Lecture 7

Rectifier voltammeter
• PMMC instrument is polarized
• With connecting to AC source (with frequency 0.1
Hz or lower) it will vibrate (deflection to maximum
at the peak then deflection toward zero.
• With high frequency the mechanism of PMMC will
prevent the pointer from following this changing.
• As the average value of sinusoidal is zero,
the instrument pointer will be at the average value
(zero) of current flowing in coil
 Full wave rectifier

• Using bridge (collection of diodes) to convert AC to current

pulses of one direction
• So there will be positive direction deflection with passing in
PMMC instruments
 D2

D4
D3

At +VE input pulses D1 & D4 are on so current

flows from top to bottom
(positive terminal to negative terminal )
•With –VE input pulses D2 & D3 are on so current
flows from top to bottom
(positive terminal to negative terminal )
So the resulting current is a series of positive half
cycles
• In case of voltmeter ,
series multiplier resistance Rs is connected to
protect coil

• The meter deflection is proportional to r.m.s

value
r.m.s= 0.707 of peak value.

• This case is only valid for pure sine wave

Average current = 0.637 × peak
rms value = 0.707 × peak
rms value = 1.11 × average
 Rectifier Ammeter
• Like DC ammeter, AC ammeter must be very small resistance
due to series connection in circuit
• Due to this low resistance so the voltage drop will be very small
<100 mV
• But in AC we use diodes for rectifications which need 0.6 to
1.4 volt
• So the rectifier instrument is not suitable to ac ammeter
• Instead we use current transformer
• It gives low terminal resistance and low voltage drop
• It step up the input voltage to be sufficient for rectifiers
diodes plus step dawn current to be suitable to PMMC
• Current transformation ratio will be
Ip/Is=Ns/Np
Rl to take a part of current not needed by meter
If
Ns=2000 Np=5 Irms (primary)=100 mA
So secondary rms current is

As meter needs
100uA so RL will
take 125.2µA
Average current =0.637 x peak
rms value =0.707 x peak
rms value =1.11 x average