieu
of the step down transformer). Adjust setting of the oscilloscope to display a waveform
with at least two cycles.

c. Take a snapshot of the waveform. Measure the peak value of the voltage across the
secondary winding of the transformer.

Epk = Vp

d. Connect the other probe (channel 2) of the oscilloscope across the output of the circuit.
Do not change the oscilloscope setting.

e. Take a snapshot of the output waveform. Properly label the waveform, indicating the
positive and/or negative peak values and the clipping levels. Record results in Table 1, identify
and write the name of the circuit beside the circuit number.

f. Repeat the procedure for each of the circuits in fig. (1b) through (4d).

FIGURE OUTPUT WAVEFORM

16.3 V
16.3 V

17.6 V

17.6 V
 Objective C. To become familiar with the different types of clamping circuits

3. a. Examine the circuit given in figure (5a) to (5d).

d. Differentiate the features of the four (4) clamping circuits.

FIGURE OUTPUT WAVEFORM

POSITIVE CLAMPER
NEGATIVE CLAMPER

POSITIVE CLAMPER
WITH POSITIVE BIAS

NEGATIVE CLAMPER AND

WITH NEGATIVE BIAS
Objective D. To verify the output waveforms and identify the names of the different
clamping circuits.

4. a. Connect the circuit as shown in figure (5a). Set the oscilloscope for dual function.
Connect one probe (Channel 1) of the oscilloscope across the secondary winding of
the transformer. Adjust the setting of the oscilloscope to display a waveform with at
least two cycles. Take a snapshot of the circuit design.

MultiSim Screenshot:

b. Connect the other probe (channel 2) of the oscilloscope across the output of the
circuit. Do not change the oscilloscope setting.

c. Take a snapshot of the output waveform. Properly label the waveform indicating the
positive or negative peak values and the clamping levels. Record results in Table 2.
Identify and write the name of the circuit beside the circuit number.

MultiSim Screenshot:

d. Repeat procedure (b) for each of the circuits in figure (5b) to (5f).
 FIGURE OUTPUT WAVEFORM

33.9 V

33.9 V

33.8
33.9 V
IV.DOCUMENTATION OF ACTIVITY

Before

During the Simulation

Finishing the report

V. OBSERVATION

During the simulation I observed that when If the diode follows the reverse biasing mode
the applied input signal is passed on to the load otherwise the signal gets blocked if the diode
remains in forward biasing mode. In the positive clampers for the positive duration of the cycle,
the connected diode is reversing biased and for the negative duration of the cycle, the connected
diode will be forward biased. negative clampers is arranged in such a way that for the positive
duration of the cycle the polarity of the diode makes it to be in forward biased and for the
negative duration, it will be reverse-biased so that the signal can appear at the output. With a
clamper, you can move the output waveform to the desired value without executing zero. We can
make zero values to maximum or minimal value. Depending on the voltage source of DC, there
is a clip. We must also consider is the polarity of sources of DC. It affects the minimum voltage
of the output waveform. Therefore, the design of the circuit is essential, and we should support
the configuration according to our needs. The difference changes the position of. The circuit
produces a perfect waveform, but the position can be a positive cycle and a negative cycle. On
the other hand, the output source of the parallel diode limiter is the reciprocal of the preload.
However, the output position of the circuit changes. The amplitudes of both the input and output
waves are the same for the wave. The waveform can change to negative and positive depending on
the direction of the diode.

VI.CONCLUSION

After the laboratory activity I therefore conclude that the main difference between clipper and
clamper is their function; clipper limits the voltage while clamper shifts in upwards or downwards.
The output waveform obtained from clipper circuit appears in the different shape than that of input,
while the shape of the waveform in the clamper circuit remains exactly same after clamping of the
signal. The clipper is also known as a voltage delimiter or amplitude delimiter while clamper
circuit is also considered as voltage multiplier circuit. The voltage which is clipped by clipper can
assume various shapes, but the voltage obtained by clamper circuit does not alter in shape. The
simulation clearly shows the difference and significant uses of clippers and clampers.

VII. REFERENCES

Tutorialspoint. (n.d.) Electronics Circuit - Clampers Circuit. Retrieved from:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/electronic_circuits/electronic_clamper_circuits.h tm

https://www.elprocus.com/types-of-clippers-and-
clampers-circuits-and-applications/

https://www.watelectronics.com/what-are-clippers-
and-clampers-their-working/

https://electronicscoach.com/difference-between-
clipper-and-clamper.html

Khadka, Shree Krishna. (2018). Rectifiers, Clippers

and Clampers.

http://vlabs.iitb.ac.in/rec-bootathon/innovationgeeks-
clipper-clamper-skit/theory.html