Clipping and V supply and Voltage at collector of a transistor

[jellybones21]

Hi, I am new here and I need some help on a massive project that has a large bearing on our end of year results.
Its got to do with clipping of an output signal in a common emmitter BJT n-p-n Voltage Amplifier circuit.
It asks us to comment on the clipping and relate it to Vs and Vc. Where Vs is the supply voltage and Vc is the collector voltage.

It's just that the values we got are confusing. For the supply(Vs) we got 5.03 with a gain of approx. 50. There was clipping of the output on both positive and negative cycles. The collector voltage (Vc) was 2.429 and the clipping occurs around 0.85V and 3.9V. How do you get clipping at those values, with that supply, gain and input?

Am i missing something blatantly obvious here?
I really need someone to guide me through the calculations as all the theories I have searched on the internet failed to help me. There are 2 other similar questions but if someone answers this, I am pretty confident I can work the other two out.

You might need more info, please tell me.

Thanks!

 

[jbsteele]

Clipping of an output signal occurs when the input signal exceeds the supply voltage (Vs) or collector voltage (Vc). To understand why this is the case, you need to first understand how the circuit works. The common emitter BJT n-p-n Voltage Amplifier circuit amplifies an input signal by increasing the voltage across the collector-emitter terminals. This increase in voltage is known as gain, and is equal to the ratio of the collector voltage (Vc) to the base voltage (Vb).Now using your values, the gain of your circuit is given by Vc/Vb = 50. This means that for every volt of input signal, the output signal will be amplified by 50 volts. Since the supply voltage (Vs) is 5.03 volts, and the collector voltage (Vc) is 2.429 volts, the maximum voltage that the output can reach is 5.03 volts (Vs + Vc). This is because any voltage above 5.03 volts would exceed the supply voltage, and therefore be clipped. Similarly, any voltage below 2.429 volts would be outside the range of the collector voltage, and also be clipped.Therefore, the clipping voltages on your circuit will be 0.85 volts (2.429 - 1.579) and 3.9 volts (5.03 - 1.13).I hope this explanation helps you understand the concept of clipping better and enables you to work out the other similar questions.