Capacitor-input lter

The capacitor-input lter, also called the pi lter due

to its shape that looks like the Greek letter , is a type
of electronic lter. Filter circuits are used to remove unwanted or undesired frequencies from a signal.

reservoir and smoothing capacitors of 2200 microfarads

are used, a suitable minimum value for the inductor would
be that which resonates 2200 microfarads (F) to 10 Hz,
i.e. 115 mH. A larger value is preferable provided the
inductor can carry the required supply current.
In general, the relationship between the resonant frequency, which should be less than or equal to one tenth
of the minimum AC frequency, in this case 100 Hz, the
capacitance, and the inductance can be characterized by
the following resonance equation: f0 = 21LC .

A simple pi lter, containing a pair of capacitors, an inductor,

and a load.

2 Comparison with other lters

A typical capacitor input lter consists of a lter or reservoir capacitor C1, connected across the rectier output,
an inductor L, in series and another lter or smoothing
capacitor, C2, connected across the load, RL. A lter of
this sort is designed for use at a particular frequency, generally xed by the AC line frequency and rectier conguration. When used in this service, lter performance is
often characterized by its regulation and ripple.

Capacitor input lters can provide extremely pure DC

supplies, but have fallen out of favour because inductors
tend to be unavoidably heavy, which has led to the oftenpreferred choice of voltage regulators instead.
Advantages of pi lters:
More output voltage
Ripple-free output

Operation

Disadvantages of pi lters:

The capacitor-input lter operates in three steps:

Large size
Heavy

1. The capacitor C1 oers low reactance to the AC

component of the rectier output while it oers innite resistance to the DC component. As a result
the capacitor shunts an appreciable amount of the
AC component while the DC component continues
its journey to the inductor L.

High cost

3 References

2. The inductor L oers high reactance to the AC component but it oers almost zero resistance to the DC 4 See also
component. As a result the DC component ows
through the inductor while the AC component is
Electronic lter topology - contains a general denition of
blocked.
a pi section lter topology, of which this is an example.
3. The capacitor C2 shunts the AC component which
the inductor had failed to block. As a result only the
DC component appears across the load RL.
The component value for the inductor can be estimated as
an inductance that resonates the smoothing capacitor(s) at
or below one tenth of the minimum AC frequency in the
power supplied to the lter (100 Hz from a full-wave rectier in a region where the power supply is 50Hz). Thus if
1

5 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1

Text

Capacitor-input lter Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor-input_filter?oldid=700574696 Contributors: Charles Matthews,

Robbot, AJim, Icairns, Hooperbloob, DV8 2XL, Joriki, SeventyThree, Gaius Cornelius, Xapxivos, SmackBot, Rdarlington, Steve carlson, JL-Bot, Addbot, Redheylin, Matj Grabovsk, Gongshow, Gargan26, Materialscientist, Armstrong1113149, Erik9bot, EmausBot,
Historikeren, Cqdx, Singerng, Twall10107 and Anonymous: 14

5.2

Images

File:Capacitor_input_filter.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Capacitor_input_filter.svg License:

Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Gargan
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007

5.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0