EE 221 L CIRCUIT II

LABORATORY 4: PRACTICAL AC SOURCES, CAPACITORS AND INDUCTORS

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS

OBJECTIVE
Better understand the practical equivalent model of AC power sources, as well as capacitors
and inductors. Compare the differences and observe the effect of practical AC components impose
on circuit analysis.

COMPONENTS & EQUIPMENT

PC with LTspice/Multisim installed. Breadboard
DC Power Supply Wire cutter
Function Generator Resistors, Capacitors & Inductors
Oscilloscope

BACKGROUND
AC sources:
Practical AC power/signal sources includes two types: 1) active sources that itself provide AC
power, such as function generators, etc., and 2) passive sources that requires external power source,
but can convert surrounding environment changes (e.g. pressure sensors, temperature sensors, etc.)
or other forms of energy (e.g. microphone, light detector, etc.) to change of voltage and/or current
in a relatively small range.
Practical AC sources can be modeled as the following equivalent circuit, where V is an ideal
AC source and R is its output resistance. For practical function generators, 𝑅 ≈ 50Ω. This is why
there are two “Load” options (50Ω and ∞/High Z) on function generators, and output display of
“High Z” is twice as “50 Ω”. In other words, if selecting load as “High Z”, the display shows the
actual output voltage (Vout = Vs) when load is infinite; if selecting load as 50 Ω, the display shows
half of actual voltage source, i.e. Vout = Vs / 2.

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Fig. 1. Equivalent model of

Fig. 2. Function Generator load settings
practical AC sources

Capacitors:
A real capacitor in practical has some resistance and inductance (see next subsection), and can
be modelled as Fig. 3. Such parasitic resistance and inductance are small (<10Ω). They sometimes
would affect the resistor performance in certain frequency ranges, and could be neglected in other
frequencies. Leakage resistance are usually large (>100KΩ), causing small leaking current when
applying voltages on two nodes of the capacitor. Such facts do not impact our labs much, but it is
good to keep in mind that real world may not work as well as we ideally expect.

Fig. 3. A more practical model for real capacitors. Fig. 4. Three main types of capacitors

There are three broad categories of capacitors available in our lab (Fig. 4). These are
electrolytic, film and ceramic. There are other types of capacitors as well, such as paper-in-oil, but
these are rarely used. Table 1 shows typical characteristics of each type. Choose smart for your
applications!

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Table 1. Characteristics of the three main types of capacitors

Characteristic Electrolytic Film Ceramic
General Practical Range of 1uF – 0.1F (standard)
10pf – 10uF 1pF – 1uF
Values 1F – 10F (superCaps)
Polarized Yes No No
Equivalent Series Resistance 0.1Ω ~ 1 Ω Negligible Negligible
Leakage Current High (up to 1uA per uF) Low Low
Inductance High Medium Low
Max Freq. Range < 1MHz 10MHz ~ 100MHz 100MHz ~ 10GHz
Typical Max Voltage Rating 1V ~ 500V 50V ~ 1KV 25V ~ 10KV
Power supply filtering, Audio circuits, filters, Bypassing, filters,
Applications
energy storage precision applications RF applications

Inductors:
Various inductors and transformers are shown in Fig. 5, and a model of a real inductor (with
parasitic resistance and capacitance) can be depicted as Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. A model of a real inductor

Fig. 6. Various inductors and transformers

Inductor Color Code

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Text Marking

• xRx values are in micro Henries (μH). “R” acts as a decimal point, and there is no multiplier
• Three-digit values are in nH or μH, depending on manufacturers choice. First two digits
are the value, and the third digit is the multiplier (or number of zeros added to the value).
Examples:
• 472 = 47*102nH = 4700nH = 4.7μH (Coilcraft)
• 472 = 47*102μH = 4700μH = 4.7mH (Bourns)
• 4R7 = 4.7μH
Suffix
Sometimes the precision of the inductor will be marked, using a final letter F, G, J, K, or M.
F G J K M
Precision ±1% ±2% ±5% ±10% ±20%

LAB DELIVERIES
PRELAB:

1. Go through the brief review on AC circuits.

2. Run simulations of the circuits in Lab Experiment 1 and 2, and fill in the tables.

LAB EXPERIMENTS:

1. Find the voltages at each node of the following circuits.

• Frequency f1 = 10 Hz, f2 = 1 KHz.
• Run simulations for Circuit (a) and (b) and measure V1, V2 and V3, respectively.
• Compare results between (a) and (b), and the ones in Lab 3 Experiment 2 Circuit (c).
Why changes occur?

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• Change f1 for both circuits to 1KHz and 100Khz, respectively, and keep f2 = 1 KHz.
Take photos and compare the results again.
• Build Circuit 1(a) on breadboard. The red dash rectangle part is within the function
generator. Compare the measure V1, V2 and V3 with the simulation results.

V2
5cos(2pf1t)

50 V1 50

+
0.22u V3
- 100K
1mH

GND
(a) (b)

Circuit 1

Circuit (a) Circuit (b)

V1 V2 V3 V1 V2 V3
LTspice 3 0.6 0 1.8 0.8 0.3
𝑓1 = 10𝐻𝑧 0.48 0.68
Measurement 2.36 NA 3.36 NA
LTspice 3 0.6 0.3 3.5 0.7 0.3
𝑓1 = 1𝐾𝐻𝑧
Measurement 2.88 0.64 NA 3.68 0.8 NA
LTspice 3 0.6 0.6 1.8 0.5 0.5
𝑓1 = 100𝐾𝐻𝑧
Measurement 5.2 5.2 NA 4.4 2.96 NA

2. Find the voltages at each node of the following circuits.

• Frequency f = 10 Hz.
• Run simulations for Circuit (a) and (b) and measure V1, V2, V3 and V4, respectively.
• Compare results between (a) and (b), and the ones in Lab 3 Experiment 2 Circuit (d).
Why changes occur?
• Build both circuits on breadboard. Parts in RED is function generator, and parts in
BLUE is inductor. Measure V1, V2, and V3, respectively.
• Change frequencies for both circuits to 1KHz and 100Khz, respectively. Take photos
and compare the results again.

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Circuit (a) Circuit (b)

V1 V2 V3 V4 V1 V2 V3
V4
LTspice 1.8 0.3 0.3 0 5 0 0 0
𝑓 = 10𝐻𝑧
Measurement 1.44 0.348 0.44 NA 4 20mV 20mV NA
LTspice 1.8 0.5 0.5 0.3 5 0 0 0
𝑓 = 1𝐾𝐻𝑧
Measurement 1.76 0.48 0.48 NA 5.2 30mV 20mV NA
LTspice 1.6 0.4 0.3 0.4 5 0 0 0
𝑓 = 100𝐾𝐻𝑧 2.56 2.56
Measurement 2.6 NA 5.2 0.72 0.76 NA

(a) (b)
Circuit 2

POSTLAB REPORT:

Include the following elements in the report document:

Section Element
Theory of operation
1
Include a brief description of every element and phenomenon that appears during the experiments.
Prelab report
2
1. LTspice simulations of Circuit 1 and 2.
Results of the experiments
Experiments Experiment Results
Build circuits on breadboard and measuring voltages; fill in the table in
3 1
Experiment 1.
Build circuits on breadboard and measuring voltages; fill in the table in
2
Experiment 2.
Answer the questions
4 Questions Questions
1 Answer the questions in Experiment 1 and 2, marked as red.
Conclusions
5 Write down your conclusions, things learned, problems encountered during the lab and how they
were solved, etc.
Images
Paste images (e.g. scratches, drafts, screenshots, photos, etc.) in Postlab report document (only
6 .docx, .doc or .pdf format is accepted). If the sizes of images are too large, convert them to jpg/jpeg
format first, and then paste them in the document.

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Attachments (If needed)

1. Zip your projects. Send through WebCampus as attachments, or provide link to the zip file
on Google Drive / Dropbox, etc.

REFERENCES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

1. C. K. Alexander and M. Sadiku, “Fundamentals of Electric Circuits”, 4th Ed,
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_current
3. https://study.com/academy/lesson/alternating-current-definition-advantages-
disadvantages.html

I appreciate the help from faculty members and TAs during the composing of this instruction
manual. I would also thank students who provide valuable feedback so that we can offer better
higher education to the students.

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING 7