II.

Discussion of Theory
When the capacitance of a capacitor filtered power supply is increased, the voltage ripple
lessens and the output wave flattens and becomes closer to pure DC. The ripple factor is directly
proportional to the ripple voltage and indirectly proportional to capacitance. The ripple factor of
the half wave circuit is greater than that of a full wave circuit due to the effect of their waveforms
cycles on the charging and discharging of the capacitor.
Being that capacitors have offer very high resistance to low frequency signals and low
resistance to high frequency signals, it acts as a high pass filter, which is a filter which passes
high frequency signals and blocks low frequency signals.
Many times in a circuit, both DC and AC signals need to be both be used in a circuit, at
least at a certain stage of the circuit. However, at another stage, in the circuit, we may only want
AC signals and the DC taken out. An example of such a circuit is a microphone circuit. We need
DC as input to the microphone for it to be able to be powered on and we need AC as input, which
represents the voice signal or music, etc. which we want the microphone to record.
How do we filter out the DC component of the signal?
We use a capacitor to filter out the DC signal.
We do this by placing the capacitor in series. In this configuration, which is the circuit
you see below, this is a capacitive high-pass filter. Low frequency, or DC, signals will be
blocked.
Usually, a 0.1F ceramic capacitor, or value around that range, is placed after the signal that
contains both DC and AC signals. And this capacitor filters out the DC component so that only
AC
goes
through.

Filter Capacitor Circuit To Filter Out AC Signals

In the same way that capacitors can act as high-pass filters, to pass high frequencies and
block DC, they can act as low-pass filters, to pass DC signals and block AC.
Instead of placing the capacitor in series with the component, the capacitor will be placed in
parallel.

The above is a high-frequency capacitive filter. Remember that current takes the path of least
resistance. Since a capacitor offers very low resistance to high frequency signals, high frequency
signals will go through the capacitor. In this way, with the circuit in this configuration, the circuit
is a high frequency filter. Low frequency current signals will not go through the capacitor,
because it offers too much resistance to low frequency signals. Only high frequency signals go
through.
Smoothing Filters
Most amps supply the output transformer primary directly from the reservoir capacitor.
However, the reservoir capacitor alone is not enough to provide the noise-free DC needed by the
screen grids and preamp stages, so further smoothing is necessary. This is achieved with a chain
of LC or RC (low-pass) filters, variously referred to as smoothing, bypass, or decoupling filters.
These alternative names derive from the fact that there are really three interrelated jobs to
perform:
1: Smooth/filter out residual ripple voltage;
2: Bypass/provide a local energy supply for sudden current demands;
3: Decouple/isolate each amplifier stage from the rest.
Each

RC

f=1/(2piRC)

smoothing

stage

is

low-pass

filter

with

cut-off

frequency

of:

Of course, the only frequency we really want to pass is 0Hz or DC, so we just make the
cut-off frequency as low as possible, often below 1HZ. You normally see smoothing capacitors
around 10uF to 100uF -whatever is readily available. For a given capacitance, a larger resistance
lowers the cut-off frequency and therefore improves the smoothing. However, there is also some
DC drop across the resistor due to the load current flowing in it, so there is a compromise
between smoothing and voltage drop. Preamp stages are usually cathode biased and very tolerant
of supply voltage, so it usually doesn't matter exactly what voltage you end up with after the
dropping resistor. Anything from 250V to 400V is OK. The resistor must be capable of
withstanding the full supply voltage and capacitor charging current at start up, which usually
means using 1W devices or better, even though the average power dissipation may be minimal.
By chaining filters together we get progressively better ripple reduction. Less sensitive
amplifier stages like the screen grids and phase inverter are fed from the earliest sections of the
filter while the more sensitive stages receive the quieter supply, but are also subject to the
greatest voltage drop. The input valve is always last in the chain.
Many Fender-derived amps use a choke-capacitor (LC) filter to supply the power valve
screen grids. An LC filter is a second-order filter, so it provides steeper attenuation of ripple than
an RC (first order) filter, and a choke has only a little DC resistance so it doesn't drop much DC
voltage. Fender was interested in maximizing voltage in order to maximize clean output power.
These days people like to overdrive their amps, so there is no need to squeeze out every last watt
of clean power, so many amps use RC filtering for the screen grids, which is much cheaper than
using a choke. The exact value of choke is not critical, but it must be remembered that an LC
filter
also
resonates
at
its
corner
frequency,
which
is
given
by:
f=1/(2pisqrt[LC])
If this is not well damped then it can cause the supply voltage to 'ring' when triggered by
certain notes or rhythms, so it is usually best to keep the resonant frequency below 10Hz, out of
the
audio
range.
This
will
require
a
capacitor
larger
than:
C=1/(L[2pif]^2)
Since smoothing capacitors are most readily available in the range of 10uF to 100uF, you usually
see chokes in the range of 20 to 2 henrys.
Bypass capacitor: A capacitor employed to conduct an alternating current around a
component or group of components. Often the AC is removed from an AC/DC mixture,
the DC being free to pass through the bypassed component.
In practice, most digital circuits such as microcontroller circuits are designed as direct current
(DC) circuits. It turns out that variations in the voltages of these circuits can cause problems. If

the voltages swing too much, the circuit may

operate incorrectly. For most practical
purposes, a voltage that fluctuates is
considered an AC component. The function
of the bypass capacitor is to dampen the AC,
or the noise. Another term used for the
bypass capacitor is a filter cap.
In the chart on the left, you can see what
happens to a noisy voltage when a by-pass
capacitor is installed. Notice that the
differences in voltage are pretty small (between 5
and 10 millivolts). This graph represents a small range of 4.95 volts to 5.05 volts. Random
electrical noise causes the voltage to fluctuate, as you can see in graph. This is often called 'noise'
or 'ripple'. The blue line, represents the voltage of a circuit that doesn't have a bypass. The pink
line is a circuit that has a bypass. Ripple voltages are present in almost any DC circuit. You can
see even with the bypass, the voltage does fluctuate, even though it is to a smaller degree. The
key function of the bypass capacitor is to reduce the amount of ripple in a circuit. Too much
ripple is bad, and can lead to failure of the circuit. Ripple is often random, but sometimes other
components in the circuit can cause this noise
to occur. For example, a relay or motor
switching can often times cause a sudden
fluctuation in the voltage. Much like disturbing
the water level in a pond. The more current the
other component uses, the bigger the ripple
effect.
III. Observation:

The output wave form of the capacitor

filtered power supply is a rippling, saw-tooth wave.
As the parallel capacitance is increased, the average voltmeter reading is also increased.
When a larger capacitor is connected, the voltage ripple of the output and the ripple factor
decrease.

IV. Conclusion:

When the capacitance of a capacitor filtered power supply is increased, the voltage ripple
lessens and the output wave flattens and becomes closer to pure DC.
The ripple factor is directly proportional to the ripple voltage and indirectly proportional
to capacitance.
The ripple factor of the half wave circuit is greater than that of a full wave circuit due to
the effect of their waveforms cycles on the charging and discharging of the capacitor.

V. References:
http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/jun97/basics.html
http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Filter-capacitor.php
http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/smoothing.html

Saint Louis University

Department of Electrical Engineering

Experiment No. 01
Capacitor Filtered Power Supply

Date Performed: August 20, 2016

ALVAREZ, Mark Ronil A.

Date Submitted: August 27, 2016

DE GUZMAN, Christian B.

Group No. 3a

MANILA, Mike Reynan N.

EE 515L 1:00-4:00 S H-302