Hyperspace2 said:
Thanks for the reply.
I didn't understand the logic of the transformer.)
ok... in any GOOD and safely built system, the transformer core (which is a huge lump of metal) would also be grounded. This us so that if the transformer develops an insulation fault, from the 120/240 etc mains voltage to the transformer core then that fault current will be taken to ground, causing the protection fuse to blow. (It should have fuse protection on the mains side ! :) ) Note the transformer isn't shown in your ccts but assume that that 12VAC is the output of the transformer secondary
I also have a few other question.
Logic 1
I was told that capacitor and resistor in parallel make RC filter network(low pass filter).
That would sense that the capacitor would behave high resistor for ac signal (because it has frequency) an it would allow only non ac signal.
well not in this case an RC filter would have one of the 2 components in parallel and the other in series
What that resistor is doing in this cct is proving a load across the DC output of the supply so that you can connect an oscilloscope across it and see the effect of the rectification and the capacitor smoothing.
If you have an oscilloscope... for an experiment... set the cct up as shown see the DC voltage with the small amount of ripple as in the pic you posted above.
Then disconnect one end of the capacitor and look at the difference on the scope.
you will see lots of 1/2 cycles see pic below
and that will answer you next Q about the charging and discharging of the capacitor to produce a smoother DC voltage
Logic 2
The other logic told to me was that at first cycle of rectifier , the capacitor would get charged and second half of cycle ,it begins discharging to keep constant level of dc.
but I could not find the relation of both of these logic anyway.
I also have a question, How we determine the value of capacitor that we need to maintain the dc level. (or we could keep any)
The value of capacitor ... many many moons ago when I was much younger ;)
I was taught that "as a rule of thumb" You should have 1000uF per each amp of DC current
so a 10 amp supply have at least 10,000uF 20 Amp ... 20,000uF etc
Now that holds reasonably true for linear PSU's (ones like your one above that drops mains voltage to something much lower)
I have noticed in switchmode PSU's that there is much less smoothing used on the DC side
basically because of the AC to DC conversion and smoothing already occurring on the primary side of the much smaller transformer. And although I'm not an expert, I'm guessing that the higher operating frequency of a switchmode PSU means that the ripple isn't so difficult to get rid of.
( I will wait to be corrected on that assumption ;) )
cheers
Dave