College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
5L30.10 - Bridge Rectifiers
Plug the Variac into the Variac inputs on the demo board. Channel 1 of the oscilloscope is plugged into the reference trace sockets. Channel 2 is plugged into the DC output sockets of the bridge rectifier. The capacitor across these sockets is for signal smoothing. As there is no load other than the oscilloscope across the DC output the capacitor must be discharged with the discharge button when you turn the Variac off.
The bridge rectifier built out of the LED'S is very nice for showing rectifier function.
NOTE: That the LED'S do not light complete legs but alternating pairs, ie. D1 and D4, D3 and D2.
- Jeffrey Regester, "Operation of AC Adapters Visualized Using Light-Emitting Diodes", TPT, Vol. 54, # 1, Jan. 2016, p. 48.
- Juan A. Pomarico, "Seeing Rectifiers at Work", TPT, Vol. 40, #2, Feb. 2002, p. 118.
- Dan Lottis and Herbert Jaeger, "LED's in Physics Demos: A Handful of Examples", TPT, Vol. 34, #3, Mar. 1996, p. 144.
- James Mahoney, "A Demonstration of AC Rectification", TPT, Vol. 18, #4, Apr. 1980, p. 318.
- A. D. Bulman, "On Rectifiers", Model-Making for Physics, p. 158.
- "Electrolytic Rectifier", The Boy Scientist, p. 79.
- Freier and Anderson, "Eo-10," A Demonstration Handbook for Physics.
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