Lecture 6

Bridge over Troubled Water

There is an alternative to the center tapped solution of a full-wave rectifier: It is called a bridge rectifier, named after its resemblance to a wheatstone bridge Schematically, we can understand the operation of the bridge by tracing the flow of current through the device for both polarities: We see that no matter what the polarity, the current flows through the load in the same direction This has several advantages:
No need for a center tapped transformer, which would be heavier due to the redundant secondary windings The breakdown voltage of the diodes need only be greater than VS rather than twice this value

There is a disadvantage in that the voltage drop from the diodes will be double, due to the presence of two diodes in the conduction path.

Filters
The pulsating nature of the output from the rectifier circuits makes them unusable for any electronic circuits. Batteries are about the only thing where this could be implemented. We need a way to smooth out the pulses. Capacitors are the simplest method to achieve this.
They get placed across the output of the rectifier The larger the capacitor, typically the better it is. Electrolytic capacitors are most commonly used. This is called the peak rectifier

Filters II
There are two ways to see how the capacitors will work:
The capacitor is configured as a low pass filter. With no resistor, the cut-off frequency is ideally 0 Hz, thus the only output will be DC The other way to see the function of the capacitor is as a charge storage device.
When the output of the rectifier is high, the capacitor gets charged. When the output falls, the capacitor fills in for the rectifier circuit in providing the current to the load. Provided the capacitor s very large, then the charge drawn from the capacitor will not cause a large voltage drop, resulting in a constant voltage at the output.

This last point is important because it indicates why a large capacitor is needed in order to have a smooth, ripple free, output.

Charging the Capacitor

We can look at this in more detail With a load attached, the output of the rectifier sees a resistor and capacitor in parallel. We would expect the diodes to conduct whenever the polarity of the AC source is such that they are forward biased (a full wave rectifier would then conduct 100% of the time) This is not true with the capacitor present:
The capacitor maintains an elevated voltage due to the charge it holds. There will only be brief periods where the diode is in forward bias. But during that time, a large current will flow, recharging the capacitor .

The value of capacitor is chosen such that the RC time constant is much longer than the period of the sine wave input.

Ripple Voltage
The ripple voltage depends on the frequency of the sine wave input as well as the RC time constant: An alternate form uses the load current (If Vr<<VP): The average and peak current through the diode during charging are: Note they are much larger than the load current Why?
Vr = Vp fCR I Vr = L fC

iDav = I L 1 + 2VP Vr

)
)

iDmax = I L 1 + 2 2VP Vr

Example
Lets look at an example: We have a rectifier fed with 100V 60Hz AC. This will drive a load resistance of 10k. What value of capacitance do we need to ensure we have a 2V peak to peak ripple? We can find the capacitance from the ripple voltage equation Now lets find the peak current through the diode
C= VP 100V = = 83.3F Vr fR 2V 60 Hz 10 4

t = 2 2V 100V = 0.2rad

t 0.2 = = 3.18% 2 2

First find the time interval over which the I L = 100V / 10k = 10mA diode conducts Just to see that this is small, we can find the i Dmax = I L 1 + 2 2Vr VP percentage of the period that the diode conducts = 10mA(1 + 2 2 2V 100V ) = 638mA Finally, we can find the peak current

Note how much larger this is than the load current!

Full-Wave Filtering
Although it wasnt explicitly stated, the filtering so far has been covering half-wave rectification. Full-wave rectification is treated exactly the same with one difference:
In full-wave rectification, the output of the rectifier reaches a maximum voltage twice in each period. This means the capacitor will be charged twice per period. This reduces the discharge period to half the period. This means the voltage across the load will drop less because it is recharged sooner, meaning the ripple voltage will be less.

Though not explicitly stated before, this is a major benefit of the full-wave rectifier over the half-wave. The diode currents are the same

VP Vr = 2 fCR

Limiter circuits
There are instances where we want to limit the range of voltages that a signal can cover. Often this is done for safety reasons, but can also be used to avoid saturation (an unwanted form of limiting!) Other times, there is something to be gained by processing the signal this way (sine wavesquare wave) The idea behind limiting is simple:
If the input voltage is within the acceptable range, then the output follows the input If the output exceeds the maximum, the output will:
Be equal to the limit voltage (Hard Limiting) Continue to increase, but with attenuation of the signal (Soft Limiting)

Hard Limiting

Soft Limiting

Limiters can also be referred to as clippers because they clip off the peaks of signals

Clamped Capacitor
Another application for diodes is called the clamped capacitor. It amounts to a peak rectifier with the diode and capacitor reversed. What effect does this have?
When the input signal goes negative, the capacitor gets charged. The final voltage on the capacitor equals the peak negative voltage The diode prevents the capacitor from discharging, so its voltage remains at the peak negative voltage This voltage gets added to the input signal, shifting the voltage so that it is all positive (only at the peak negative voltage will the output be zero)

Thus an AC signal is converted to a DC signal, which is why the circuit is also known as a DC restorer. The addition of a load changes the output significantly:
During the positive part of the input signals cycle, the diode is off and the load is being driven by the capacitor, thus lowering its voltage When the signal goes negative, at some point the voltage across the capacitor will drop below zero and the diode conducts, rapidly recharging the capacitor, bringing the circuit back to its initial state.

Voltage Doubler
We can combine the clamped capacitor circuit and the peak rectifier to produce a voltage doubler:
The clamp first shifts the AC signal to a DC signal. This inherently means that the amplitude of the DC signal s twice that of the AC signal (at some point, the output of the clamp equal 2VAC This is fed into the peak rectifier, which you will recall will maintain an output very close to the peak input.

Thus a constant DC voltage of value twice that of the AC input can be had without using a transformer! These can be designed for even larger magnification. Bear in mind though that large load currents will affect the performance.