Experiment No.

1
Time Constants-Series RC Circuit with DC Applied
Sunday, January 20, 2011
Abdulrahman Alatawi
Section 1

Objective:
- Learn how to measure current changes in a resistive-capacitive series circuit.
- Learn how to use the measured current to determine resistor and capacitor voltages and
plot these changes on linear graph paper.
- Learn how to verify experimental results by calculation.

Equipment used:
- Milliammeter
- DC power supply
- Resistor: 1 MΩ
- Capacitor: 10 µF
- Stopwatch and Alligator Lead

Brief theory:
A capacitor, C, creates an open or disconnected circuit. If the series circuit with a
capacitor and resistor, R, is powered by direct current (DC) power, charges will
accumulate on the capacitor plates until the two have equal voltages. If the switch is
closed at t=0, we find that the charge, q(t), on the capacitor at a later time, t, increases as
follows: q(t) =Q0 (1-e-t/RC) or vc = vs (1-e-t/ τ)
The product RC is called the time constant, τ, and represents the time it takes to increase the charge on
the capacitor.

Procedure:
- Constructing the circuit shown below.

- Recording the initial current reading of the milliammeter.

- Calculating one time constant and five time constants for this circuit.
- Recording the current every five seconds under the Trial One column, until that column
is filled.
- Repeating steps the last two steps.
- Averaging the currents (Trial One and Trial Two) for each row in the data table.
- Calculating the resistor voltage, using VR = I(R), for each time in the table.
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- Calculating the capacitor voltage using VC = (VS - VR) , for each time in the table.
- Plotting a single graph, vR vs. time, and vC vs. time.
- Bonus: Drawing the circuit using PSpice.

Results:
- Initial current = 18 µA, Vs = 20 vDC, R = 1.02 MΩ, and C = 8µF.
- The following table shows the current taken and the average. Also, it shows the
calculated VR = I(R)
and VC = (VS - VR).

Current
Voltage Voltage
Time Resistor Capacitor
(sec) Trial One Trial Two Average VR VC
(µA) (µA) (µA) (v) (v)

0.00 18.00 18.00 18.00 18.36 1.64

4.00 14.40 13.60 14.00 14.28 5.72

8.00 10.90 10.00 10.45 10.66 9.34

12.00 7.60 7.80 7.70 7.85 12.15

16.00 5.90 6.90 6.40 6.53 13.47

20.00 4.80 4.70 4.75 4.85 15.16

24.00 4.10 4.00 4.05 4.13 15.87

28.00 3.70 3.60 3.65 3.72 16.28

32.00 3.30 3.40 3.35 3.42 16.58

36.00 3.05 3.20 3.13 3.19 16.81

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40.00 2.80 3.20 3.00 3.06 16.94

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- The following graph is done by Microsoft Excel, shows vR vs. time, and vC vs. time.

* Also attached hand drawn graph

- Bonus: the following shape the circuit represented using PSpice.

Inferences:
- As the time increases the current in the circuit decreases.
- Voltage on resistor decreases over time.
- Voltage on capacitor increases over time because the stored charge increases. The
growth is not linear, it is exponential growth.