Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, BUET

EEE 102: Electrical Circuits I Laboratory (Hardware Part)

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Experiment No: 1
Familiarization and Use of Electrical Circuit Laboratory Equipment and Elements

Introduction
Basic measuring/recording instruments used in electrical circuit laboratory are:
1) Test lamp and tester for detecting presence/absence of electricity
2) Voltmeter to measure voltage (DC or AC) across two terminals
3) Ammeter to measure current (DC or AC) through an element
4) Multi-meter (also known as AVO meter) to measure V, I, R, C, L, etc.
5) Oscilloscope to observe and measure the time variation voltage across an element
6) Wattmeter and Energy meter to measure power (watt) and energy (watt-hour) of circuits

As source for DC and AC for experiments in the laboratory following sources are generally used:
1) Wall/Desk Sockets to have 120VDC, 120VAC-1phase, 230VAC-2phase, 230VAC-1phase,
415VAC-3phase, 66VAC-1phase, 110VAC-3phase
2) Laboratory DC regulated Power Supplies to have 0-30VDC CC and CV facility
3) Waveform or function or frequency generators to have low voltage, low power variable
voltage, variable frequency square, sine, triangular, saw-tooth, rectangular pulse square and
modulated waveforms

As circuit elements and accessories, following are generally used in the circuit laboratory:
1) Resistors - wire wound or carbon, they can either be wire wound fixed or variable resistances
(rheostats) or carbon resistances of fixed type or variable (potentiometer) type,
2) Capacitors (discrete or banks) ac type or dc type,
3) Inductors made of coiled wires - air core, iron core or ferrite core,
4) Switches made of copper bars and posts of SPST, SPDT, DPST, DPDT, TPST and TPDT
type, and
5) Lamp boards with incandescence lamp in holders in series with a tumbler/piano/toggle
switch - several of them connected in parallel.

For circuit construction purpose either the table top is used where the connections are made by
insulated wires between nodes of the circuit of the experiment or bread-board with insulated jumper
wires are used.

Brief Description of the circuit elements are provided below.

1. Resistor: There will be various types of resistors used in the laboratory. Some of them are:
• Wire Wound - fixed and variable (rheostat, potentiometer) and
• Carbon resistances - fixed and variable (potentiometer, trim pot).
Resistors have either current or watt ratings besides their resistance values and the tolerance
mentioned on their bodies. It is either done by inscription or color code. If the current value or the
watt rating of a resistor is exceeded, then it can get destroyed to excess heating and burn out. One
should choose proper watt or current value resistor in the circuit. Higher current or power rated
resistors are larger in size than their lower current/power valued resistors.

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 Rheostat Potentiometer

Variable resistors may have 2 or three terminals, whereas, fixed resistors are with two terminals. A
three terminal variable resistance may be used as a fixed resistance if the variable wiper (sliding)
terminal is not used in the connection. For variable resistance connection, one of the fixed resistance
terminal and the variable wiper/slider connection has to be used.

2. Capacitor: also called condenser

a. Electronic circuit capacitors in discrete form are available in the laboratory. Electrolytic
capacitors are available in large capacitance values with polarity markings (+-) sign on two
sides which is also indicated by long connecting lead indicating + lead whereas the short leg
indicates the - leg. These capacitors have capacitance value and voltage rating marked on
them and they are never to be used in AC applications directly.
b. Ceramic capacitors are marked with numbers indicating the capacitance values and voltage
rating on them. The way of decoding the value of capacitance is shown in the above figure.
These capacitors can be used in ac and dc applications but voltage across them must not
exceed their rated voltage values.
c. Power AC and DC capacitors in discrete form or in bank are also available in the laboratory.
AC power capacitors are used in motor drives, power factor improvement, filters etc. These
are either metal cased or plastic cased with their capacitance and voltage ratings marked on
them.
d. In the laboratory variable (in discrete values) capacitors in boxes known as decade
capacitance boxes are available. Capacitors are also known as condensers and continuous
variable capacitors known and gang condensers for tuning purposes are available that look
like rheostats.

a) Electrolytic capacitor b) AC fan and motor capacitors

3. Inductors: Also called reactor.

air-core inductor Ferrite-core inductor Iron-core inductor

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4. Incandescent Lamps and Lamp Boards: These are used as resistive loads individually or in
banks. However, with variation of voltage and currents as the filaments in the bulb/s get hot, their
resistance change and as result their I-V characteristics is not linear as for ideal resistance that
follow Ohm's law.

Incandescent Lamps

5. Bread Board: Bread boards are used for making connections between circuit components in an
electrical/electronic circuit that uses small components. The diagram below shows the holes in
which wire or component pins/wires can be inserted to make connection to a common point and
taking the same point to other parts of the circuit on the bread-board by jumper wires. In the
diagram, the top two row holes and bottom two row holes are same point (as shown in the right
hand side diagram). Similarly in the middle vertically five holes in the same line above and
below centre groove are connected internally. More than one bread board can joined together to
make one big bread-board for large circuits. Usually horizontally connected holes in a line on the
top and bottom of a bread board are used for supply, ground and reference connections of a
circuit.

Bread Board Internal connection (short-paths) of a bread board

6. Voltmeter (AC or DC or AC/DC): Voltmeters can be of AC, DC or AC/DC type. AC voltmeters

are used for measuring AC voltages, whereas DC voltmeters can measure dc voltages. AC/DC
voltmeters can measure both AC rms and DC voltages. These meters can be of a single scale or of
multi-scale. In case of multi-scale voltmeters, proper input terminals should be used together with
proper scale selected by a selector switch or by touch screen display. In AC/DC meters, selection
must be made whether the input is AC or DC by selector switch or by touch screen. Display of
reading of the voltage may be analog or digital. In both the cases multiplication factor may be
necessary for getting the actual voltage reading. In the laboratory the meters are used to measure
AC voltages of between 20-1000 Hz. Any voltage measurement beyond the specified frequencies
will be wrong (special voltmeters are required for high/low frequency AC voltages). In case of
measurement of very high or Low AC or DC voltage it is necessary voltage divider circuits,
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 transducers, CT PT or special type of meters are used. As mentioned already, voltmeters should
be connected across (parallel to) an element and must not be connected in series.

7. Ammeter (AC or DC or AC/DC): Ammeters can be of AC, DC or AC/DC type. AC ammeters

are used for measuring AC current (rms), whereas DC ammeters can measure dc currents. AC/DC
ammeters can measure both AC rms and DC currents. These meters can be of a single scale or of
multi-scale. In case of multi-scale ammeters, proper input terminals should be used together with
proper scale selected by a selector switch or by touch screen display. In AC/DC meters, selection
must be made whether the input is AC or DC by selector switch or by touch screen. Display of
reading of the currents may be analog or digital. In both the cases multiplication factor may be
necessary for getting the actual current reading. In the laboratory the meters are used to measure
AC currents between 20-1000 Hz. Any current measurement beyond the specified frequencies
will be wrong (special ammeters are required for high/low frequency AC currents). In case of
measurement of very high or Low AC or DC current it is necessary current shunt circuits,
transducers, CT PT or special type of meters are used. As mentioned already, ammeters should be
connected in series of an element and must not be connected in parallel to any element
particularly across any source.

8. Multimeter (AVO Meter): Multimeters can be used measure and record many circuit element or
circuit characteristic. As AVO implies it can measure AC/DC current (as an ammeter), AC/DC
volts (as a voltmeter) and resistance. To measure the voltage, the meter must be connected in
parallel to the element the voltage of which has to measured. To measure current through an
element in the circuit the meter must be connected in series with the element and like ammeters
must not be connected in parallel to any element of the circuit or across supply/source points. The
input terminal selection, scale selection, AC/DC selection and scale factor selection must be made
as describe in the case of ammeter and voltmeters and it should be remembered that for measuring
voltage or current beyond 20-1000Hz., and very low and very low voltages special arrangement or
special meters are necessary.

Multimeters can also be used to measure resistance of any small element (it cannot measure
resistances of large objects - will give reading but it will not be correct). Input terminals and scale
must be properly selected for measuring the resistance of any element and the connecting leads
should be very short with negligible resistance. Otherwise resistance of connecting leads will also
be included in the reading.

Small ac capacitances and inductances can be measured by inserting their connecting terminals to
appropriate holes of the multimeter and selecting the C or L and proper scale by sector switch or
by touch screen.

Multimeters are equipped with diode checks, transistor hfe check, continuity check, frequency
monitoring and temperature monitoring by special probe provided by the manufacturer.

9. Waveform or Function Generator: General function generators have following features:

1. Waveform selection knob/switch/touchpad
2. Output level selection knob/switch/touchpad
3. Frequency selection knob/switch/touchpad or keypad
4. Offset knob/switch/touchpad or keypad and
5. ON/OFF switch

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Output of the signal generator can be used as a time varying source to a electrical/electronic of low
power circuit for experimentation. The output of a signal generator can be taken out from the BNC or
banana output jack by appropriate cable.

Plug a signal generator to power outlet of the table and turn it ON. Set waveform type, frequency and
magnitude. Connect the output to an oscilloscope (described below) and observe the waveform as
instructed by the teacher of the class.

10. Oscilloscope: Oscilloscope can measure time-varying voltages and give a graph of voltage vs.
time. Connections to oscilloscope are exactly like voltmeters. Connection is to an oscilloscope
across the two points where one wants to measure the voltage. However, what is obtained from
an oscilloscope is a scaled picture of the voltage time-function. Front panel of an oscilloscope
appear as,

Current oscilloscopes also perform computations using data taken from the voltage waveform that is
presented on the oscilloscope face. These usually include things like the following.
• The RMS value of the waveform.
• The average value of the waveform.
• The peak to peak value of the waveform.
• The frequency of the waveform.
• FFT of the waveform

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Also, once those signal parameters are computed and are in numerical form within the oscilloscope,
they can be transmitted - using a variety of ways - to a computer where one can use a program to
compute other properties of interest.

An oscilloscope is used for

• Measuring time-varying signals - by showing details of the waveshape
• Measuring aspects of time-varying signals
o Frequency of a signal
o Peak value of a signal

Some features of the oscilloscope are

• There is a screen on which the signals will be presented. That's at the left.
• There are controls to afjust things like:
o The time scale of the presentation
o A vertical scale
• Normally an oscilloscope has two input channels. The controls for the two channels are just
to the right of the screen.

How do you use an oscilloscope?

• Plug it in. That's not facetious.
• Turn it on. There is a push button or touch button to turn it ON.
• Apply a signal to the input terminals.
o An oscilloscope may have provision for more than one signal input. Choose Channel
1 if that is the case.
• Make sure that the settings match the signal. For example:
o If you have a signal at 1000 Hz, then the period of the signal is 1 millisecond (.001
sec) and you would not want the time scale set so that you only display a microsecond
of data, and you also probably won't see much if you display 10 seconds worth of
data.
o If you have a signal that is 10 millivolts high, you won't see much if you set the
oscilloscope to shown you a signal at 20 volts full-scale. Conversely, you won't see
much of a 20 volt signal if the scope is set for 10 millivolts full-scale.

Showing a Simple Signal on the Scope

To get familiar with the scope, you can show a sine signal on the scope. If a signal with the
following characteristics
• 1 volt (2v peak-to-peak) signal. In other words, it has a peak of 1 volt and a negative "peak"
at -1 volt.
• A frequency of 1000 Hz (i.e. 1 KHz).
• A sinusoidal signal. In other words, it looks like a familiar sine wave.

If you have a sinusoidal signal that repeats every half millisecond - a frequency of 2 kHz - you would
get a picture like this one. It would appear to be stationary on the oscilloscope screen, but it really
isn't. It's just that it repeats so frequently that you see it as a constant image.

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Repeat the procedure with following waveforms from a function/waveform generator
i) Square wave
ii) Triangular wave
iii) Saw-tooth wave
iv) DC signal from a power supply

Additional Instruction about the Oscilloscope will be provided in the Laboratory Class

11. Switches: Switches makes and breaks connection in an electrical or electronic circuit. They may
be manual-mechanical, electromagnetic and electronic switches. In the circuit laboratory
switches will be used for various purposes and they will be manual mechanical type. The types of
switches used are large compared to switches used in actual world to make understand visibly
how they work and also for making connection procedure easy for students with visible source
and circuit elements. Some of these switches are,
1. SPST (single pole single throw switch)
2. SPDT (single pole double throe switch),
3. DPST (Double pole single throw switch),
4. DPDT (Double pole double throw switch),
5. TPST (Triple pole single throw switch) and
6. TPDT (Triple pole double throw switch etc.

SPST: This switch is the simplest switch and is used in our household electrical wiring for turning
ON/OFF lights, fans, TV, Fridge, Oven, etc. Normal switches available in the market are
tumbler, piano and toggle type. But in laboratory we shall use the following type:

SPST (Knife) Switch

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Some typical figures of other types of switches are provided below:

SPDT
SPDT DPDT

12. Fuses and Circuit Breakers: used to protect a circuit or element from excessive current flow.

13. Wattmeter, VAR meter, Energy Meter, Power factor meter and Frequency Meter (will be
introduced in EEE 106 Electrical Circuits II Laboratory)

Experimental Procedures
1. Find the Internal resistances of ammeter and voltmeter:

Construct the following circuit diagram to find the internal resistance of a voltmeter and find
the value of internal resistance of the meter from voltage and current readings using Ohm's law.
Voltmeter under test
Amp

10V

Construct the following circuit diagram to find the internal resistance of an ammeter and find
the value of internal resistance of the meter from voltage and current readings (use Ohm's law).
Ammeter under test

R1

1k
Volt

10V

2. Use commercial tester, test lamp and AC voltmeter to check the presence of power in wall and
table sockets as instructed by the teacher in the class.

3. Use of bench top regulated dc power supply:

a) Plug the power supply unit to 230VAC 1-phase table/wall socket with appropriate cable.
Turn ON the unit by its switch in the front. Keep all voltage knobs (coarse and fine both) to
zero position (extreme counter clockwise position) and current control (CC) knobs to zero.
b) Rotate the CC knob slightly clockwise so that CC indicator turns green from red.

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 i) Turn voltage control knob clockwise to set voltage to 5 V DC and measure the output of
the power supply by a DC voltmeter.
ii) Turn the CC Knob further clockwise to set voltage to 10 V DC and measure the output
of the power supply by a DC voltmeter.
c) Turn OFF the regulated dc power supply and connect its terminals of the two outputs of the
power supply at the front panel of the dual power supply as shown below,

Vdc+
+

+
Volt
Out1
V3
10Vdc

+ -
Out2
V5
0

Volt
10Vdc

Vdc-
-

-
Turn ON the power supply, measure the voltages with the meter polarity as shown. One of the
voltage will now be positive with respect to reference and the other voltage will be negative with
respect to reference.
Note: The power supply unit is current controlled (CC) means that it will not allow the load to draw
more current than set by the CC knob even if load changes or voltage is increased when the
limit is exceeded. When the current limit exceeds, the indicator turns RED and voltage and
currents from the source does not show what they should be. If any of the CC or CV light
turns to RED the power supply should be turned OFF.

4. Construct the following circuit and take readings of meters to measure the internal impedance of
a signal generator.
10k or 100k potentiometer

Rinternal Multimeter
Vm
Vrms = 1 volts 2
R scale
1

Function Generator

With the switch open, adjust the output voltage of the signal generator to 1 volt rms 100 Hz
(1.414 volt peak to peak). This should not be touched to keep the internal voltage 1 volts rms
fixed.

Close the switch, and adjust variable resistance (potentiometer) to obtain voltmeter readings of
0.8 V rms and 0.5 V rms. In each case measure the value of the variable resistance with a
multimeter with switch open. Current through variable resistance is Vmeasured/Rmeasured. From the
following expression, find the internal resistance of the function generator in each case,
1 volts = Current through variable resistance × Rinternal + voltmeter reading

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5. Construct the following circuit and take readings of meters to measure the internal impedance of
regulated dc power supply.
10k or 100k potentiometer

Rinternal Rinternal
Vm Ammeter
1 Vdc Vm 1 Vdc
Vinternal Vinternal

At the terminal of the power supply connect a voltmeter and adjust the voltage to 1 VDC and
keep this setting fixed.

Connect the circuit as shown on the right hand side with proper potentiometer, ammeter a and
voltmeter. Adjust the potentiometer to get voltmeter reading of 0.8 volts and 0.5 volts. Take the
corresponding ammeter readings. Use the following relationship to find the internal resistance of
the voltage source,
1 volts = Ammeter reading × Rinternal + voltmeter reading

6. Construct the following circuit to measure the I-V characteristic of an incandescent lamp.
Lamp board
One Lamp
ON

Vrms=66 V
or Ammeter
110V Vm
or
230V

Take ammeter and voltmeter readings of for three input voltage of 66V, 110V, and 230V rms.
Plot the I-V graph and comment on the resistance value of the bulb (lamp) for three values. Why
the relationship is not linear with R = Constant?

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