Re: (ET) diode drop

["Herb Crary" <jhcrary earthlink net>]

I believe that nothing other than a peak-reading voltmeter will give you 
the
peak voltage at the dc output. You are probably reading the average 
voltage.
The average voltage, if I remember correctly, is about 63% of the peak for 
a
full-wave rectifier (a pair of diodes, or a bridge arrangement of four) or
half that (about 32%) of the peak voltage for a half-wave rectifier. My
memory is a bit hazy now; that number might be 71% (the rms voltage), or
half of this, but I think the 63% is correct or close for rectified ac.

Herb Crary
Boulder CO

----- Original Message -----
From: Tickners <tickners valinet com>
To: Elec-trak <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: (ET) diode drop


> on 1/6/03 1:45 PM, Neil Dennis at wombat RealNS com wrote:
>
> > Jeff, don't forget, you have AC on the transformer side, DC on the
> > Battery side so make sure your voltmeter is correctly set.  The DC is
> > also "pulse" so you need a peak reading voltmeter.
> >
> > wombat
> >
> >
> I'm using an analog multimeter, so I imagine I'm seeing the average,
rather
> then peak DC voltage.
>
>