The time constants for charging and discharging of the capacitor may be evaluated from the previous

simulation but an easier, alternative approach is to run transient simulations with only dc voltage
sources

and a specification of initial voltages for the capacitor.

The figure below shows a simulation for finding the charging time constant. As the limiting value of
vR2

for t → ∞ is VS R1/(R1 +R2), it is convenient to select VS = (1+R2/R1)/(1−e−1) = 3.955 V, implying

that a capacitor voltage of 1 V is reached for t = τ. Also, the initial value of the capacitor voltage must

be specified to 0 V. From the figure, we find τ = 48 ms.

For finding the time constant for discharging with the switch open, we disconnect VS and specify the

initial value of the capacitor voltage to be e = 2.718 V so that the capacitor voltage reaches a value of