Name: Syed Suleman Azher

Roll Number: 221720

Electronic Devices and Circuits Lab

Instructor: Sir Muzammil Ghaffar
Lab Report 6
Topic: Clamper Circuits
Objective: To become familiar with the function of clamper. Development
of Clamping circuit using Diodes
Apparatus:

Sr. No Name of Apparatus

1 Diode
2 Resistors
3 Regulated Power Supply
4 Bread Board
5 Oscilloscope
7 Function Generator

Introduction:
A clamper (or clamping circuit or clamp) is an electronic circuit that fixes either the
positive or the negative peak excursions of a signal to a defined voltage by adding a
variable positive or negative DC voltage to it. The clamper does not restrict the peak-to-
peak excursion of the signal (clipping); it moves the whole signal up or down so as to
place its peaks at the reference level.
A diode clamp (a simple, common type) consists of a diode, which conducts electric
current in only one direction and prevents the signal exceeding the reference value; and
a capacitor, which provides a DC offset from the stored charge. The capacitor forms
a time constant with a resistor load, which determines the range of frequencies over
which the clamper will be effective.
Explanation:
A clamper is an electronic circuit that fixes either the positive or the negative peak
excursions of a signal to a defined value by shifting its DC value. The clamper does not
restrict the peak-to-peak excursion of the signal; it moves the whole signal up or down
so as to place the peaks at the reference level. The different types of clampers are
positive, negative and biased clampers.A clamping network must have a capacitor, a
diode and a resistive element. The magnitude R and C must be chosen such that the
time constant RC is large enough to ensure that the voltage across the capacitor does
not discharge significantly during the interval the diode is non- conducting.

A clamping circuit (also known as a clamper) will bind the upper or lower extreme of
a waveform to a fixed DC voltage level. These circuits are also known as DC voltage
restorers. Clampers can be constructed in both positive and negative polarities. When
unbiased, clamping circuits will fix the voltage lower limit (or upper limit, in the case of
negative clampers) to 0 Volts. These circuits clamp a peak of a waveform to a specific
DC level compared with a capacitively-coupled signal, which swings about its average
DC level.

Types of Clamper Circuit:

 Positive Clamper:
During the negative half cycle of the input signal, the diode conducts and acts like a short
circuit. The output voltage Vo = 0V. The capacitor is charged to the peak value of
input voltage Vm and it behaves like a battery. During positive half of the input signal,
the diode does not conduct and acts as an open circuit.
Hence the output voltage,

Vo = Vm + Vm

This gives a positively clamped voltage

 Negative Clamper:
During the negative half cycle, the diode is open. The output voltage can be found by
applying KVL.

 Biased Clamper:

The voltage across the resistor will be equal to the source voltage Vs.

During the positive half cycle of the input signal, the diode is reverse biased and it acts as
an open circuit. Hence Vs has no effect on Vo.
Applying KVL around the outside loop.

Graphs of Clamper Circuit:

Positive Clamper:
Negative Clamper:
Biased Clamper:

Conclusion:
In this lab we learnt about the concepts of clamper circuits and its role on the circuit.
Here we learnt to make such type of circuit in hardware and also to test our output
results in oscilloscope. We learnt three types of clamper circuits, Positive clamper,
Negative clamper, Biased clamper, and using oscilloscope we figured out the output in
the oscilloscope as shown above.