RC circuit, Transient response

The following constant voltage charging/discharging transitions can be recorded with the above schematic

• 0 - 5V step : the capacitor is first drained by setting OD1 to 0V , then OD1 is set to 5V and the charging curve is recorded
• 5V - 0V step : the capacitor is first charged by setting OD1 to 5V , then OD1 is set to 0V and the discharge curve is recorded

Charging characteristics with a constant current source

• The capacitor is connected between CCS and GND, and the charging curve is recorded via the internal current source voltage monitor.

• A voltage step is applied to a series RC circuit and the voltage across the capacitor is recorded.

Analysis

• Drag the blue region using its handles on either side, and click on the ‘Calculate RC’ button .
• The RC time constant of the last obtained data is calculated , and a new plot is overlaid on the original dataset

Photograph of the setup for constant voltage charging